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PASCO -- A 30-year-old man charged in the 2008 shootings of a Pasco husband and wife confronted the couple out of "financial desperation" before opening fire, a detective said Wednesday.
Ramon Garcia-Morales felt he had been shut out of work in the onion fields and was owed money, Pasco Detective Kirk Nebeker testified.
So after telling his wife, sister and brother of his plan, Garcia-Morales stopped by the Manzanita Lane home on Dec. 10, 2008, to give Alfredo Garcia the chance to pay him at least a part of the "money he had missed out on," Nebeker said.
Garcia, 42, ended up dead from gunshot wounds. His wife, Maria Ramirez de Garcia, 38, was seriously wounded and is confined to a wheelchair because of her injuries.
On Wednesday, Franklin County Judge Vic VanderSchoor found Garcia-Morales competent to stand trial.
VanderSchoor ruled Garcia-Morales has the capacity to understand the charges against him and the capacity to assist in his own defense.
"Whether he chooses to do so or not, I guess is his choice," VanderSchoor said. He added that he "empathized" with defense attorney Kevin Holt who said his client wasn't cooperating with him, but said that doesn't mean Garcia-Morales isn't fit to stand trial.
Holt says his client is not competent, doesn't interact with the attorneys, sits silently looking down at the ground -- as he did during the competency hearing -- and cannot help prepare a defense.
"I don't know how, at this point, we can possibly go forward," Holt said.
Garcia-Morales is charged in Franklin County Superior Court with first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder.
Trial is now set for Sept. 13.
His younger brother, Jose, faces similar charges.
That case remains on hold while he undergoes treatment for psychotic issues brought on by severe depression. He is expected to return to court in September.
The case against Ramon Garcia-Morales was placed on hold about 15 months ago when defense attorneys requested a "forensic mental health evaluation" because they questioned if their client understood the legal proceedings against him. He was re-evaluated earlier this year after the defense questioned whether he had developmental disabilities.
Nathan Henry, a psychologist with Eastern State Hospital, determined that Garcia-Morales has been pretending to be incompetent to avoid his trial.
Holt questioned Henry's diagnosis, including whether the symptoms his client showed could be a sign of a depressive disorder or developmental disability. He contends Garcia-Morales wasn't properly tested to see if he had mental retardation, but Henry said he didn't give Garcia-Morales tests to determine his IQ because Garcia-Morales wasn't trying or giving adequate effort during the evaluation so the test results wouldn't have been accurate.
Holt said the nursing report from Garcia-Morales' latest stay at Eastern State Hospital showed Garcia-Morales remained in his bed all day with a blanket covering his head, had to be prompted to eat and use the bathroom and didn't respond when another patient tried to interact with him.
Holt wanted to know if those could be signs of depression.
"It could be, but it could also be a sign he just didn't want to talk to anyone," Henry replied.
In his report, Henry said Garcia-Morales said he saw people at his door in jail who would just stand outside and laugh or walk by and peek in. Garcia-Morales said one person was in all black with a horn on his head and the other had a hatchet that kept hitting the door.
Henry determined Garcia-Morales was pretending to hallucinate and was another factor to support his diagnosis that Garcia-Morales was malingering, because visual hallucinations are "quite rare in a genuine psychosis" and people feigning incompetence often describe seeing people in black and white.
But Holt questioned whether the people Garcia-Morales describe actually could be the jail guards, who wear black uniforms, walk by repeatedly and look into the cell to check on Garcia-Morales. If the corrections officer had a headset on, Garcia-Morales could describe it as looking like a horn, Holt said.
Holt also asked if Henry reviewed police reports to help determine if Garcia-Morales had the ability to plan or think things through, and whether the psychologist thought it was a well-thought-out plan to shoot Garcia after confronting him about losing out on a job.
"Certainly, it's not something I would try, and I think it's not a very good plan," Henry said. But, he added, that doesn't mean Garcia-Morales is incompetent, rather "it tells you the defendant, if the details are correct, showed very bad judgment."
Henry said in reading the police reports, he noted that Garcia-Morales' responses to questions from investigators shortly after his arrest were "very clear."
But when meeting with Henry during the evaluation, Garcia-Morales portrayed himself as grossly disoriented, didn't know where he was and said he did not have family members in the area, specifically denying that his brother Jose also was in jail.
The brothers were picked up 16 hours after the shootings at a gas station in Mountain Home, Idaho.
Garcia-Morales told Nebeker that after leaving the house that night, "they paused outside for a while and then he and his brother left in their pickup truck."
They reportedly left town on Highway 12 through Walla Walla, with plans to end up at another brother's home in Soledad, Calif.
Their pistols were ditched somewhere in grass alongside the road. Garcia-Morales later tried to help investigators later locate the guns, but he reportedly was confused about just which exit they had taken outside of Boise.
Nebeker testified that he went to Idaho and interviewed the suspects on Dec. 12, 2008.
Nebeker, who has been fluent in Spanish for 15 years, said Ramon Garcia-Morales wasn't confused and showed very little emotion during their conversation.
"The best word I can use to describe it is 'reptilian.' Black and white, matter-of-fact, no emotion," he said.
Garcia-Morales was asked if it was worth it to shoot the couple.
"He responded that none of this was about revenge or anger. He stated his motivation in making this plan was purely out of financial desperation," Nebeker testified.
When arrested, Garcia-Morales had no idea the condition of Garcia and Ramirez de Garcia. After learning that Ramirez de Garcia had survived, Garcia-Morales said he was glad because she had saved his life when he was stung by a scorpion as a young boy, Nebeker said.
The families reportedly are from the same village in Mexico.
The Garcias emigrated from Mexico and moved to Pasco more than eight years ago. Garcia was a farm worker who had connections to help others get jobs in the fields. He also helped build a four-bedroom home in east Pasco, with help from Habitat for Humanity, for his wife and four daughters.
Garcia de Ramirez spent three months in Seattle's Harborview Medical Center. She was shot once each in her left shoulder, right cheekbone, left leg and back. One bullet went through her spine and left lung, and a broken rib punctured her right lung.
Garcia-Morales wrote a statement in Spanish about the shootings, in addition to talking to Nebeker. In the written statement he "discusses his feelings" and the plan of what he had set out to do.
After giving the details, Nebeker said, Garcia-Morales' last line translates to, "Well, it doesn't matter. It happened."
-- Kristin M. Kraemer: 509-582-1531; kkraemer@tricityherald.com
-- Paula Horton: 509-582-1556; phorton@tricityherald.com
