GARDNER, Mass. — The wife of a man who has been missing for three weeks after escaping a Gardner hospital where he was being held for a mental health evaluation is organizing a search party Saturday.
Leonard Mercury, 57, broke a window at Heywood Hospital in the early hours of Oct. 31 and jumped from the roof into the bushes below before fleeing the property, according to an email from the hospital to Mercury’s wife, Nicole La Guerre.
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La Guerre told Boston 25 News she had called police to their Westminster home the night before after an argument with Mercury, who had been struggling with his mental health.
Police took Mercury to Heywood Hospital for a Section 12 mental health hold, La Guerre said.
When Mercury escaped, he was wearing hospital clothes and no shoes. He suffers from a medical condition and needs medication, La Guerre said.
La Guerre says police told her K-9s tracked her husband’s scent to a nearby lake, but searches of the water and neighboring areas have found no trace of him.
“It’s hard to watch people’s lives go by, people still living their lives, and you’re just kind of stuck,” La Guerre said. “I’m not doing great, because I don’t know where he is. It’s little things like: I’m warm. Is he warm? I’m going to have something to eat. Did he eat?”
La Guerre, who has been searching for her husband in wooded areas at all hours of the day and night, is clinging to hope that her husband is still alive and living off the grid.
La Guerre has hired a private investigator and is posting missing flyers in public places and online.
She has since received tips from three people who believe they saw a man matching Mercury’s description in three locations in Worcester. One person said he was asking for money and living in the woods.
While La Guerre wonders if those tipsters have mistaken Mercury for someone else, she is calling on the public to help her search the wooded area behind Stop and Shop on Grafton Street in Worcester.
“Your brain starts going, ‘What if it’s just one person that looks like him and everyone’s making the same mistake?’” La Guerre said. “In the way back of my mind, I’m like, ‘Oh, this could be good, but then you kind of don’t want to hold onto that, because what if you get excited and then it’s bad?”
La Guerre is asking those willing to help search Saturday to meet at 9 a.m., outside Stop and Shop on Grafton St., in Worcester.
“I’m really, really hoping [Saturday] is the day that I’m going to see him,” La Guerre said. “And then I can scream at him. And then I can be like, ‘We can get you some help.’”
Gardner police ask anyone who sees Mercury not to approach him but to call police immediately at 978-632-5600, or call 911.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.
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