By Steve Pepple
The Ann Arbor News
Copyright 2007 Michigan Live LLC.
PITTSFIELD TOWNSHIP, Mich. — The crew from Huron Valley Ambulance heard about the escape on local radio station WAAM while transporting the two men to St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Superior Township. The HVA paramedics alerted police, and officers from the state police and Pittsfield Township were waiting for the ambulance when it arrived at the hospital emergency room about 8 a.m. Monday. State police from the Ypsilanti post said the two men climbed over a fence at the Center for Forensic Psychiatric on Bemis Road, south of Ann Arbor, around 8:30 p.m. Sunday.
The escapees were identified as Sovird Allen Wardlow, 36, of the Grand Rapids area, and Dale Andrew Studaker, 20, of St. Clair County. Wardlow is charged with armed robbery, and Studaker is facing domestic assault charges, state police said.
Wardlow, who also goes by the names Savoy and Sandy, is on parole for two prior armed robbery convictions, according to state Department of Corrections records. He also has a conviction for larceny in a building.
The state-of-the-art, 210-bed psychiatric facility opened in 2005. It provides diagnostic services to the criminal justice system and psychiatric treatment for criminal defendants found incompetent to stand trial or acquitted by reason of insanity.