The 2019 Săpoca Psychiatric Hospital Attack

The attack

Nicolae Lungu was a voluntary patient at Săpoca Psychiatric Hospital in Buzău County. In the early hours of August 18, 2019, prosecutors said he used a metal infusion stand to attack patients in his ward and nearby rooms.

Initial reports counted four deaths, then five and six as critically injured patients died. Later prosecutorial reporting established a final toll of seven people killed and six surviving injured patients. Three victims died at the scene, while four others died later from their injuries.

Immediate investigation

Police detained Lungu in the hospital grounds after he left the building. The Buzău prosecutor's office opened an investigation for aggravated murder and later extended the inquiry to attempted aggravated murder. Authorities also opened a separate in-rem investigation into possible negligence and manslaughter connected with hospital staff conduct.

From the beginning, a central legal question was whether Lungu had criminal discernment when the attack occurred. He was placed under medical supervision and subjected to psychiatric evaluation rather than treated as a defendant whose criminal responsibility had already been established.

Psychiatric findings

Multiple psychiatric assessments were carried out during the investigation. By 2020, the Buzău prosecutor's office was publicly stating that the expert findings concluded Lungu had acted without discernment. Later reporting said he underwent four evaluations and was diagnosed with temporal epilepsy with complex seizures as well as alcohol dependence in a protected environment.

Those findings were legally decisive. Romanian criminal law does not impose ordinary criminal liability on a person found to have lacked the capacity required for criminal responsibility at the time of the act. The consequence in this case was a medical-security measure rather than a prison sentence for murder.

2021 legal disposition

In the autumn of 2021, prosecutors closed the criminal case involving the aggravated-murder, attempted-murder and property-damage allegations against Lungu because the forensic findings established that he lacked discernment when the acts were committed. The chief prosecutor in Buzău later said the closure had been confirmed by the Buzău Tribunal.

Authorities sought continued compulsory psychiatric hospitalization because medical evaluators considered him a continuing social danger. Subsequent reporting described periodic judicial and medical review of the confinement. This means the underlying acts and the identified attacker are not unresolved, but the outcome is a non-criminal-responsibility disposition, not a homicide conviction.

Timeline

Current classification

Crime by Region places the Săpoca attack under Solved / Adjudicated because the person who carried out the attack was identified and the legal system reached a documented disposition. The label does not mean Nicolae Lungu was convicted of murder. The criminal proceedings were closed because authorities found he lacked the necessary discernment, and the response became compulsory medical confinement subject to periodic review.

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