_{SPOKANE, Wash. — A psychotic killer who escaped for three days from Eastern State Hospital this month is having financial troubles.}

KREM-TV of Spokane reported Saturday that Phillip A. Paul filed for chapter seven bankruptcy protection in July. He owes more than $85,000 to various credit card companies.

Paul escaped from Eastern State Hospital earlier this month during a field trip to the Spokane County International Fair, but was taken back into custody Sept. 20.

Paul previously had twice been granted conditional release from Eastern State to a residential facility in downtown Spokane, and that's when he apparently ran up the credit card debt. He also fathered a child during one of the releases.

Banks told the station they couldn't discuss why credit cards were issued to Paul, and the bankrupcty filing doesn't say what he spent the money on.

Diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, he was committed for the 1987 strangling and slashing of 78-year-old Ruth Mottley in Sunnyside. Paul, 25 at the time, snapped Mottley's neck and slashed her throat twice. He then doused her body with gasoline and buried her in her own flower garden. Paul told authorities that voices in his head told him Mottley was a witch who was casting spells on him.