Four months after a Kirkland woman was found mentally incompetent to stand trial for the murder of a Snohomish man, a judge has ruled she’s now fit for trial, and she might face a jury as soon as next week.
Lai Ching Julia Siu, 47, was ruled competent to stand trial last week based on a recent report from Western State Hospital, where she was being treated. Her defense attorney did not object to the ruling, a prosecutor’s spokesman said.
Siu’s trial is set to begin Aug. 18.
In April, Judge Bruce W. Hilyer found Siu incompetent to stand trial and ordered her back to the state psychiatric hospital for treatment until she became fit for trial on first-degree murder charges for the fatal shooting of her boyfriend, Raymond “Ray” Ubis.
Attorneys would not comment on the specifics of Siu’s mental condition, and a judge has sealed all court documents detailing her psychiatric evaluation.
Prosecutors say Siu shot 54-year-old Ubis at her Kirkland home the night of Oct. 14, 2003, then called a friend in hysterics. “I need help. I need help,” she cried over the telephone to her friend, Sau Ching Lee. “I killed. We had an argument and I killed that person.”
After Lee called 911, court documents state, Kirkland police arrived at Siu’s house shortly after midnight.
Inside Siu’s house, officers found Ubis dead from a single shot to the back of his head.
After searching Siu’s home, police found a bloody 9mm handgun wrapped in a comforter and a matching shell casing in a trash can. The gun, which prosecutors said was used to shoot Ubis, is registered to Siu.
Detectives found no evidence that the 5-foot, 89-pound Siu had defended herself from an attack.
Both Ubis, of Snohomish, and Siu worked for the U.S. Postal Service. After the killing, friends of Ubis told police he recently had confided that he was going to break off his relationship with Siu, prosecutors said.
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