CONWAY -- Attorneys are still awaiting a mental evaluation of Anastasia Roberts, one of four teenagers charged in the 2015 shooting deaths of a Conway couple.
The defense-requested evaluation is intended to help determine whether Roberts, 18, of Conway is competent to move forward with criminal proceedings.
Standing beside her attorney, Roberts appeared before Judge Troy Braswell in Faulkner County Circuit Court on Thursday. Wearing a jail uniform and handcuffs, she remained silent.
Roberts is charged with two counts each of first-degree murder and theft by receiving in the July 21, 2015, shooting deaths of Robert and Patricia Cogdell, both 66, of Conway. Roberts was 17 at the time of the killings but is charged as an adult.
Defense attorney James Wyatt told Braswell that the mental evaluation has not been conducted yet.
"I'm hoping it will be in the next two to three weeks," Wyatt said.
Braswell set Roberts' next hearing for April 20.
Asked outside court if the prosecution and the defense were still trying to reach a negotiated plea, Chief Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Hugh Finkelstein said, "Everything is in limbo because of the evaluation."
Finkelstein explained the process that lies ahead.
If the evaluation finds that Roberts is not mentally fit to proceed and the prosecution agrees, the prosecution then could not move ahead with her criminal case. Instead, she would be sent to the Arkansas State Hospital "to be restored to competency," he said.
If the prosecution disagrees with the defense-assigned evaluation, Finkelstein said he then would ask that Roberts also be evaluated by the State Hospital.
In November, Wyatt filed a motion saying recent developments had led him "to believe that [Roberts] is in need of a mental health evaluation." He did not say what those developments were.
Two of the other teenagers charged in the Cogdells' deaths -- Justin Staton, 16, of Conway and Connor Atchley, 18, of Greenbrier -- have been sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to first-degree murder and other offenses. The fourth teenager, Hunter Drexler, 19, of Clinton, is awaiting trial on capital murder and other charges.
The Cogdells had been Staton's legal guardians since 2010. He was 14 when the killings took place.
State Desk on 02/10/2017