AUGUSTA — A judge has found Leroy Smith III incompetent to face trial on a charge of murdering his father, while a state psychologist says the man suffers from a mental illness and “does not think anything is wrong.”
The written order followed a competency hearing that ended abruptly Monday after Smith, 25, of Gardiner, stood in the courtroom and told the judge his attorneys failed to properly represent him and that a gun was held to his head in 2011 in an incident somehow involving the heavy metal band Slayer.
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“I have something I want to say,” said Smith, continuing to speak even after the judge warned against it and told him that if he did not stop, he would have him removed from the courtroom. Justice Donald Marden said he would accept anything in writing from Smith through his attorneys.
“With my case, they’re telling me that my story is delusional grandiose of proceedings that happened,” Smith said. “They’re not investigating it, that it happened.”
He said that at some point in 2011, “I had a gun held against my head and was sworn to keep secret about what I am. They refused investigating any persons responsible. The whole entire group Slayer was there. I was told then that what they did was too overboard. I sent them a message on Facebook and Jeff Hanneman guitarist took his own life. He took his own life May 5.” (Information on the band’s official website says Hanneman died May 2, 2013, of alcohol-related cirrhosis.)
The judge told the long-haired, bearded Smith to sit down or be removed. Smith responded, “Then I have no fair trial.”
Smith had tried to fire his lawyers at a previous hearing in July when he also was found incompetent to stand trial.
Police say Smith stabbed his father to death on May 3, 2014, in the apartment they shared, dismembered the body and distributed body parts in a rural area of Richmond. At a hearing five days later, the younger Smith claimed to be a political prisoner.
Ann LeBlanc, director of the State Forensic Service, who evaluated Smith for the court, testified Monday the younger Smith consistently demonstrated “acute delusional thinking” since May and was unable to cooperate with his defense attorneys even in a rudimentary way.
“He had delusions that he thought he was God, grandiose delusions he was the best guitarist in the world,” LeBlanc said, adding that he also had delusions that people associated with heavy metal or thrash metal bands were out to kill him.
Five uniformed deputies and a court marshal were in the large courtroom at Kennebec County Superior Court while Smith was there, and 10 members of the media watched the hearing as well as several investigators and two women who were accompanied by the victim’s advocate from the Office of the Attorney General.
Marden noted that Smith was indicted May 16, 2014, but had yet to be arraigned in connection with the murder charge.
LeBlanc testified that Smith does not have skills associated with legal competence in the state of Maine and that restoration to competence is dependent on Smith’s willingness to take antipsychotic medication, which he had previously been unwilling to do.
“He does not think anything is wrong,” LeBlanc said. She said he has a very serious psychosis related to a schizophrenic disorder.
On Monday, Pam Ames, one of his defense attorneys, said Smith was taking some prescribed antipsychotic medication while in the Kennebec County jail, which appeared to come as a surprise to others in the courtroom.
The judge’s finding of incompetence says Smith is to be committed to the custody of the state’s commissioner of the Department of Health & Human Services for care and treatment. Smith is expected to be held at Riverview Psychiatric Center in Augusta, where he has been held at various times since his arrest in May. Periodic reports on Smith’s condition are to be sent to the court.
LeBlanc testified that Smith refused to release his out-of-state records of previous psychiatric hospitalizations.
She also said Smith suffered a head injury in a motor vehicle accident in 1989 and had been treated for psychiatric reasons as well.
Smith was arrested in Westbrook two days after the slaying of Leroy Smith Jr., 56. After the younger Smith was taken to Cumberland County Jail, Smith allegedly told officers he had killed his father and “filleted him and buried him in the woods because his dad sexually assaulted him his whole life,” according to an affidavit by Maine State Police Detective Jonah O’Roak.
Smith has also referred to himself as God in discussions with police, and said he was affiliated with Hells Angels, according to the affidavit.
Police found the father’s mutilated remains in trash bags that Smith told them he dumped in Richmond. Investigators also searched the woods for explosives that the younger Smith claimed to have planted in the area, but no devices were found.
Betty Adams — 621-5631
Twitter: @betadams
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