Defendant in park rampage undergoing competency test
Report due in February on Santa Clara resident’s fitness for prosecution
SAN JOSE >> The woman charged last fall with fatally running over a hiker and trying to hit another at the Rancho San Antonio Preserve is having her mental competency examined to determine whether she is fit for criminal prosecution in the seemingly random attacks.
Doctors were appointed to evaluate 50-year-old Santa Clara resident Mireya Orta earlier this month, and a court hearing is scheduled Feb. 7 to formally review their reports. Pending the outcome of that proceeding, the criminal case against her has been suspended.
Orta has been held without bail at the Elmwood women’s jail in Milpitas since her arrest in the Oct. 1 rampage that authorities say killed 77-year-old Sunnyvale resident Lawrence Lupash and almost did the same to another male hiker along the Permanente Creek Trail.
Orta has been charged with murder, premeditated attempted murder and resisting arrest. The Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office has said there is no known connection between Orta and her alleged victims.
Deputy Public Defender Rebecca Kahan, who is representing Orta, formally declared doubt about her client’s capacity to participate in her own defense.
“It’s not right to prosecute someone so sick they don’t understand what’s going on or can’t work with their attorney,” Kahan said in an interview. “This capacity process is to figure out if that’s what’s happening.”
Kahan added that examining Orta’s competency has no bearing on the loss suffered by the victims and their families.
“The tragedy remains on all sides,” she said.
Deputy District Attorney Michael Gilman refrained from commenting specifically on Orta’s evaluation other than saying the reports “should shed light” on the competency question.
According to the Sheriff’s Office, which investigated the alleged attacks, deputies were called to the park, between Los Altos Hills and Cupertino, at 12:52 p.m. Oct. 1 after getting reports that a motorist had hit two people in separate areas of the park and then driven off.
They soon ran into — literally — Orta’s Audi A5 sedan after deputies boxed her in with their patrol SUVs, and she crashed into one of them head-on.
The deputies and responding detectives soon discovered Lupash gravely injured on a trail near Cristo Rey Drive. With the help of a witness and a park
ranger, investigators determined that the Audi hit the victim, then “intentionally
reversed and drove back and forth over the man’s body multiple times.”
Authorities allege that Orta then tried to hit another man walking on the trail but that the man dived out of the way and shielded himself behind an oak tree. Orta then reportedly drove to the park exit, then back toward the park grounds, where she encountered the responding deputies.
Lupash was rushed to Stanford Hospital, where he died from his injuries. The second victim escaped serious injury.
The investigative summary that detectives submitted to prosecutors stated that locked gates are in place at the park to prevent easy vehicle access to the trails, suggesting that the defendant could not have casually or accidentally driven onto the trail.