A Sedalia man charged with killing a fellow patient at a Columbia veterans' hospital will receive a court-ordered psychiatric exam after an earlier plea of not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect.
The Columbia Missourian reports that Boone County prosecutors and the lawyer for 33-year-old Rudy Perez Jr. agreed on the medical evaluation at a Monday hearing.
A 33-year-old Sedalia man charged with killing a fellow VA hospital patient in Columbia is due back in court. Rudy Perez Jr. is charged with first-degree murder in the Feb. 1 death of 78-year-old Robert Hill of Warsaw at Truman Memorial Veterans' Hospital. He has pleaded not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. His attorney, David Tyson Smith, says Perez is schizophrenic.
78-year-old Robert Hill of Warsaw was the man killed by another patient at Truman Veterans Hospital on Friday, Columbia police spokesperson Sgt. Joe Bernhard said in a release.
Bernhard said Hill was involved in an assault at about 6:30 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 1. He died from the injuries he sustained in the assault. The release said no weapons were involved in the assault, but didn't go into further detail.
Columbia Police say they are investigating a homicide at the Harry S. Truman Memorial Veterans' Hospital in Columbia that happened on Friday. In a press release, police say the suspect and victim were both patients at the VA Hospital, and that the suspect is currently in custody. Police aren’t releasing any other information right now.