EVERETT — An Everett man pleaded not guilty Monday to the July 18 stabbing death of his apartment manager.
Steven Well, 59, entered the plea during a brief hearing in Snohomish County Superior Court.
He is charged with second-degree murder. Prosecutors say that he fatally stabbed his landlady, Judith Garcia, in the foyer of the Edison Apartments.
Garcia, 64, was stabbed at least two dozen times. She is the second landlady Well has been accused of attacking with a knife.
Well has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and prosecutors this week are expected to seek a court-ordered evaluation to determine if he is competent to assist in his defense.
Well was locked up at Western State Hospital in 1980 after a similar attack involving another woman. He was released from the hospital in 1983 but was sent back five years later after he attacked a housemate with a hammer. He remained there receiving treatment until 2001, when the state Court of Appeals found legal flaws in the hearing two decades earlier that had sent him to the mental hospital for the 1980 stabbing.
Under an agreement reached with prosecutors in 2004, Well was granted a conditional release with a number of restrictions, including taking his medication, attending therapy sessions and finding stable housing. He was living under those conditions when Garcia was attacked.
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