A perp who allegedly walked up to a Westbrook couple and randomly shot them both dead is doing well showing the judge he’s nuts.
Marcel LaGrange, 26, has spent much of the week refusing to participate in a court hearing designed to determine his mental competence.
When he was arrested two years ago after allegedly killing two strangers who were sitting in their car with their two children, a judge asked the South Portland suspect how he was going to plead when his trial came up.
“I’m not guilty,” LaGrange said at the time. “Not guilty by reason of insanity.”
He’s been reading too many law books while in custody, it appears.
LaGrange is accused of shooting to death Brittney Cockrell and Michael Hayter while they sat in their car in a Westbrook parking lot in June 2023. LaGrange didn’t know them.
The couple’s children – an 11-year-old old and a 7-year-old – witnessed the carnage from the back seat.
Cops said they had no explanation for the shooter’s motive.
Purely random double murder of the parents of two young children.
Just in case anyone doubted whether someone who would be so savage is nuts, the suspect in a competency hearing this week made sure to leave no doubt.
LaGrange refused to enter the courtroom or cooperate with his lawyers during a competency hearing over several days.
Judge Deborah Cashman then ordered him sent back to jail from a holding room after he allegedly kicked a trash can and disrupted a hearing in an adjacent courtroom.
“I don’t really care about my life,” he told Cashman.
Nor perhaps anyone else’s.
Two defense witnesses testified LaGrange doesn’t have the “mental capacity” to stand trial for the slayings.
So it might seem.
LaGrange has pleaded insanity, insisting he doesn’t believe he should be held responsible for the crimes because he didn’t realize he was allegedly murdering at random the parents of two young children.
If Cashman rules that he’s “incompetent” (in the legal sense, of course) LaGrange will be transferred to Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services for taxpayer-financed treatment.
Absolutely insane.
