Todd Walters is expected in the courtroom of Indiana County President Judge William Martin this morning for a hearing to determine his competency to stand trial for the beating death of his mother in February, 2015.
Attorney Gary Knaresboro filed the motion for continuance on June 18th. It is the second defense motion to determine if Walters if fit to stand trial in the death of 72-year-old Ruth Shirey at her home on Diamond Avenue in Indiana.
Walters has a history of severe schizophrenia and his father testified at a preliminary hearing that he had stopped taking his medications several months before Shirey’s death. After years of hearings and evaluations – and involuntary commitment and treatment at Torrance State Hospital – Walters last year was declared mentally fit to stand trial, but since then has had another mental health evaluation and a second criminal case has been filed against him for an unprovoked attack on a fellow patient at Torrance.
The hearing today was twice postponed last month.
