Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, July 15, 1993 TAG: 9308120008
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Laurence Hammack Staff Writer Note: below
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
At an arraignment Wednesday, Jerry Alex Jones, 30, told a judge he didn't want to be `harrassed' with additional psychological testing.
Although Jones spent five years in a mental hospital after he was acquitted by reason of insanity in a 1983 shooting, he said in court that he is now competent to stand trial, said Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Joel Branscom.
After a breif hearing in Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court, Judge Joseph Clark ordered Jones held without bond to face two sets of malicious wounding charges.
Jones - who in 1983 was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic - has been charged three times in the past 10 years with shooting, slashing or punching people who crossed his path by chance, authorities said.
The most recent charges allege that Jones cut the neck of 8-year-old Russell Woodring with a knife Tuesday at the Crossroads Mall Kmart.
Woodring's mother, Kathleen, 37, also was cut on the chin during the attack. Both she and her son were treated at Community Hospital of Roanoke Valley and released the same day.
At the time of the attack, Jones was on bond awaiting trial for allegedly punching 16-year-old Doris Short last December as she waited for a school bus near his Loundon Avenue home.
A psychiaatric evaluation requested in that case found Jones competent to stand trial, but noted `behavior that would strongly suggest a schizophrenic disorder.'
That was Jones' diagnosis in 1983, when he was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the shooting of Ronald Brewer. After hearing voices and hallucinating that someone was trying to kill him, Jones shot Brewer twice in the back and twice in the ankle, according to court records.
Jones spent the next five years in mental hospitals, longer than he likely would have stayed in prison had he been convicted and given the maximum punishment, Commonwealth's Attorney Donald Caldwell said.
Almost as soon as he was sent to Central State Hospital in Petersburg, Jones started asking to be set free.
Psychiatrists at first opposed his release, citing his continued paranoia and other actions such as a lawsuit Jones filed accusing doctors of poisoning him.
But in 1988, doctors wrote tha Jones was `not currently insane and may be released without danger to the public saftey or himself, provided that his discharge plans are followed.
As conditions of his release, Jones was ordered to take medication and maintain regular visits with mental health officials.
But he apparently was not taking medication at the time of the December charges when his lawyer requested additional psychiatric testing, citing his rambling evasiveness and hallucinations.
Shortly before he was release from custody in 1988, Jones wrote a letter that he never meant to hurt anyone.
by CNB