San Diego

A jury took less than two hours Monday to decide that Billy Ray Waldon is mentally competent to stand trial in three 1985 slayings.

Waldon, 35, of San Diego, will have a trial date set Thursday in the December, 1985, slayings of a Del Mar woman and her daughter, and a San Diego man.

Waldon’s attorney, Charles Khoury, had argued Monday in final arguments that his client was mentally incompetent to stand trial.

Waldon has refused to talk to his attorney or psychiatrists, saying last week that he had been denied “effective assistance of counsel.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Charles Patrick said he was “relieved and very gratified” with the verdict.

If Waldon had been found incompetent, he would have been shipped to a state mental hospital for treatment and his criminal trial would have been put off indefinitely.

Waldon could face the death penalty if he is convicted of first-degree murder with special circumstances. He is charged with shooting Dawn Ellerman, 43, and Charles Wells, 59, in separate incidents. Ellerman’s 13-year-old daughter, Erin, died in a fire authorities believe Waldon set.

The Ellerman slayings occurred Dec. 7, and Wells was shot Dec. 20.