Mental competency hearing set for Highland woman

A Highland woman charged with killing her boyfriend with an SUV is scheduled for a mental competency hearing to check her fitness to stand trial.

Raquel McCormick, 50, was charged in March 2021 with murder in Thomas Brankin’s death. She appeared Friday in a jail uniform.

Lake Superior Judge Samuel Cappas set the two-hour hearing for March 6.

She signed a plea deal in July 2022, but defense lawyers Paul Stracci and J. Michael Woods filed a request in the fall to get her a mental competency exam by two psychologists.

Woods said Friday he planned to call clinical psychologist Dr. John Heroldt to testify on his evaluation.

Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Infinity Westberg said McCormick was competent and they planned to call two witnesses to prove it.

McCormick told Highland police officers she hit Brankin, 53, after an argument in a parking lot behind Wine House, her business, according to an affidavit. Brankin was Valparaiso University’s assistant golf coach and a Schererville accountant.

Highland Police officers were sent to the 2900 block of Highway Avenue for a domestic disturbance around 7:25 p.m. Aug. 11, 2020 when they found him lying unconscious and missing his right shoe, the probable cause affidavit said. A woman who was standing by him identified herself as McCormick and said she and the man, Brankin, had just gotten some ice cream across the street and she was trying to leave, records said, before telling the officer she didn’t need any assistance from him or EMS, records said.

Brankin died Sept. 1, 2020, according to the Lake County Coroner’s Office.