2 hospital inmates left to own devices, meet their demise

Within the written Public Laws of Rhode Island, in its “Act for the Restraint and Care of the Insane,” those residents hospitalized with mental illness are referred to as “lunatics” and “mad persons.” Restrained at institutions allegedly for their own safety as well as that of others, some inmates were allowed to simply depart for days or weeks at a time at their leisure.

Inmates of the Rhode Island State Hospital for Mental Diseases in Cranston were allowed to temporarily leave the hospital grounds for visits to area attractions, day trips or extended stays at the homes of family members. These excursions were permitted by way of a parole card issued by hospital authorities.

Twenty-three-year-old Lester Howard Matteson, the son of William and Elizabeth (Vaughn) Matteson and a former Navy sailor, was admitted to the State Hospital for Mental Diseases in Feb. of 1932. William Matteson was a fireman who lived with his wife and five children at 1411 Main St. in West Warwick – a home which Lester frequently left the hospital to go and enjoy long stays during the seven months he spent as an inmate at the insane hospital.

Nineteen-year-old Roy Soucie, son of Edmund and Annie (Pelletier) Soucie and a former odd jobber, had been admitted to the hospital from his home at 2 Pontiac Ave. in Natick in 1930. He also returned home often to spend significant periods of time away from the hospital. On the afternoon of Sept. 5, 1932, Soucie and Matteson were given permission to leave the hospital grounds together in order to visit Roger Williams Park in Providence. The men left on their adventure – and never returned to the facility.

The following day at about 5 p.m., 17-year-old Mary Lombardi, daughter of Vincenzo and Felicia Lombardi of Wakefield Avenue in Natick, took her two little brothers and a young male neighbor, Benjamin Straight, to a swimming hole in the woods along Palmer’s Brook near the Cranston-West Warwick line. There, Mary sighted a man lying on the bank of the river as if sleeping, and another floating lifelessly in about 4 feet of water. Mary left the location and police were notified.

Matteson had his head rested upon two rolled up sweaters. Soucie’s body was removed from the brook. Both men were fully dressed except for their sweaters, which cradled Matteson’s head. Inside their pockets, police found the parole cards for Roger Williams Park, which was situated about eight miles away. The medical examiner determined that Soucie had drowned and that Matteson had pulled himself out of the water and up the hill where he expired from exhaustion.

Soucie was laid to rest in Saint Joseph’s Cemetery in West Warwick. Matteson was buried in Saint Mary Cemetery in West Warwick. It couldn’t be determined what made the two men wander into the brook fully clothed although they may have done so in the dark by accident. It was estimated that their lives had expired either early that morning or the previous evening. They may have been attempting to make their way through the darkness back to the State Hospital for Mental Diseases, where someone had made a fatal error in allowing them to leave the grounds unsupervised. 

Kelly Sullivan is a Rhode Island columnist, lecturer and author.