Transient Ruled Fit for Murder Trial

A transient accused last year of fatally stabbing a Hermosa Beach woman as she sat on her patio has been ruled mentally competent to stand trial for murder.

Sharon K. Hendrix, 30, has been ordered to appear June 6 in South Bay Municipal Court to answer charges that she stabbed Gillian N. Cooper, 40, on March 30, 1988, while Cooper chatted with her mother at her beachside home.

Hendrix has been at Patton State Hospital in San Bernadino County for the last 14 months.

But a court-appointed psychiatrist, Dr. Kaushal Sharma, said Wednesday that Hendrix is now capable of understanding court proceedings and helping her attorney with her defense. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Florence Bernstein ordered Hendrix to appear in court.

Cooper, the wife of a prominent doctor, lived in a home on the Strand, the concrete promenade on the beach. She was standing in her patio one afternoon when Hendrix climbed over a three-foot wall, police said. Cooper told the woman that she was trespassing and Hendrix responded by cursing, pulling out a knife with an eight-inch blade and stabbing Cooper once in the chest, police said.