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NAPA – A mental hospital patient is accused of beating and strangling a fellow patient during a late-night argument over tobacco, police said. 

Napa State Hospital officials discovered John Reed, 48, of Yuba City, early Tuesday in a pool of blood only after the man accused of killing him led officials to the room. 

Orrin Anthony Patrick, 45, was arrested on suspicion of murder after Reed was found with severe head wounds, said Napa sheriff’s Capt. Mike Loughran. A preliminary autopsy later revealed Reed died of strangulation. 

“We’re trying to find out what exactly occurred,” Rincon said. “At this point we don’t have those answers.” 

Patients are not allowed to possess matches or lighters, but they are permitted to have tobacco. They are given smoke breaks during designated times when staff members light cigarettes, said hospital spokeswoman Lupe Rincon. 

Reed and Patrick were in a ward for criminal defendants found not guilty by reason of insanity or deemed incompetent to stand trial. 

The locked ward houses 43 patients who live in rooms with up to three roommates. Patrick and Reed did not share a room, but they were alone together unsupervised late Monday night. 

A nursing staff is on duty 24 hours a day, and they are required to conduct bed checks every 30 minutes, Rincon said. 

“We’re investigating to see if those checks occurred or not,” she said. 

Patrick, who takes medication for schizophrenia, has been a patient at the hospital for five years. Earlier this year, a San Francisco judge found him unfit to be released back into society. 

Patrick was found guilty in 1979 of beating and stomping an 85-year-old man to death in a hotel hallway, leaving his shoe prints on the man’s face.