Wichita woman charged with murdering sister last May found competent to stand trial
A Wichita woman charged with murdering her sister last May is mentally fit enough to stand trial, a Sedgwick County judge ruled Tuesday — months after her competency was called into question.
Joy Lynn Wilson, 35, is facing one count of first-degree premeditated murder in the May 15, 2021, shooting death of 40-year-old Shawna D. Webb. She has not yet had a chance to enter a not-guilty plea in court.
Her lawyer last summer asked the court to suspend proceedings until Wilson’s mental state was evaluated, saying in a July 2021 motion that she “had a history of mental health issues and is currently exhibiting behaviors consistent with significant mental illness and a lack of understanding regarding the issue surrounding her case.”
Wichita police arrested Wilson after she told a nurse and doctor at a local hospital where she’d checked herself into the psychiatric ward that she “needed a lawyer” because she had “shot her sister with a gun,” according to a probable cause affidavit released last year.
She told an officer who talked to her at the hospital that she was there because “everyone is out to kill her” and that her sister needed help, the document says.
Police found Webb’s body face down in a pool of blood in her home in the 2400 block of North Green, near 21st and Grove.
They also discovered 15 spent cartridge casings in the house and a 9mm Smith & Wesson handgun in the Chevy Trailblazer Wilson had been driving, the affidavit says. A medical examiner determined Webb had been shot nine times in the chest, back and abdomen and four times in the arms, according to her autopsy report.
Wilson was first deemed incompetent at a September court hearing after she was evaluated by Comcare, the county’s community mental health and substance abuse clinic. She was then sent for “psychiatric and/or psychological examination, evaluation, care and treatment” to Larned State Security Hospital, which reported back to the court in March, court records show.
Wilson is scheduled for a May 16 preliminary hearing, where District Judge Seth Rundle will hear the state’s evidence and decide whether there’s enough to bind her over for trial. She remains in the Sedgwick County Jail in lieu of $150,000 bond.
Wilson faces life in prison with no parole for 50 years if she is convicted as charged.
