"Something is very wrong" -- that's the reaction from mental health experts following a KIRO Team 7 Investigation into suicides at Western State Hospital.

Our continuing investigation also sparks new federal and state probes.

Team 7 Investigators revealed how state employees likely altered official state documents, which helped make it look like they adequately monitored a suicidal patient.

In reality, Anthony Gordon had plenty of time to hang himself with a sheet by propping up his bed. That bed was supposed to be bolted to the floor.

Investigative reporter Chris Halsne reviewed 29 cases over the past nine years where a patient of Western State either killed or seriously injured themselves while locked up inside. Two trends emerged: A lack of supervision and the ease at which mentally ill patients could get their hands on dangerous objects.

Given the fragile mental state of the clientele inside the wards, it's hard to imagine why patients still have access to potentially deadly objects like scissors, razors, shoelaces, long bed sheets and belts. Western State internal reports list all of those items as causing serious self-injury or death here.

We started digging into why patients die while confined at Western State following the January 2008 death of Anthony Gordon. He hanged himself with a sheet tied to his bed after being institutionalized for just one day.

He wasn't the first. We found at least three other patients who used sheets or belts to kill themselves this decade, five more gave it a real try.

Marshall “Scott” Kemnow was one of those troubled young men who succeeded.

His mother, Karen Smith, knew virtually nothing about last moments of her son's life until Team 7 Investigators reviewed the June of 2003 hanging.

“It rips your heart out and you don't know how to get it back”, Smith told Halsne during an on-camera interview last week.

These police reports show, on the day he died, Kemnow spent hours in an isolation cell for allegedly misbehaving. When staff let him back into a secured, semi-private room, nobody watched over him. Kemnow had time to tie two sheets together and hang himself with the bathroom door handle as leverage.

Smith says “If they would have done their job - would have put him on that suicide watch and watched him, I think, to me, it's assisted murder. They let him do this.”

Death records show other patients hooked homemade nooses to doorknobs or handles both before and after Kenmow's death. Emails we obtained show Western State has talked about installing "anti-suicide handles," but so far has not.

Craig Awmiller is an investigator with Disability Rights Washington

“The ability to get attention, I find very dispiriting,” Awmiller told Halsne.

DRW has a federal mandate to investigate patient conditions at Western State. Because of our work, Awmiller says that office has opened a formal probe.

“If someone is actively suicidal and not being observed? Why would you have access to the means to kill yourself? I don't understand it,” Awmiller said.

Awmiller is especially disturbed by the videotape we acquired from a Western State hall monitor. It shows a dozen staff members wandering around, some laughing and flirting. Nobody bothered to conduct a series of mandatory 15 minute suicide checks, while a young man hanged dead in a nearby room earlier this year.

“Great efforts should be made to keep that from happening. (pause) This is a terrible outcome. It shouldn't happen,” Awmiller said.

In fact, in six suicides and some 23 other attempted suicides, KIRO Team 7 Investigators found orders to supervise the patient were not properly followed.

In Anthony Gordon's case, this post-death memo says it all.

It reads: "Patient should have been on monitoring - Do not assign Psy staff if on vacation"

Karen Smith says she is sickened that little has changed at Western in the five years since her son committed suicide.

“He wasn't watched. They didn't care,” Smith said.

Western State Mental Hospital has around 2,000 staff members, 1,000 patients, and a $170 million tax-funded budget.

Halsne asked Western to provide someone to speak on camera about our suicide findings. After some debate, the Attorney General's office put a quash on it saying it might interfere with its defense of potential lawsuits.