Travis Boys being escorted be an officer this week. Photo courtesy of ABC News.
Summary: Travis Boys rubbed feces on his face inside of a New Orleans courtroom.
On Wednesday, accused cop killer Travis Boys made a good case that he was not competent to stand trial. According to NOLA, the 35-year-old rubbed poop on his face during jury selection, causing a huge stink for everyone involved.
Judge Karen Herman cleared the courtroom after Boys shocked those present with his feces display. The defendant had returned from the bathroom, apparently hiding a napkin of his own poop. When jury selection began, he took out the feces and began to rub it on his face, including in his mouth. According to ABC News, he also ate the excrement.
Boys faces charges for killing a 22-year-old New Orleans police officer in 2015. He had pled not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity. A jury was being assembled on Wednesday for a trial that would’ve started on Monday, but the proceeding was halted after Judge Herman demanded Boys be examined for competency on Thursday.
Boys previously was deemed unfit for trial in September, and that ruling was also made in Judge Herman’s court during a six-hour hearing.
“He doesn’t understand his legal rights,” Tulane University professor and psychiatrist Dr. James Brad McConville testified in September. “He would have significant difficulty testifying without incriminating himself. … My recommendation is that he be found incompetent to stand trial and undergo further testing and legal-rights education.”
Boys murdered Officer Daryle Holloway during a custody escape on June 20, 2015. Prosecutors have asked for life in prison, but if Boys was convicted of first-degree murder, he could’ve faced the death penalty in Louisiana.
Before the poop-eating, jurors had been asked whether or not they could be fair during the trial, and everything seemed to be going smoothly before Boys ate his own poop.
On Thursday, Boys was examined by psychologists and deemed unfit for trial. According to ABC News, an expert took the stand on Thursday and said Boys has limited intellectual abilities and has a mental illness. She recommended that he be treated in a facility in Jackson and that he be further tested for competency.
The expert said that when she examined Boys in the past, she thought that he was exaggerating that he had a low IQ. She said that he claimed he heard voices and could not spell his own name.
“There is a certain bar that needs to be met, prior to making testimony of evidence of Mr. Boys’ IQ to be relevant,” the expert said.
On Thursday, deputies told ABC News that Judge Herman would not allow anyone to sit next to Boys, fearing he would act out again. However, he was subdued in court, slumped in his chair and quiet.
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