Indiana County President Judge William Martin has granted a defense request to postpone today’s scheduled competency hearing for Todd Walters, the Indiana man charged in the beating death of his mother in February of 2015.
Attorney Gary Knaresboro filed the motion for continuance on Monday.
72-year-old Ruth Shirey was severely beaten at her home on Diamond Avenue in Indiana in February of 2015 and died soon afterward at the Indiana Regional Medical Center. Walters was arrested while driving his mother’s car in Altoona later that day.
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.
Judge Martin has rescheduled the competency hearing for August 26th.
