Killer's Mental Health a Concern

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - A lawyer representing condemned serial killer Aileen Wuornos has asked the state Supreme Court to evaluate his client's competency, saying he has ``grave doubts'' about her mental condition.

 Wuornos, scheduled to die by injection Oct. 9, does not want to fight her execution and won permission from Florida's high court in April to fire her state lawyers and drop her appeals.

Attorney Raag Singhal was appointed this summer to represent Wuornos in a lawsuit in which she accuses prison guards of trying to harass her ``to death'' and drive her to suicide. In her 25-page handwritten court filing, Wuornos also accuses prison staff of tainting her food, spitting on it and serving her potatoes cooked in dirt.

 ``The specific claims she raises ... if untrue appear to be evidence of delusional behavior,'' Singhal wrote the Supreme Court on Sept. 17.

  Singhal said Wuornos acted strangely, laughed and cried unexpectedly and obsessed on unimportant points during the hours he met with her over the summer.

 `I have grave doubts about her mental condition and specifically whether she is competent to be executed,'' he wrote. He asked the court to appoint psychologists to evaluate Wuornos.

 Wuornos, 44, one of the nation's first known female serial killers, was convicted of fatally shooting six middle-aged men along Florida highways in 1989 and 1990. Her story has been portrayed in two movies, three books and an opera.

At a hearing in July, Wuornos told the judge she was ``sick of hearing this `she's crazy' stuff. I'm competent, sane and I'm telling the truth.''

A spokeswoman for Gov. Jeb Bush said Tuesday that the governor ``absolutely'' believed Wuornos was competent when he signed her death warrant Sept. 5.

 ``We have received no new information,'' Katie Muniz said. She added that Bush had not yet seen Singhal's letter.  

Wuornos' lawsuit is pending before Circuit Judge Paul Backman. The state Department of Corrections denies her allegations.