Slaying suspect faces psychiatric exam
Evaluation to see if woman charged in killing fit for trial
A Shepherd woman accused in the killing of a Mt. Pleasant woman last month has injured herself in jail to the point of needing hospitalization and will undergo a competency examination to see if she is fit to stand trial, according to federal court records.
Defense attorney Bryan J. Sherer sought the psychiatric evaluation based on his own contact with 20-yearold Kaden Elizabeth Gilbert as well as a pleading letter from an Isabella jail official saying she doesn’t belong in that facility.
Gilbert is accused of murder and felonious assault in the Nov. 16 stabbing attack at a Mt. Pleasant apartment that killed 21-year- old Nangonhs Massey and left a 22-year-old man injured.
At one point Gilbert banged her head against a brick wall at the Isabella County Jail so hard and often that she was taken by ambulance to a hospital for medical and psychiatric treatment, Jail Administrator Kevin Dush said in a letter to Sherer.
“I believe it is appropriate to move forward with whatever system the U.S. Court has in place for determining whether Miss Gilbert is competent,” Dush said.
“I suspect they will find that she is not, and I hope that, if that is the case, they would place her in a more appropriate housing better equipped to handle inmates with severe mental illness.”
Gilbert, who has been under psychiatric treatment since childhood and has several times refused to take medication her family provided while in jail, was ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation by U.S. Magistrate R. Steven Whalen of the federal court in Bay City.
Pol ice said Massey was killed when Gilbert stabbed her in the thigh with a folding pocket knife, severing her femoral artery.
Eyewitnesses told police that Gilbert came to the apartment about 2:30 a.m. that day and stabbed both Massey and a 22-year- old man — who remains hospitalized in stable condition — with the knife she had concealed in the sleeve of a sweater she wore.
Massey was remembered by family as the devoted mother of a toddler who loved art and music and took an active role in the culture and environmental concerns of her Native American heritage.
Gilbert is facing federal charges because both of her victims were Native American and the attacks happened within the Isabella Indian Reservation.