The recent discovery of 10-year-old court records in New Mexico prompted a last-minute delay Wednesday of a murder suspect's sanity hearing.
The court records could help lawyers for a homeless man accused of killing a pregnant Little Rock woman and her unborn child prove that he's not fit for trial.
Pulaski County Circuit Judge Leon Johnson pushed back the hearing for Mark Pierre Bonner until June but told both prosecution and defense he could tolerate no more delays, since Bonner, 35, has been in custody for almost five years.
The Louisiana native was arrested in July 2012, two days after 25-year-old Alexis Esaw Khabeer was found dead in a Hutsell Road home owned by her grandmother.
Bonner is charged with two counts of first-degree murder, and most of the court time since his arrest has been devoted to determining whether he's fit to stand trial.
It's up to the judge to decide whether Bonner is competent. State doctors previously determined he was fit to proceed, only to have to re-examine their conclusions because of his behavior in jail. Court records show that has included an assault on a jailer, vandalizing a fire sprinkler and other disruptions.
Bonner went through five mental evaluations before state doctors concluded in the sixth review in January that his mental illness does not prevent him from assisting his lawyers and did not affect him at the time of the slaying.
Bonner's schizophrenia did not prevent him from being able to tell the difference between right and wrong, the doctors have concluded.
Wednesday's hearing was for the defense to dispute those findings, but defense attorney Cheryl Barnard said she just found out about court records in Albuquerque.
They show that Bonner was indicted there in June 2006 on an aggravated burglary charge. But that case was dismissed 13 months later in August 2007 after a finding that he was not competent to stand trial. Details of the allegations in New Mexico were not available on Wednesday.
Barnard told the judge that she's working on obtaining those records and hopes to have them in hand soon.
The judge declined the opportunity to take testimony Wednesday, then hear more at a second hearing. Johnson said he wanted to resolve the question of Bonner's competency as soon as possible but also in a single hearing.
"I want a full hearing. We can do it all day," he said. "I want it resolved."
Khabeer, who had a history of mental illness and homelessness, had been living in the Hutsell Road house, although it had no electricity. Before that, family members said, she lived on the streets for a while.
She had left her husband a couple of months earlier. About five months before she was killed, Khabeer was placed on probation for breaking into the home and stealing cigarettes and a lighter, court filings show.
Her body was found by a friend who went to check on her because she had not been responding to text messages. Khabeer was 13 weeks pregnant, and had been strangled and beaten. Authorities have not said who the child's father was.
Police began looking for Bonner after neighbors, friends and members of Khabeer's family reported that a man, known as Mark to some and Black Jesus to others, had been seen at the house with her.
Detectives found him, wearing bloodstained clothing, behind a Taco Bell on Geyer Springs Road, according to reports.
Bonner was arrested after officers said he admitted to killing Khabeer because she'd asked him to leave, according to reports. But in records since then, he has denied killing Khabeer or even knowing her.
He told doctors that he said what he thought police wanted to hear after his arrest because they'd told him he would get the death penalty if he did not cooperate, according to reports.
Metro on 04/06/2017