UPDATE: The hearing has been continued. No word yet on when the new hearing will take place.
WHAT WAS PREVIOUSLY REPORTED
For more than a year, and for most of the last three years, 39-year-old Todd Walters has been held at Torrance State Hospital, undergoing treatment for mental illness. Today, he will be brought to the Indiana County Courthouse for a mental health hearing before President Judge William Martin.
Walters is charged with criminal homicide and aggravated assault in the beating death of his mother, 72-year-old Ruth Shirey, at her home on Diamond Avenue in Indiana in February of 2015. Testimony at his preliminary hearing established that he had severe mental illness, and had stopped taking his medications at the time of his mother’s death.
After months of treatment, Walters was declared fit for trial in 2016, but in January of last year, Judge Martin ordered a halt to all court proceedings and remanded him back to Torrance. In September, he scheduled the hearing that is to take place today, with a specific interest in whether or not Walters believes his mother is deceased and whether or not he is competent to stand trial. Last week, the judge denied a motion to delay the hearing.
Walters will be returned to Torrance after this morning’s hearing.
