By Christine Steele
Las Cruces Sun-News
SILVER CITY, N.M. — Accused killer Allen Hurley will have a competency hearing after the state’s independent forensic examiner’s report contradicted the defense’s report that Hurley is not competent to stand trial.
The state requested a competency hearing on Monday, after the independent clinical psychologist it hired to evaluate Hurley disagreed with the defense’s psychological evaluation that Hurley may be incompetent to stand trial for the 2008 murder of Rachel Torrisi Sierra.
Hurley did not appear at the status conference in Silver City District Court on Monday. Both the victim’s mother, Janine Tyler, and brother, Jonathan Torrisi did appear at the brief status conference. Both have followed the case closely since Sierra was killed.
Deputy District Attorney George Zsoka, who is prosecuting the case for the state, told District Court Judge J.C. Robinson that Dr. Ned Seigel, whom the state had hired to conduct an independent forensic evaluation of Hurley had completed his report and that his findings contradicted the defense expert’s findings.
We received Dr. Seigal’s report and it potentially contradicts Dr. Westfried s report, Zsoka said. We request that the matter be set for a competency hearing.
Zsoka said it could take several months for the court to get the hearing on all of the interested parties calendar - which includes defense attorney Gary Mitchell, the defense s expert, the state s expert, and Zsoka.
Once the hearing has been set - likely in the next several months, it will take place in the Grant County District Court. While the hearing won t be open to the public, the results of the hearing will be made public, and what those results are will determine the next step in the case.
If Hurley is found competent to stand trial at the competency hearing, the case will be set for trial. If he is found not competent, the state will seek to have him treated for competency and he will likely be sent to the New Mexico Behavioral Health Institute in Las Vegas, N.M., and treated until he is deemed competent to face the charge against him.
Hurley has been held at the Grant County Detention Center on $100,000 cash-only bond since his May 2011 arrest, two and half years after the murder of Sierra, who was found shot in the head alongside of Highway 78 near Mule Creek in December 2008.
Hurley and his wife Bernadette, and their infant child, were all living with Sierra in her mobile home in Silver City, when Sierra disappeared Dec. 6, 2008. Her body was found two days later, on the side of Highway 78 near Mule Creek. Hurley is alleged to have lured her out there and killed her, before he and his wife packed up their belongings and moved to Las Cruces.
Both Allen and Bernadette Hurley were considered early suspects in Sierra s disappearance and murder and were questioned early on by the Grant County Sheriff s Office but Sierra s slaying remained unsolved for two years - until the New Mexico State Police got involved in the investigation in February 2011 and, using Bernadette Hurley s cellphone records to track the Hurleys location during phone calls they made to Sierra s phone the night of her disappearance and determined that the Hurleys could not have been in Las Cruces at the time of Sierra s murder, as they said they were.
Cellphone towers showed that the couple were traveling toward Silver City from Las Cruces, and made several calls to Sierra s phone the night she disappeared. Shortly after that, Allen Hurley was picked up and questioned and charged with Sierra’s murder.
In July 2011, Bernadette Hurley was arrested and charged in Las Cruces District Court with two counts of forgery for allegedly depositing two checks totaling more than $2,600 to her bank that had been written off Sierra s account in the two weeks before Sierra s disappearance.
She bonded out of jail Nov. 21 after bond was reduced from $10,000 secured to $8,000 secured with 10 percent down, plus surety. She was scheduled to go to trial on those charges on April 10 but the trial date was vacated and no future date has been set in that case. She was also arrested on Feb. 2 for driving with a suspended or revoked license. She is also awaiting trial on those charges.
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