Have you seen this man? Mass. man missing since escaping from hospital
After a 57-year-old man escaped from Heywood Hospital on Halloween — a disappearance his loved ones say was caused by a lapse in care — a Westminster family is pleading for help in the search.
But as days have stretched into weeks without answers, the family has grown frustrated with law enforcement's progress.
They've begun to organize search parties, hired a private investigator with aid from a GoFundMe fundraiser and are calling on the public for information — hoping someone, somewhere, can help bring their husband and father home safely.
Leonard J. Mercury, 57, is a Black man, is 6 feet tall and weighs 195 pounds, according to the Gardner Police Department .
Mercury was last seen leaving Heywood Hospital in Gardner at 2 a.m. on Oct. 31, wearing hospital clothing and no shoes. He is in need of serious medical attention and may be disoriented, police said.
Anyone with information or who sees him is encouraged to contact the Gardner Police Department at 978-632-5600, Westminter police at 978-874-2117 or to call 911.
Mercury's wife, Nicole La Guerre, has also organized a search party in Worcester on Saturday, Nov. 22. The group is scheduled to meet at 9 a.m. at the Stop & Shop on Grafton Street — the location chosen after the family received a tip that someone believed to be Mercury was seen there last week.
"We don't know where he is or what condition he's in ... our family has been living in heartbreak and uncertainty," said La Guerre.
The married couple has been together since they were teenagers, live in Westminster and have two adult sons.
What happened?
La Guerre said her husband, who works as a lead drafter technician, is a man who "everyone likes," is "fun and adventurous" yet a "laid-back, go-with-the-flow person." He also has a diagnosed mental health condition, she said, which flared after a gathering the couple had Oct. 25.
After Mercury became even more "agitated" in the days following, La Guerre said she decided to seek emergency medical care for him Oct. 29.
But just two days after Mercury was admitted to Heywood Hospital in Gardner, he escaped. Officers arrived to tell La Guerre her husband was missing at 3 a.m. on Oct. 31.
The officers told her Mercury broke a window, ran to the roof of the hospital and jumped off, she said.
La Guerre places blame on the hospital for why her husband is missing.
Leonard John Mercury and Nicole La Guerre.(Courtesy Nicole La Guerre)
"The hospital was responsible to keep him safe and protect him. They did not do that," La Guerre told MassLive.
MassLive reached out to Heywood Hospital for comment on the incident, but did not immediately receive response Thursday.
"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?"
In the days Mercury was in Heywood Hospital's care, La Guerre said, she'd spoken with a nurse and a psychiatrist over the phone. The nurse told her there was a guard present and watching over her husband, she said, as he'd been admitted under an emergency mental health hold.
The search
La Guerre said the Gardner Police Department's efforts to look for her husband were initially intensive, with ground searches, K9 units and sonar sweeps, but have "tapered off" as the days have worn on.
The Gardner Police Department did not immediately respond to MassLive for comment on the case.
La Guerre has taken the search into her own hands.
She started a GoFundMe on Nov. 7, a week after Mercury's disappearance, with the goal to raise enough money to hire a private investigator to find her husband.
By the next day, La Guerre raised enough money to hire Dana Prestone of Rockwell Investigations for between 30 and 40 hours of work. On Nov. 9, Prestone started off by trying to trace where Mercury had disappeared into the woods.
That day, Prestone discovered what he believed were hospital socks "close to where the dog trail previously ended," La Guerre said. He continued his searches on Nov. 11 and met with Gardner Police on Nov. 12.
Two possibilities law enforcement has offered to La Guerre were either Mercury was in a nearby lake — which she said state police told her they'd search this past week — or that he may have "hitched a ride."
Leonard John Mercury, 57.(Courtesy of Nicole La Guerre)
La Guerre has continued to hand out flyers in cities and towns across the state over the weekend and into this week, visited shelters and kept posting online. She posts updates on the " FIND Leonard Mercury " Facebook page she'd made and to the GoFundMe.
Prestone went out for ground searches again on Monday and again on Wednesday based on a tip, La Guerre said. He plans to expand his search outside of Gardner.
But nearly a month in to Mercury's disappearance, La Guerre feels law enforcement are "not as urgent anymore" to find her husband.
She said state police was "in the process of going through the lake" and that they'd used helicopters, but that Prestone would be reviewing cameras in the area of a tip "since the police are dragging on it."
"I just want people to keep looking out for him," La Guerre said. "We have flyers. Post the flyers, put it on social media, reach out to the PI if you see anything."
She also encouraged volunteers to join the search on Saturday.
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