Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 12, 1993 TAG: 9305120286
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
After spending the past two weeks in jail, William A. Quick smiled and waved when he spotted the man who put him there. "Sorry to be back," the 78-year-old Quick told Judge Richard Pattisall good-naturedly.
Quick has been in court a lot in recent months, ever since he developed an obsession with a nurse at Lewis-Gale Hospital in Salem.
His fixation on Karen Ostrander - which seems to swing from fatherly concern to romantic attraction - has led authorities to charge Quick with stalking, trespassing and disorderly conduct.
Quick, who served as U.S. marshal in Roanoke during the 1970s, was committed to Catawba Hospital for psychiatric evaluation after Pattisall took the charges under advisement on Tuesday.
Because Quick wasn't tried on the stalking charge, details weren't released about why Ostrander felt she was in danger. A stalking charge is placed when a person behaves in a way that causes emotional distress or fear of death or personal harm to another person.
Several months ago, Quick began to call Ostrander at all hours. He wrote her rambling letters filled with religion and sex. He showed up unannounced at her doorstep and at the hospital where she worked.
Sometimes he expressed concerns about who he thought she was dating. When Ostrander finally had enough, she had him arrested.
"She broke my heart and my life with her actions," Quick wrote in a letter from jail.
At a hearing last month, Pattisall warned Quick to leave Ostrander alone. When he didn't, he was sent to jail for violating a court order. Since then, he has been asking to be let out.
"Please give me one more break and I'll rid myself of a person who I thought was a woman who needed another chance," he wrote in a letter to Pattisall.
"I am a good person and Karen completely faked me out," Quick wrote. "Her charges against me were not the true facts of the case, but I decided to take the fall rather than smear her. . . . Through all of this affair I have been trying to protect Karen Ostrander," he wrote.
After Quick was sent to jail last month, a psychiatric evaluation showed no signs of mental illness. But Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Joel Branscom said the evaluator did not ask specifically about Quick's obsession with Ostrander, and that he seemed normal in all other respects. A follow-up evaluation showed that Quick suffered a delusional fixation with the woman, Branscom said.
During a brief hearing Tuesday, Quick seemed disoriented and confused. "Is there any way possible I can get out and try to sell an apartment complex?" he asked the judge at one point.
After Pattisall explained again that Quick was going to a mental hospital, he looked over to the front row of the courtroom gallery, where Ostrander was seated. "Thank you, Karen," Quick said as sheriff's deputies led him back to jail.
by CNB