A Louisiana man who confessed to decapitating his 7-year-old disabled son and leaving his head by the roadside for his mother to see is unfit for trial. Hit the jump to read the rest of the story.
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Jeremiah Lee Wright can’t understand the first-degree murder rap he is facing in the shocking killing of Jori Lirette in August, which made national headlines, The Associated Press reported.
“The judge announced my client lacks the mental capacity to proceed and stand trial,” Wright’s defense lawyer, Kerry Cuccia, told CNN.
“This means he has to appropriately understand the nature of the proceedings before him and be able to assist his lawyer with his own defense.”
State Judge John LeBlanc issued the ruling after reviewing reports from two psychiatrists who evaluated the 30-year-old killer, who hails from the town of Thibodaux.
The reports were sealed. Neither the defense nor the prosecution submitted evidence to the court or asked to question the shrinks.
The boy’s head was found by a motorist along a roadside. Parts of his body were found in a bag nearby, local media reported at the time.
After Wright was collared, he told cops he killed Jori because he was tired of taking care of the boy, who suffered from cerebral palsy and required a wheelchair and feeding tube, authorities told The Daily Comet newspaper.
A top police official said then that Wright placed the boy’s head along the road to taunt his mother, who was out getting her pickup truck fixed at the time of the killing.
The mother, Jesslyn Lirette, 27, wept and sniffled when the ruling was announced Tuesday, but remained quiet.
Wright, who had been facing a death sentence, will be shipped off to a state mental hospital for treatment.
