Associated Press
SPANAWAY — A man recently released from a Washington state psychiatric hospital faces a murder charge after a transient was found dead on a Pierce County road.
The News Tribune reported that the slain transient was found by another transient Thursday.
A sheriff’s spokesman says the slain man had been seen with the Spanaway man.
When police found the Spanaway man in a nearby restaurant, he wore a blood-soaked shirt and was talking nonsense.
He wrestled with the deputy before his arrest.
Investigators have not determined how the victim died or what led to the slaying.
The man had been arrested for stealing a woman’s gas can and dousing her with gasoline as she lit a cigarette. He was sent to Western State Hospital for a competency evaluation and was found competent to stand trial. A psychologist said he wasn’t a danger to himself or others.
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