In an attempt to expand beyond the institution (and get around a legal loophole), Sonoma admitted patients solely for the purpose to be sterilized and then released.

[7] In the 1990s, after a teenage boy was found injured and lying in a pool of blood in a shower, a class-action lawsuit resulted in a settlement that stepped up the exodus of residents from developmental centers.

The state Department of Health Services has issued at least 15 citations, carrying penalties totaling $142,800.This includes an incident where a female staff member sexually fondled a male patient, and two instances in which staffers hit residents.

[9] Because of the state citations, as well as extensive inspection reports, the federal Health Care Financing Agency refused to recertify the center and moved to cut the flow of $3 million in monthly Medicaid dollars.

In August 2001, a new bill required development centers to immediately report all resident "deaths and serious injuries of unknown origin" to their local law enforcement agency.

Chief deputy coroner Will Wallman said toxicology results indicated that Turley died from an overdose of phenobarbital, a barbiturate that is commonly used as a sedative and to control seizures.

Administered twice a day (as in Turley's case), it should balance out to about 35 milligrams per liter... Natural, homicide, accident, suicide - we don't have enough to pin it on any of those four, so it's 'could not be determined.

"[10]In September 2012, the director of Sonoma received an anonymous voicemail saying that a staff member was attacking patients with a stun gun.

Archie Millora, who had worked as a psychiatric technical assistant for 14 years, was apprehended the next day with a Taser and a loaded gun in his car.

[11] A subsequent independent probe by the California Department of Public Health reveals that nurses examined and photographed patients in his care.

Court records show in April, Millora pleaded no contest to misdemeanor possession of a loaded firearm.

[13] In 2012, the California Department for Public Health announced they were moving to revoke the license of the Sonoma Developmental Center's Intermediate Care Facility that services 290 residents with intellectual disabilities, and decertifying it from participation in the federal Medicaid program.

In October 2005, a staff member found a 25-year-old resident vomiting blood in his bed at the Sonoma Developmental Center.

The autopsy read,"The decedent's conditions of quadriplegia with body and limb deformity related to cerebral palsy render him, in my opinion, very unlikely to have introduced the swabs himself.

[16] In 2015, Rex Bradford Salyer, 63, a former Sonoma Developmental Center psychiatric technician, pleaded no contest Thursday to sexually abusing a disabled female resident over a yearlong period.

He was found guilty of having sexual intercourse with someone incapable of giving legal consent, two counts of oral copulation and abusing a dependent adult.

[19] The October 2017, the Nuns Fire had a dramatic impact on SDC, necessitating a mandatory evacuation of hundreds of residents and staff, and burning the eastern third of the property along California State Route 12.

In May 2017, the State hired Wallace Roberts & Todd (WRT) to provide architectural and engineering services to prepare "a comprehensive existing conditions study and an opportunities and constraints summary and analysis for SDC."

In order to ensure that the site assessment was based on the best available data—and that the analysis is designed to answer the most pressing concerns of the local community—WRT created an SDC Community Advisory Committee (CAC).

Ten days later, the fires raged through the North Bay, and WRT's goal of producing its reports and holding a series of community meetings by the end of 2017 was lost in the tumult of wildlife disaster response.

[21] The State Archive in Sacramento has extensive holdings on the early history of the Home, including patient registers, photographs, maps, and records.