A fitness assessment will be held next month for a Kelowna woman charged in a 2021 killing and castration case.
Gabby Sears, who is charged with the second-degree murder of Darren Middleton, brought her trial to a halt last month when she fired her lawyers. Now, months later, a time has been scheduled to see whether Sears is mentally fit to stand trial on the charge that’s already seen weeks of evidence presented.
Crown counsel in the case, David Grabavac, said he and opposing counsel had confirmed Feb. 7 and 8 as the dates for the fitness exam.
For that process alone, a new lawyer has been put in place, though will represent Sears when and if the trial resumes remains to be seen.
Grabavac told the court that Sears’s trial got underway with voir dires in October of last year, and halted after she requested a change in counsel.
During a pre-trial voir dire, Sears, a transgender woman charged under the name Dereck Sears, claimed she was the victim of an assault and that precipitated her fatal attack on Middleton.
At that time, her then-lawyer, Jordan Watt, successfully argued her jailhouse confession to the killing should be ousted from the evidence the Crown could draw on in its case.
Since then, the judge has heard from RCMP officers and witnesses about the gruesome crime and repeatedly looked at video from the scene.
The court heard that a Louisville Slugger baseball bat and box cutter were found next to the body of Middleton on June 17, 2021. His body was found laying next to a tub in Sears’s home.