A caseworker at the North Baltimore Center last saw George T. Dyson on a Thursday morning in May. Dyson, a diabetic and convicted robber with a history of mental illness, took his medications there, and a nurse checked his blood sugar and blood pressure every day.
When he didn't show up at the mental health treatment facility the next day, caseworkers tried to locate him at home and then twice at his job at Wendy's. On Sunday, they reported him missing to the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the agency responsible for him.
It was too late for Karen Harris.
Dyson pleaded guilty yesterday in Baltimore Circuit Court to attempted first-degree murder for stabbing Harris, 57, as she carried her groceries in the 100 block of E. 26th St. in Charles Village. The attacked occurred May 27, the Sunday the caseworker reported Dyson missing.
Judge Robert B. Kershaw sentenced Dyson, 48, to 50 years in prison, suspending all but 18 years, for attempted first-degree murder and a concurrent 15 years for armed robbery. Harris, who suffered a collapsed lung in the attack, was in the courtroom but chose not to speak.
Assistant State's Attorney Nancy Olin said Dyson taped two steak knives together, stabbed Harris multiple times and stole her purse to get money for crack cocaine. Two witnesses chased and caught Dyson and held him on the ground until police arrived.
Dyson's attorney, assistant public defender Nicholas Panteleakis, accused the courts and the state yesterday of losing track of Dyson after he was found guilty but not criminally responsible for robbing a Payless shoe store while armed with a box cutter in 2003.
Dyson was committed to a state psychiatric institution, the Walter P. Carter Center, in 2003, said Larry Fitch, director of forensic services for the Mental Hygiene Administration, a division of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. One doctor described him as "dangerous to others."
The following year, based upon a recommendation from mental health experts, Circuit Judge Lynn K. Stewart signed an order for his release, provided that he abide by a long list of conditions.
Dyson was supposed to live in supervised housing, take his medications, receive mental health services, attend Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings and submit to periodic blood and drug testing for at least five years, according to Fitch.
