HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Hawaii News Now has learned of another mental patient death tied to a mainland facility contracted by the state health department.
Curtis Panoke was sent to the Columbia Regional Care Center from the state hospital in 2010 after multiple assaults. In 2016, other patients there beat him into a coma and he died last year.
His family is suing the facility and the state.
Hawaii News Now learned of Panoke’s death while investigating the suicide of a Kauai man named Payton Hough at that same facility.
Kauai man’s troubled path
Hough was born and raised on Kauai, but his life ended in an institution thousands of miles away. His story reveals weaknesses in how the state handles people with mental illness.
Growing up in Hanalei, “we spent so much time on the beach, always fishing, going down to the beach, camping, crabbing,” said Tanisha Baker, Hough’s sister.
“He was just so caring and compassionate and very warm,” Baker said.
Hough, who they called Makana, was a skateboarder and skilled with electronics at school.
“He came in there when the rest of the techs couldn’t get the computers up online. He went in there and troubleshooted and got it up online,” said Payton Hough Sr.
Traumatic incident triggers decline
Hough’s family believes his descent into mental illness began with an incident in Kilauea.
Michael Ebinger, who went to prison for killing a man on the same property in 1983, confronted Hough and a friend with a gun and machete.
Ebinger committed suicide the day the boys were to testify.
“When that happened, there was a change. There was a definite change in the way that he was processing things, the way that he was communicating,” his father said.
By his 20s, Hough was severely mentally ill, often homeless and on drugs. In 2013, he was arrested on a burglary charge, then acquitted and committed to the state hospital in Kaneohe.
The family maintained ties.
“We would send him letters and cards and books and a Bible and pictures of us, just to remind him that we love him, we miss him,” Baker said.
Brief improvement, then setback
As doctors adjusted his medications, Hough improved and eventually was released to a bed at Kahi Mohala and allowed to begin living in the community.
“It was like night and day. It was like, wow, son, you’re doing so good, and he would feel good, and he would be very energetic and want to do things,” his father said.
But on Halloween 2019, during a visit to the probation office at Circuit Court in Honolulu, he was accused of assaulting a sheriff.
Documents say he was taken back to the hospital, but within days he was in Oahu Community Correctional Center’s mental health module, sharing a cell with 56-year-old Jacob Russell, who he considered a friend.
Later, he told his family he couldn’t handle the close quarters.
“‘Dad, I needed space.’ He was constantly pleading for help and wanting to be heard, and they would not listen to his concerns,” his father said.
Hough lashed out against Russell in a beating court records say included multiple stomps to Russell’s head and neck area. Russell died on Christmas.
Hough was acquitted again because of mental illness, but would never leave custody again. His connection to his family deteriorated so much they called police to check on him in the hospital.
Family cut off from contact
“After I did that, things changed. Things changed. That’s when things… They shut us down completely,” his father said.
Sometime in 2024, the family learned that Hough was no longer in Hawaii. He had been transferred to the 347-bed Columbia Regional Care Center in South Carolina, a converted jail.
It happened without notice to his attorney and without any record in the courts.
The Hawaii Health Department has contracted the facility to take in the most violent of its mental patients.
Other than a brief Zoom call around Christmas, the family was denied access to Hough.
“We were fighting for him,” said his mother, Zina Hough.
“It was like they were trying to erase his voice,” said Hough Sr.
Pastor denied access
Kauai pastor Gregory Poole offered to help. He is from South Carolina and had prison ministry experience.
“I’d always had good success to basically be able to go visit as a pastor and check on that particular individual,” Poole said.
His calls were ignored. He showed up at the facility in September and was denied access to Hough, but his doctor told him things were going well and he was doing well.
“So I actually left the facility that day being very encouraged,” Poole said.
But two days before Thanksgiving, the Columbia County coroner called the family to say Hough had committed suicide.
“We were devastated. Our whole world fell apart. Our worst nightmare, the thing we’ve been trying to prevent from happening happened,” Baker said.
“While on watch, on suicide watch, he was supposed to be watched every 30 minutes, and he wasn’t,” his father said.
“It could have been different. If we could just tell him, ‘Hey, we’re thinking about you. We’re praying for you. We’re gonna come visit,’” Baker said.
“It’s tragic. There’s just no other way to say it,” Poole said.
State offers limited support
Adding to the family’s trauma, the state only offered one plane ticket for someone to collect Hough’s ashes.
They put up a GoFundMe so the family could go.
“How is one person going to go over there and pick up the remains of our son when we’re such a tight-knit family? How could the grieving process be laid on just one when it’s all, we’re all family? We’re ohana,” his father said through tears.
The state health department said it cannot discuss any individual patient, even if deceased, but said, “If the patient consents to allow family member(s) involvement in their care…. the department encourages family support and involvement in their loved ones’ care.”
The department says it currently has seven patients in South Carolina, but did not say how many have been sent over the years.
“Our plan is to bring him back back here to Hanalei Bay, where he’s been trying to get back to for years, and we’re going to do a celebration of life and scatter his ashes in Hanalei Bay,” Baker said.
While Hough may finally rest, the family won’t. The Columbia Regional Care Center did not respond to questions.
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