WLKM Radio 95.9 FM
A Colon man was was found incompetent to help in his own defense in the murder of a 55-year-old Colon man.
On Jan. 28, St. Joseph County District Judge Jeff Middleton received a report from the Michigan Center for Forensic Psychiatry in Ypsilanti, and on Wednesday held a competency hearing for Ethan Dingman, 19.
Dingman is accused of murder in the November death of Todd Schwartz. The body of Schwartz was found in a garage behind Illusions Hair Care Salon on South Blackstone Avenue. Prosecutor John McDonough said Schwartz was killed by a combination of strangulation and blunt force trauma.
McDonough had requested the forensic evaluation for the teen, whom he said was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. Dingman admitted he had stopped taking his medication a year before the murder.
Dingman will be sent to a mental hospital for treatment to be made competent to help his retained defense attorney Bill Weise, of Zeeland, prepare his defense.
