The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
'Psychotic behavior' may end murder trial
Long before police found 78-year-old Millicent Williams’ body, she complained to DeKalb County officials that her grandson was mentally ill.
Now, he may not stand trial in her killing because of increasingly “psychotic behavior” and “delusional thoughts” since his arrest last summer, court filings show. The district attorney’s office agreed to let Gregory Williams, a 37-year-old Army veteran, be transferred from the county jail to a mental hospital for testing after a psychiatrist said he is incompetent to stand trial.
Dr. Matthew Norman wrote in a June 4 report that the defendant, who is charged with murder, has delusions and his “thoughts and psychotic behaviors (have) deteriorated as his trial has approached.”
The trial is scheduled for July 16, though it may now be pushed back or, if the suspect is judged incompetent, canceled.
Millicent Williams disap- peared late last July. Her grandson was soon found at a Kroger with her car, which had blood in t he trunk, DeKalb police have said. Her home off Flakes Mill Road also had blood in it, enough that detec- tives believed she must’ve been dead even though they wouldn’t find her body off I-20 for several more weeks.
Gregory Williams is accused of forcing his way into her bedroom and attacking her with a “Rambo-style” knife, police said.
Court and police records suggest a troubled relationship between grandmother and grandson. She said he suffered from PTSD after service in the Army and refused to take his medicine.
Though his grandmother believed he’d served in Iraq, Gregory Williams was never deployed, the Army said.
Daryl Queen, who represents the suspect, said early in the case he was looking into his client’s mental state.
“It is a sad and tragic set of events,” Queen said last year. “As has been previously reported by the family, Mr. Williams has a long history of mental illness, therefore we are addressing those issues at this time.”