D.A. to Take Rare Step in 1982 Murder Case : New Legal Tack Planned to Institutionalize Defendant Twice Found Incompetent for Trial

A housekeeper charged with the 1982 murder of her 76-year-old Newport Beach employer was found incompetent to stand trial Tuesday for the second time in five years.

Orange County prosecutors said Tuesday that they will take the rare step of seeking a public conservatorship in a bid to recommit the housekeeper, Jane Irene Moller of Huntington Beach, to a mental facility.

Moller, 40, spent three years at Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino County after she was first found incompetent by a judge five years ago. Because she was found incompetent before she ever got to trial, three years was the maximum Patton could legally keep her.

So prosecutors, unwilling to let her go free, have kept her in the Orange County Jail since then, in an attempt either to have her recommitted to Patton or bring her to trial.

Mistrial Occurred Earlier

One competency hearing earlier this month led to a mistrial when jurors could not agree on the issue. But after a four-day hearing, a second jury Tuesday found that she is still incompetent to stand trial.

“We could let her go, but I just can’t do that,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Thomas M. Goethals said. “We’re talking about someone charged with murder.”

Moller has been charged with murder in the beating and stabbing death of Helen DeWolf, her employer for about a month. DeWolf was found dead in her home on Nov. 27, 1982, but she had been dead for several days. Evidence led to Moller, who was arrested the next day. She has remained in custody of one kind or another since then.

Following the jury verdict Tuesday, Superior Court Judge James R. Franks II asked the county public guardian to prepare a report on Moller. The public guardian’s recommendation is needed before prosecutors can ask for a conservatorship hearing.

According to officials with the county’s public guardian office, such conservatorships have been ordered before in criminal cases. But Goethals said that has not been done in a murder case in the county before.

Virtual Role Reversal

A conservatorship hearing would mean almost a virtual role reversal for Goethals and Moller’s attorney, George Peters. At the hearing that concluded Tuesday, Peters brought in testimony from two psychiatrists and a psychologist, all of whom said that Moller was incompetent. Prosecutor Goethals tried to find holes in their arguments.

But at a conservatorship hearing, Goethals will call those same experts as witnesses, in a bid to show that Moller is not only incompetent but a danger to society.

“It’s the craziest situation I’ve ever been involved in,” Goethals said.

If a jury should find that Moller is a danger to society, the judge could then appoint a conservator, who would have the authority to commit her to a state mental hospital against her will for two years. Goethals said the issue would have to be retried every two years after that.

And if Goethals wins the conservatorship, her own attorney has said he is convinced that the prosecutor and Judge Franks will be “eminently fair” in deciding his client’s fate.

Peters has argued that it would be unfair to make Moller stand trial for murder because she is unable to give him information he needs about what happened to the victim to help him prepare a defense.

Moller has insisted that she never worked for the victim.

Jurors on Tuesday told the lawyers that their decision to find Moller incompetent was based on her own demeanor in court rather than the testimony of experts. One juror said he counted 51 interruptions by Moller during the hearing.