Man missing since escape from Gardner hospital found dead in lake
A 57-year-old Westminster man missing since his escape from Heywood Hospital in Gardner on Halloween 2025 has been found dead, according to the Worcester County District Attorney's Office.
Leonard Mercury went missing on Oct. 31, 2025, after he was admitted to Heywood Hospital under a psychiatric hold, according to his wife, Nicole La Guerre.
Mercury's body was found in Crystal Lake on Wednesday by a Gardner Police Department drone team, which spotted him floating in the water. He was then recovered by the Massachusetts State Police Dive Team. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner will determine his cause and manner of death.
The incident is still under investigation by Massachusetts State Police Detectives assigned to the Worcester County District Attorney's Office, State Police Crime Scene Services, and the Gardner and Westminster Police Departments.
An update to the " FIND Leonard Mercury " Facebook page, run by La Guerre, at 8:05 a.m. on Thursday read, "Thanks to everyone who helped share information in the search for Leonard. Leonard has been found. He did not survive." She asked for no comments or messages.
A similar update was posted to the family's GoFundMe , which thanked the community for its donations and said, "We are heartbroken to share that he did not survive."
In multiple interviews with MassLive this fall and winter, La Guerre said she had called 911 on Oct. 29, 2025, for help after her husband began to experience a mental health episode for a diagnosed condition he has, she said, which flared after a gathering the couple had on Oct. 25.
Leonard John Mercury and Nicole La Guerre.(Courtesy Nicole La Guerre)
However, La Guerre said she believed the department "definitely misunderstood why I was calling" and that officers treated the incident more as a criminal situation — resulting in three assault charges brought against Mercury, according to court records.
"They took him to the station instead of the hospital," La Guerre told MassLive in November 2025, recounting how she had to call the police station and ask if Mercury had been mentally evaluated. She also demanded several times that he be seen at Emerson Hospital, his usual place of treatment.
After numerous conversations with officers throughout the evening, La Guerre was finally told Mercury was under a psychiatric hold at a hospital by 9 a.m. on Oct. 30 — but he was at Heywood Hospital in Gardner, not Emerson.
This was "an issue," she said, because doctors in Gardner weren't immediately attuned to his medical history. La Guerre spent "all day" on the phone with a Heywood psychiatrist to discuss his past, his medications and said at the end of the calls, she "thought everything was good."
During that time, Mercury was also arraigned for his charges of assault and battery against a household or family member and two charges of assault with a dangerous weapon. He was ordered released on personal recognizance.
But at 7:15 p.m. on Oct. 30, La Guerre received a call from a Heywood nurse who said Mercury was becoming agitated.
The nurse confirmed with La Guerre there was a guard at his door, as is usual for a psychiatric hold, and La Guerre told the nurse to "make sure that his guard is not in his view, because that's going to agitate him further."
"She said, 'It's fine,' and I said, 'Just be careful ... he gets very paranoid, make sure it's not there ... make sure he doesn't feel unsafe,'" La Guerre recalled in November.
Leonard John Mercury, 57.(Courtesy of Nicole La Guerre)
The nurse replied, "'Everything is fine. He's been good. He's been coming in and out asking for water. He seems to be getting agitated, but decided he seems fine,'" La Guerre recalled. La Guerre asked if she could bring some personal items from home to the hospital, but the nurse said staff would provide for Mercury. Eventually, La Guerre decided to go to bed.
But suddenly, she was awoken by bright lights outside her window. It was around 3 a.m. on Oct. 31, 2025, and loud banging started at her door.
"The police said, 'We were trying to call you, because he escaped the hospital,'" La Guerre had recalled.
"I'm like, 'What do you mean he escaped? What does that mean?'" The officer told La Guerre that Mercury broke a window, ran to the roof of the hospital and jumped off, she said.
This past fall, La Guerre had blamed the hospital for why her husband was missing.
"The hospital was responsible to keep him safe and protect him. They did not do that," La Guerre had said in November.
"Where was the guard?" she asked. "How was he able to break a window and climb up the window ... run across the roof, jump down?"
"Why wasn't he chased on foot?"
Heywood Hospital declined to comment to MassLive on Mercury's case on Thursday. The Gardner Police Department referred questions to the district attorney's office, which did not directly respond to MassLive for comment.
More News
Read the original article on MassLive . Add MassLive as a Preferred Source by clicking here .
