09:10 AM EDT on Tuesday, April 19, 2005

BY CATHLEEN F. CROWLEY
Journal Staff Writer

Esteban Carpio was spiraling down toward a mental collapse in the weeks before he was accused in Sunday's deadly shooting of a police officer, according to his girlfriend.

Journal photo / Gretchen Ertl

Yvonne Carpio screams and cries as court sheriffs lead her son, Esteban, into the courtroom yesterday. She and other relatives were taken from the courtroom.

Samein Phin said she and Carpio's family tried three times over the past three months to get him admitted into a hospital for mental treatment. All their attempts failed; Carpio refused help.

Less than 12 hours before Detective James L. Allen was shot and killed as he interviewed Carpio, Phin said she had called a Providence mental health agency seeking help for Carpio. She was told to bring him in on Monday, she said.

Phin met Carpio at a Providence nightclub five years ago. Phin said Carpio had been a barber, but was not working. Phin, who is 22, would not say what she did for a living. They lived together in Providence and have a 3-year-old daughter.

Court records show that Carpio, 26, was arrested three times on charges of assaulting Phin. The domestic assault charges were dismissed because Phin never appeared in court, according to the records.

ON SATURDAY evening, detectives arrived at the apartment that Phin and Carpio shared at 70 Nashua St. in Providence. Phin said she answered the door and stepped outside to speak with police. Carpio was inside.

When the police told her they wanted to talk to Carpio about the stabbing of an 84-year-old Providence woman, Phin said she began to cry.

Just a mile away, Madeline Gatta, 84, had been stabbed outside her home earlier that day in what police called an attempted purse-snatching. A neighbor who witnessed the assault called the police to report that the assailant drove away in a red Dodge Caravan. The witness gave the police the license plate number. Police traced the van to Carpio and Phin, who had rented it for a trip to Atlantic City a few days earlier.

Phin let the police search the van and impound it.

She said she warned the police about Carpio's fragile mental state. "I told them this guy is having a problem," she said.

Phin said she coaxed Carpio out of the house.

"I said, 'Come out of the house. These are detectives and they want to talk to you about something that happened,' " she said. "I said, 'Just relax baby, just relax. I'll be by your side.' "

Phin said the police handcuffed Carpio's hands behind his back and she put a coat over his shoulders. Officers drove him to the police station in a cruiser and Phin said she followed in a detective's cruiser about a half-hour later.

Detective Allen introduced himself and shook her hand, Phin said.

Again, Phin said she repeated her warnings.

"He's been having problems. He's been having a nervous breakdown," she said.

Phin said she sat at a detective's desk while investigators questioned Carpio down the hall.

Then she heard the gunshots. She called Carpio's mother on her cell phone and screamed for her to come to the station. A detective grabbed the phone away, she said.

The police say Carpio wrestled Detective Allen's gun away from him, shot the detective and fired the gun at a window. Carpio jumped out the window, surviving the 30-foot drop, and ran away as chaos enveloped the police station. The police arrested him a short time later after a chase and struggle on Washington Street.

The police would not comment yesterday about the conversations between Phin and the detectives.

CARPIO GREW UP in Roslindale, Mass., where his mother still lives. In early April, Carpio's mother had called 911 because her son was hearing voices and seeing things, Phin said.

"He thought someone was after him," she said. "He felt like something was grabbing his soul. He felt like someone was doing voodoo on him."

He was taken from his mother's house by ambulance to Faulkner Hospital in Boston, but he refused treatment, Phin said.

A few days later, Phin brought him to Rhode Island Hospital. She lied to get him to go with her. She said she needed to go to the hospital. Carpio "freaked out" once he realized the truth.

She said he was agitated and muttering into his hand, over and over: "I'm God. I'm the finest gold."

The emergency room doctors ran several tests, Phin said, and then he was taken by ambulance to the Providence Center, an outpatient community mental health center.

Carpio walked away from the center, but Phin found him and took him back. A counselor spoke with him for about an hour, she said, and gave him a follow-up appointment, but he never went.

Officials from both Rhode Island Hospital and the Providence Center said patient information is confidential and they would not confirm whether Carpio was treated at their facilities.

Phin said Carpio hasn't been the same since he was in a car accident about two years ago. The car Carpio was in was broadsided and he suffered head injuries. He was in a coma for a day, she said, and he has a scar over his eye and under his nose.

His mental state worsened in the past two months, she said. Phin, who is Cambodian, took him to the Khmer Buddist temple on Hanover Street and a monk blessed him, she said.

On Saturday morning, Phin said she called the Providence Center's hot line. Carpio hadn't slept in three or four days, she said. He was convinced someone was trying to break in and had turned on every light in the house. She said the center told her to bring him in on Monday.

"What can I do?" Phin said yesterday. "I tried to find him help. It's too late now."