SALEM (AP) - Accused killer Ward Weaver makes his home in a decaying, 121-year-old brick building in Salem, behind locked gates and barred windows.

Weaver was deemed unfit to stand trial in March on charges that he murdered two Oregon City girls in 2002.

His transfer to Ward 48C of the Oregon State Hospital triggered concerns that Weaver was faking symptoms of mental illness to evade prosecution.

Weaver will remain in the Forensic Psychiatric Program until doctors say he is mentally competent to "aid and assist" in his own legal defense.

Hospital officials won't comment on Weaver's condition or treatment, citing patient confidentiality.

Most of the 455 forensics patients committed crimes but were judged insane - sending them to the psychiatric hospital instead of prison.

A smaller group - including Weaver and Edward Morris, a Portland man accused of killing his pregnant wife and three children in 2002 - were committed after they were judged incompetent to stand trial.

By state law, those patients must receive psychiatric treatment until they are deemed capable of answering to criminal charges.

The forensics program has 51 more patients than its budgeted capacity of 404.

Hospital officials and patients say crowding creates stressful living conditions and hampers treatment.

"Living in a crowded environment, whether it be an army barracks or a university dormitory, is not a pleasant situation," said Dr. Marvin Fickle, the Oregon State Hospital superintendent and a former chief psychiatrist in the state prison system.

Morris was punched in the face May 5, by another patient who had heard details of his criminal charges, state police said.

Weaver got into a scuffle a week ago after a patient, Todd Van Dorn, took a swing at him. That fight was broken up by staff.

"I get this creepy feeling when (Weaver's) around. He was sending bad vibes off," said Van Dorn, 31, whose criminal history includes charges of burglary, auto theft, and assault on a police officer.

Advocates for the mentally ill say the forensics buildings housing patients are crumbling with age.

One wing of the J Building, featured in the 1975 movie "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," houses the two maximum-security forensics wards. Other parts of the building have been abandoned,

"To my mind, it would be better to raze that whole 2600 Center Street (structure) and get a new Oregon forensics center," said Mary Claire Buckley, executive director of the Psychiatric Security Review Board. "I think that would be ideal."

Plans call for a new forensics ward to open in the J Building by Sept. 1.

"It'll be filled the day it opens, and we'll still be over our census - fortunately, not so severely as now," Fickle said.

It costs an average of $8,870 per month to supervise, feed, medicate and treat a forensics patient at the state hospital, he said.

Patient advocates call for smaller, community-based facilities, which they say are cheaper and more humane.

However, Fickle said, there are few adequate options. And neighborhood fears have made it difficult to find places for forensics patients to live outside the state hospital.

Within weeks, 35 forensic patients are due to be conditionally released and placed in supervised cottages on the hospital grounds, or new facilities outside Salem.

Oregon's system of managing defendants judged guilty but insane could hamper efforts to ease overcrowding at the state hospital.

From 1997 through 2002, the Psychiatric Security Review Board averaged 71 new cases per year. In 2003, the number of new cases shot up to 110.

Research indicates that 22 percent of Oregon prison inmates have a mental illness.

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Information from: Statesman Journal