Judge finds 16-year-old competent for trial in classroom stabbing of Texas high school teacher

Teen competent for trial in Texas teacher’s death

TYLER, Texas — A state district judge has declared a 16-year-old boy competent for trial in the fatal classroom stabbing of a Texas special education teacher.

The boy is accused of stabbing 50-year-old Todd Henry in a high school classroom in the eastern Texas town of Tyler on Sept. 23.

Defense attorney Jim Huggler told Judge Floyd Getz on Monday that he had spent about 30 hours in discussions with his client. He says most of the youth’s answers “are monosyllabic, and he doesn’t understand or remember our conversation.”

Huggler says the Texas Youth Commission had diagnosed his client as schizophrenic in 2007 or 2008. However, prosecutor Taylor Heaton says a state hospital found the boy to be “alert and oriented” in May.

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Information from: Tyler Morning Telegraph, www.tylerpaper.com