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Competency Issues Delay Slaying Trial

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The Associated Press

Published: January 26, 2009

DES MOINES, Iowa - Debi Joy Olson freely admits she stalked her ex-husband across the country, then stabbed him to death last summer at a Davenport mall.

The Sarasota woman is representing herself in court, saying she wants to plead guilty and go to prison. Her only regret, she says, is she can't be extradited to Florida, where she could face the death penalty.

However, what seems like a simple case has been complicated and is nowhere near completion because the 53-year-old apparently suffers from Huntington's disease, which wastes brain cells.

That has led the court to question her mental competency. At a hearing last week, the judge ordered a competency evaluation and threatened to obtain medical samples by "nonconsensual means" if Olson doesn't cooperate. Olson faces charges of first-degree murder and willful injury in the killing of Mauricio Droguett, her husband of about 20 years.

"I gave up my Country, my relatives, my friends for him 25 years ago. I will give up the rest of my life for Him now," she wrote to District Court Judge James E. Kelley in a letter titled "Confession to First Degree Murder."

"I need to plead guilty now ... I want to go to prison for life," she wrote in the letter, dated Oct. 14.

Olson is accused of stabbing her ex-husband 10 times at the Northpark Mall on July 10. Droguett was a comptroller for Carson & Barnes Family Circus, a Sarasota-based operation that was setting up in the mall parking lot.

In a series of letters to the judge, Olson detailed how she tracked Droguett across the country, bought a hammer and knife, and then confronted him in front of about a half-dozen witnesses.

In one of the letters, she wrote that no one except she and her ex-husband will ever know why she killed him, and that she "did not kill him out of anger, it was out of love."

Olson was arrested a short time later, and police said she immediately confessed and cooperated with the investigation. Court records show she also told an officer she had Huntington's disease, which was causing slurred speech and stumbling.

Since her arrest, however, as court officials have questioned whether she can understand the proceedings, Olson has been less responsive and has refused to share her medical records or be evaluated by doctors. Olson discharged her lawyer two months after her arrest.

In court documents, the judge expressed concern about that decision and ordered a mental competency evaluation.

There is little precedent for obtaining samples against someone's wishes to test for an illness, said James Tomkovicz, a law professor at the University of Iowa.

Mark Dobson, a law professor at Nova Southeastern University, in Fort Lauderdale, also called the situation unusual.

"The question is whether the interests of the state outweigh her interest of bodily integrity," he said. "The state has an interest in making sure any plea entered into is knowing and intelligent so that she can't come back years from now" and challenge the validity of the plea.

In a Jan. 7 letter she asked that a Huntington's disease specialist be present at her next hearing.

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