Experts Differ on Hilbun’s Competency : Jurisprudence: Former postman charged in rampage appears shaky after losing 40 pounds in psychiatric ward.

While psychiatrists disagreed over his mental competency to stand trial for murder, former letter carrier Mark Richard Hilbun appeared in court Friday trembling and thin from losing 40 pounds while in jail.

“He’s very ill,” said Deputy Public Defender David Biggs, who is representing the 39-year-old fired postal worker charged with killing his mother and a former colleague during a rampage in May.

“He’s not manufacturing 40 pounds of weight loss,” Biggs said. “He’s not manufacturing the fact that he can’t stand up without assistance. He is just shaking all the time. There is not going to be a trial if this man dies before that trial. . . . He’s starving himself.”

Biggs said his client, who now weighs about 120 pounds, scarcely touches his food.

“Ask him why he stopped eating, and he doesn’t answer,” the attorney said.

Hilbun was quivering and needed a bailiff’s help to walk and sit down Friday during a hearing on his mental competency to stand trial.

However, two court-appointed psychiatrists have disagreed whether Hilbun is mentally competent to stand trial, Orange County Superior Court Judge Michael Brenner disclosed Friday.

Brenner, who sealed the reports from the two psychiatrists, rescheduled another hearing on Hilbun’s mental competency for Sept. 10.

To settle the issue over his competency, a mini-trial of sorts focusing strictly on Hilbun’s mental condition may have to be held, according to attorneys in the case.

If Hilbun is declared mentally incompetent to stand trial, he would probably be sent to a state hospital until he is able to assist in his defense, attorneys said.

Hilbun has been charged with two murders, seven attempted murders and other counts in connection with an alleged two-day shooting spree that terrorized much of south Orange County.

Police contend that events started early May 6 with Hilbun stabbing his mother and her dog to death in her Corona del Mar home. Then, he allegedly drove to the Dana Point post office and fatally shot a fellow postal carrier and wounded another.

Hilbun eluded police for two days, during which he is accused of shooting and wounding five more people in three attacks in Dana Point, Newport Beach and Fountain Valley. He was arrested while drinking cocktails and watching television in a Huntington Beach sports bar. Hilbun is being held without bail in the psychiatric ward of the Orange County Jail and is under constant supervision.

Last June, Hilbun fell from a second-story walkway in the jail and broke a vertebra and suffered a concussion. Biggs said he intentionally jumped from the walkway.