PORT ANGELES — Court proceedings for a teenager accused as an adult of drowning her newborn infant have been halted as she undergoes a mental health examination at Western State Hospital in Tacoma.
Clallam County prosecutors want her formally evaluated to determine her mental state at the time of the baby’s death and when she spoke with Port Angeles police officers about it.
Lauryn L. Last was charged in January 2009 with first-degree murder, a charge the county Prosecuting Attorney’s Office later got reduced to second-degree murder, the maximum sentence for which is 18 years and 4 months.
Last is now living with a relative on her own recognizance.
A court hearing was originally scheduled for today to determine if Last was mentally capable to make statements to police in 2009 about how her baby drowned on the night it was born.
The infant was full-term and died by drowning, according to an autopsy.
The infant’s body was placed in an alley trashcan, later taken to the city’s waste transfer station and shipped to a waste station in Tacoma.
There investigators found the body in a 30-ton trash container.
Police questioning
Last’s mental evaluation will determine if she was capable of understanding her rights to be silent and to an attorney when she was interrogated by police in January 2009.
The then-16-year-old — impregnated by a 37-year-old man in Colorado who is now imprisoned for sexual assault on a child — had waived her rights to have an attorney present during the police interrogation.
The mental evaluation was ordered after a four-page motion with six more pages of attachments was filed by prosecutors asking the defense to hand over any physical or documentary evidence regarding any mental health defense, whether or not it is planned to be used in a trial.
Psychologist listed
Deputy Prosecutor John Troberg said he filed the motion after Public Defender Suzanne Hayden wrote that she would be calling Dr. Anthony Eusanio of Edmonds, who did a psychological evaluation of Last in 2009.
Eusanio said Last was suffering from complex post-traumatic stress disorder and couldn’t have understood her rights.
At a court hearing Friday, Hayden said she did not intend to use diminished capacity as a defense during the trial, but was calling Eusanio for the hearing to determine her mental capability, according to court records.
Last’s trial had been set for June 7, but a review hearing is now scheduled for June 11 to hear the results of the hospital examination, according to court records.
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
