A Penacook man charged with attempting to murder his twin sister by dousing her with gasoline and lighting her ablaze has been deemed mentally competent to stand trial.
Dwayne Crawford, 38, faces charges of attempted murder, arson, first-degree assault, reckless conduct and criminal mischief in connection with the December 2016 incident in the Concord village. His sister, Tamika, was severely burned in the fire at 66 Woodbine Ave., and received treatment at a Boston hospital for her injuries.
After a year of uncertainty, the criminal case against Crawford, a patient at New Hampshire Hospital, will proceed in Merrimack County Superior Court.
Deputy County Attorney George Waldron said Tuesday the next step is likely a criminal responsibility evaluation, also known as an insanity evaluation, to determine Crawfordโs mental state at the time of the alleged offense. Insanity evaluations are requested when there are concerns a defendantโs behavior may have been the result of a mental illness.
โHe will stay at the state hospital for now. If for some reason they release him, weโll be asking for cash bail,โ Waldron said.
Crawford has undergone multiple mental health evaluations since his arrest on Dec. 15, 2016.
Concord District Court Judge Kristin Spath ordered in February 2017 that Crawford was mentally incompetent to stand trial in the attempted murder case. While attorneys had reached an agreement on competency at that time, they continued to say that Crawford is โpotentially restorable,โ leaving open the question of his status in the future.
Crawford was later involuntarily committed to the stateโs psychiatric hospital in Concord, where he continues to receive treatment for psychotic disorders.
That treatment has greatly benefited Crawford, who has made noticeable improvements under the hospitalโs care, State Forensic Examiner Jennifer Mayer Cox testified during an April 25 competency hearing. Cox first concluded in the weeks after Crawfordโs arrest that he was mentally incompetent to stand trial, but said at the recent hearing that she now believes he is fit to stand trial as long as certain support services โย including daily medications โ are available to him.
Cox reviewed more than 1,000 pages of Crawfordโs mental health records and met with him on two occasions this past winter before submitting her latest opinion to the court. She said that during Crawfordโs stay at New Hampshire Hospital he has been a โmodel patientโ who is psychiatrically stable, who works with his treatment team to make decisions about his medication, who advocates for himself and who interacts appropriately with other patients in high-stress situations.
Physicians have described Crawford as alert, focused, organized, cooperative, friendly and respectful. And although he still suffers from many symptoms of psychosis, medication and therapy have alleviated some of those daily concerns, she summarized from the records.
Crawfordโs competency hearingย was previously scheduled for January but postponed after the defense requested a second expert opinion. Dennis Becotte, a licensed psychologist in private practice, told the court he believes it would be โnear impossibleโ for Crawford to stand trial.
He saidย Crawfordโs designation at the state hospital as โstableโ is โwholly irrelevantโ to the question of mental competency. He said that while medication will mask Crawfordโs symptoms, his psychosis is progressive and therefore only worsens with time.
Judge John Kissinger sided with prosecutorsย in an order handed down April 30. Kissinger agreed that psychiatric treatment had restored Crawfordโs competency, allowing him to understand the legal proceedings at hand.
Crawford was formerly declared unfit to stand trial in a different case in 2015. He was charged in December 2014 with simple assault and resisting arrest at his apartment at the time on Pitman Street in Concord, when police said he struggled with and attempted to fight officers responding to his home.
(Alyssa Dandreaย can be reached at 369-3319, adandrea@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @_ADandrea.)