VAN BUREN - A Franklin County woman charged in the shooting death last year of a state Highway Department worker at an Interstate 40 rest stop does not suffer from a mental disease or defect, according to a mental-evaluation report filed in her case.
The report stated that Patricia McClure-Hajek, who is charged with first-degree murder, did not have a mental disease or defect when she was examined last month or May 1, when police say she shot and killed 55-year-old Sharren Richards at the rest stop just across the Oklahoma state line in Crawford County.
McClure-Hajek has been held in the Crawford County jail since her arrest in lieu of $500,000 bond. No trial date has been set.
According to police reports, McClure-Hajek, 59, was sitting in her pickup at the Fort Smith/Van Buren Welcome Center early May 1 when Richards, an Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department employee, approached the pickup to check on McClure-Hajek, witnesses told police at the time.
McClure-Hajek shot Richards in the neck with a .22-caliber pistol. It appears Richards was leaning down as if to look inside the pickup when she was shot. According to an autopsy report by the medical examiner’s office, the bullet traveled downward into Richards’ chest, severing an artery in Richards’ shoulder and collapsing her left lung before lodging against one of her back ribs.
The evaluation report by State Hospital psychologist Paul Deyoub was filed April 17 in Crawford County Circuit Court.
Deyoub wrote in his report dated April 4 that Mc-Clure-Hajek was able to appreciate the criminality of her actions and could have conformed her conduct to the requirements of the law. He also wrote that she was able to help her attorney with the preparation of her defense.
Deyoub’s report stated that McClure-Hajek toldhim during his examination she has never suffered from or been treated for mental problems.
His report also referred to a mental evaluation by Dr. Patricia Walz of Consulting Psychology of Western Arkansas who was retained by the Arkansas Public Defender Commission to evaluate McClure-Hajek.
Her report was not in the McClure-Hajek’s criminal file at the courthouse but Deyoub summarized Walz’s report and stated it concluded McClure-Hajek could not assist her attorney, public defender Ryan Norris, in the preparation of her case because of paranoid thinking.
Contacted Tuesday, Norris said he could not comment on his client’s case.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 04/24/2013