TAVARES — Is Vickie Williams mentally competent to stand trial in the slaying of an elderly couple in their Waterman Village home?
That is the decision Circuit Judge Cary Rada must make following Thursday’s testimony of jailers and counselors who spoke about bizarre, “gross” behavior and witnessed for themselves her urinating on a chair in the courtroom.
The 41-year-old is facing the possibility of a death sentence in the murder of Sharon and Darryl Getman on Dec. 31, 2022, in a case that stunned family and Lake County residents.
The crime was “especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel,” Fifth Circuit State Attorney Bill Gladson stated in his call for the death penalty. Darryl Getman, 83, had been stabbed in the abdomen with a large butcher knife inside his Mounta Dora home. Sharon Getman’s body was nearby. She had suffered head trauma and a wound to her abdomen. Bloody bare footprints were tracked through the house and towels had been used to either render aid or attempt to clean up. She was arrested in the couple’s stolen car in Savannah, Georgia.
Thursday’s hearing began with Williams looking over at Assistant Public Defender Morris Carranza and saying, “He’s not my lawyer.”
Rada cautioned her not to be disruptive or she would be removed from the courtroom. She still occasionally muttered, pulled at her hair, and at one point put her head on the table.
She has refused to cooperate with every mental health expert, including Dr. Bhushan S. Agharkar, who said she hid under a pile of blankets in her cell.
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He said Williams told him that her family had acquired a lawyer to work for free on her case, then said she would represent herself. She has told counselors at times that she knows she is charged in a double homicide but does not face any penalty “because I didn’t kill anyone.”
She told one counselor the difference between a public defender and assistant state attorney is that you have to pay a prosecutor. She said she does not know the role of a judge, “since I don’t have a judge’s license.”
This would be very surprising, if true, since she has been involved in the justice system for a long time.
Others testified that she “hoarded” urine, dipped her hands in the toilet and sprinkled it around like holy water in an “exorcism” or as if it had “magical powers.”
She also hid feces in her mattress and threw it on corrections officers.
“The odor was very strong,” Agharkar said.
She has also shredded her orange prisoner jumpsuits.
Key to the hearing was whether she was faking mental illness, or “malingering,” as it is called in psychological terms.
Howard Lawrence, the jail’s mental health manager, said no.
“A malingerer is going to ask for something,” he said. That person might ask for access to records, for example. “I’ve never had her ask me for anything.” The one exception is when she asked for a towel to remove urine from her face.
She refuses to bathe or lather up with soap if forced to take a shower, he said.
It is also not unusual for a prisoner to claim he or she is hearing voices, for example, thinking it will help their case, or think that a mental hospital might be preferable to prison. They might even smear feces or engage in some other extreme behavior but give up after a short time, Lawrence said.
Williams’ behavior is so foul that it would be hard to pull off long term, he said.
Also, pretending to talk in a disorganized fashion takes a lot of energy, he said.
Corrections staffers did say she acted more “normal” when she was housed in the medical unit for a time.
Lawrence said he believed that she showed signs of “classic schizophrenia,” but could not be sure since he has not been allowed to administer any anti-psychotic medicine.
He recommended that she be taken to a state mental hospital for treatment, then be forced under a court order to take medicine. If not, she will “decompensate” when she refuses to take the medicine, he said.
Dr. Jeffrey Danziger agreed. The Maitland psychiatrist said he has done thousands of competency evaluations and testified in 50 death-penalty cases.
Like the others, she refused to cooperate and veered off in the conversation to suddenly begin talking about Frank Sinatra.
She said she wanted to represent herself in court, “because I’m smart enough to do so.”
He said because she was uncooperative, his best guess is that “she is more likely than not” schizophrenic.
She is not capable of aiding her attorneys in her case, he said, and that she is a danger to herself.
Assistant State Attorneys Nick Camuccio and Tom Wiezorek called three corrections deputies to the stand.
One testified that she saw Williams crying one day and asked if she was OK.
“She said she knew what she did was wrong and that she missed her family.”
Sometimes Williams became agitated and referred to herself as ‘Miss Coffee.” It is one of Williams’ known aliases.
She said she sometimes sees Williams dancing instead of pacing as if she was dancing with a partner.
Another deputy said she seemed to be interested in voodoo and spoke in strange languages. Lawrence said she frequently threatened to sic ghosts on him.
The state’s mental health expert, Jason Demery, Ph.D., disagreed with the idea that she is incompetent.
He described her behavior as acting and manipulative.
He referred to her urinating in her chair as an example. Someone had just commented that she had not been that disruptive in court. She was removed from the courtroom after the incident.
As for her refusal to cooperate, it is a way to keep people at arm’s length. She may in fact be mentally ill, he said.
“The presence of malingering does not rule out mental illness,” he said. “Mental illness does not equal incompetency.”
Rada did not immediately rule on whether she should be sent to a mental hospital before she can go to trial.
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