Men charged for DeJarnette trespass

Six 20-year-old men, armed with flashlights and driver’s licenses from faraway states and poking around the old DeJarnette Center, caught the attention of police Thursday night.

A Staunton officer on patrol noticed the men, and the darting beams of their flashlights, when he pulled forward to investigate at the defunct center off Route 250, said Staunton police Capt. Leslie Miller.

Police could not say why the men gathered at the DeJarnette Center but said they suspect they might be college students.

Authorities filed trespassing charges against Jack Pandol, of Bakersfield, Calif.; Miles Martin, of San Raphael, Calif.; Paul Kang, of Woodbridge, Conn.; Benjamin Mowczan, of South Burlington, Vt.; Colin Hayes, of Boca Raton, Fla.; and John Coyle, Jr., of Kilmarnock, east of Richmond.

The sanitarium opened in 1932, after Joseph S. DeJarnette convinced the Virginia General Assembly to construct a semi-private sanitarium for middle-class patients with mental afflictions. The building housed drug addicts, alcoholics and the mentally distressed.

The facility had golf and tennis courts and 171 beds.

A new psychiatric hospital was constructed in 1972 on the Western State Hospital campus across U.S. 250 from the DeJarnette Center. The sanitarium closed its doors in 1996 and is used today only as amusement for those interested in adventure and challenging the posted “no trespassing” signs.

Work crews recently boarded the original center to combat trespassing, city officials said.