77-year-old Hartselle murder defendant with dementia unlikely to stand trial
For the Enquirer
A 77-year-old Hartselle man charged with murder in 2022 will no longer stand trial on Jan. 27 after a Morgan County judge moved the case to an administrative, or inactive, docket due to the defendant’s declining health. Hartselle police arrested Herbert Whitney Thompson Jr. on April 26, 2022, after responding to his residence at 2300 Bonnie Dale Lane N.W. for a harassment complaint.
At the residence, officers discovered 85-year-old Euel Franklin Jones dead from gunshot wounds, according to an investigator’s affidavit. Thompson was 74 years old at the time.
After Thompson was transported to the Police Department for questioning, he admitted to shooting Jones, according to Hartselle police. Thompson was released from jail on a $100,000 bond and pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect.
Thompson suffers from “vascular dementia and frontotemporal dementia,” according to his defense attorney, Brian White. White moved Morgan County Circuit Court to transfer Thompson’s case to an administrative docket on Dec. 26 after conferring with Chief Assistant District Attorney Garrick Vickery.
Circuit Judge Jennifer Howell granted the request on Dec. 27. She ordered the case to remain on an administrative docket for six months, after which the defense must provide an update on Thompson’s health and file another request to extend the case on the administrative docket, if necessary. She also removed the case from the Jan. 27 trial docket.
Vascular dementia has symptoms similar to Alzheimer’s disease and is caused by the interruption of blood and oxygen to the brain, while frontotemporal dementia “gradually rob(s) people of basic abilities – thinking, talking, walking, and socializing,” according to the National Institutes of Health.
“These conditions are progressive and permanently disabling,” White said this week. “There’s no treatment that fixes it. It looks like the case can never be brought to trial.” White’s Dec. 26 motion indicated that Vickery did not oppose the move to an administrative docket. Vickery declined to comment.
White wrote that Thompson “has been admitted to palliative care with no prospects for regaining the physical or mental ability to be put on trial on his charges.” In July 2023, citing Thompson’s dementia, White moved the court to order a mental examination and asked for proceedings against Thompson to be stayed pending a competency hearing. Howell approved the request.
In May 2024, ahead of a scheduled June trial, White moved the court for a continuance in the case. He wrote that the trial was premature, as the court had not yet conducted a competency hearing for Thompson.
Howell denied the request that day and claimed that no competency hearing had been requested. “Further, the mental evaluation received on Jan. 8, 2024, indicated that the defendant was competent to stand trial,” she wrote.
The case did not go to trial in June, court records showed, and another circuit judge rescheduled the trial in August for Jan. 27.
According to a search warrant return filed by Hartselle police investigators in the case, officers seized a Smith & Wesson .38 Special revolver, seven bullet fragments, and a walker from Thompson’s home.
