UPDATE: Todd Walters entered a guilty plea this morning to a charge of murder in the third degree. President Judge William Martin sentenced Walters to 15-40 years in a State Correctional Institution.
WHAT WE PREVIOUSLY REPORTED
After more than five years, a major homicide case may finally be headed to its conclusion in Indiana County Court today. President Judge William martin will preside over a Plea Court appearance for 41-year-old Todd Royce Walters, who is charged with criminal homicide for the beating death of his mother.
It happened early in the morning of February 20th, 2015 at the home of 72-year-old retired IUP professor Ruth Shirey on Diamond Avenue in Indiana Borough. Shirey died later that day at the Indiana Regional Medical Center and her son was arrested while driving her car in Altoona that afternoon.
Walters has a longtime history of mental illness and according to the testimony of his father at a 2016 preliminary hearing, had stopped taken his medications before the attack on his mother. Since being taken into custody, Walters has had many mental health evaluations and has been ruled incompetent to stand trial several times. He’s being held in involuntary commitment at Torrance State Hospital.
Judge Martin ruled in June of 2018 that Walters was competent to stand trial, but then he had another mental health evaluation and a second criminal case filed against him for an unprovoked attack against a fellow inmate at Torrance, prompting more treatment. Martin ruled last October that Walters was again fit to stand trial.
If he does not make his scheduled Plea Court appearance today, Walters is scheduled for jury trial starting next Monday.
