Madonna's Stalker Escapes From Mental Unit

Police have launched a manhunt after a stalker who threatened Madonna in the 90s walked unnoticed from a mental health facility in California.

Robert Dewey Hoskins, 54, was jailed for 10 years in 1996 after being arrested for scaling a wall around the singer's Hollywood home and threatening to slit her throat.

Madonna testified at his trial, saying she had had nightmares about the homeless man from Oregon after spotting him near her house in 1995.

Her bodyguard told her Hoskins had claimed he was her husband and that "if he couldn't have me, he was going to slice my throat from ear to ear", the court heard.

He later jumped over the wall and leapt into the singer's pool before eventually being shot twice by a security guard.

Hoskins was sent to a mental hospital in California when he was released and was eventually set free.

But he was arrested again in July last year and admitted to a different health facility in the Los Angeles-area community of Norwalk.

He walked out of the hospital undetected last Friday and has not been seen since. Police say he is highly psychotic with violent tendencies when not taking medication.