A Montour County Court judge declared a Florida woman incompetent to stand trial in the murder of an 83-year-old Cooper Township man and ordered her to undergo up to 60 days of involuntary mental health treatment in order to gain competency.
Kathleen Susan Reed, 37, is accused in the July 21 death of Walter John Ditzler.
During the competency hearing, via video feed from the Columbia County Prison, Reed talked non-stop, asking Judge Gary Norton if he was following military procedure and refusing to sit down or answer questions. Norton and her public defender, Michael Dennehy, continued with the proceeding and ignored Reed's rambling as she asked the judge for his military ID and continued speaking erractically about military procedure.
After Norton declared Reed incompetent, Reed said she declared the judge incompetent.
Dennehy and the judge spoke briefly in court before hooking up to the video feed in anticipation of Reed's erratic behavior, which Dennehy said he experienced when he visited Reed to consult with her on her case. The attorney's petition for incompetency states that Dr. Richard E. Fishbein, a psychiatrist at Nesbitt Hospital, in Kingston, Luzerne County, examined Reed and supported the incompetency status.
Reed will undergo treatment at Torrance State Hospital in Torrance, Westmoreland County.
Montour County District Attorney Angela Mattis said afterward that even if Reed is deemed mentally competent, "It becomes a capacity issue, whether she had the capacity (the day of the alleged crime), the ability to appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct."
During her preliminary arraignment on July 22 before District Judge Marvin Shrawder, Reed listened as Shrawder read the homicide and theft charges against her. Sitting at the defense table in Shrawder’s courtroom, she was wrapped in a bright yellow tarp and wearing socks and sandles for the arraignment after state police brought her from Centre County. Mattis said she suspected Reed had the tarp around her because police confiscated her bloodied clothes.
Reed calmly answered questions about her background and told Shrawder she had no criminal history.
When the judge asked if she was addicted to anything, she replied, “Only to Jesus.”
But as Shrawder told her she was going to Columbia County Prison, without bail, because the Montour County Jail doesn’t house female inmates, Reed asked him, “Is that legal? How can you say I illegally killed somebody when it was in self-defense?”
Reed earlier told troopers she left Florida on July 19 after a disagreement with her mother and that she stopped at gas stations and asked for money because she was headed to Canada, state police said. Reed told troopers she was driving through Pennsylvania with her dog and stopped in front of Ditzler’s house because it looked like a good place to stop and stretch, troopers said.
Reed said she approached the home at about 2 p.m. and made contact with Ditzler and asked for gas money. Ditzler told her he didn’t have a gas can, court documents said.
Ditzler let the woman use the bathroom and when she came out he told her she needed to leave the home and a struggle began, troopers said Reed told them.
Reed told troopers she grabbed a knife and stabbed the man in the shoulder and when the knife broke, she grabbed a second knife and cut his throat, troopers said. Reed said she panicked and tried to drag Ditzler across the floor.
Reed said after the man was dead she took the second knife, washed it off, and placed it in the dishwasher, according to police.
Reed found the keys to Ditzler’s vehicle and she fled. When state police from Rockview matched the address to Ditzler’s Chevrolet Sonic, they contacted state police at Milton, who went to Ditzler’s home, where they found his body.
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