A Seattle man charged in the fatal stabbing of a transgender woman has been found not competent to stand trial.
Christopher Leahy, 31, is accused of killing 19-year-old University of Washington student Juniper Blessing in May, allegedly stabbing her more than 40 times inside the laundry room of a Seattle student housing complex.
Leahy has not yet entered a plea in the case. His arraignment has been postponed multiple times while he underwent psychiatric evaluations.
Those evaluations concluded that Leahy is currently incompetent to stand trial, King County Superior Court Judge Joe Campagna said, according to The Seattle Times.
A finding of incompetency means a defendant is not considered able to understand the legal proceedings against them or assist their attorney in preparing a defense.
Under state procedure, the next step typically involves short-term treatment aimed at restoring competency, which can include psychiatric medication and education about the court process.
If a defendant is later determined to be permanently incompetent, the criminal charges may be dismissed, and the person can be placed in civil mental health treatment instead.
Should treatment restore Leahy’s competency, he could be returned to custody and the criminal case against him would be allowed to proceed.
Appearing via Zoom at Monday’s arraignment, Leahy was informed that his psychiatric findings prohibit him from possessing a firearm.
University of Washington student Juniper Blessing, 19, was fatally stabbed more than 40 times in the laundry room of a Seattle student housing complex back in May
Christopher Leahy, 31, has been deemed unfit to stand trial
Harrowing surveillance footage showed the unsuspecting teenager doing her laundry, unaware that a stranger who’d just crept into the room was about to murder her
Harrowing surveillance footage showed the unsuspecting teenager doing her laundry, unaware that a stranger who’d just crept into the room was about to murder her.
Blessing, who was wearing a pair of rainbow soled sneakers, was gruesomely stabbed to death.
Another student came across the bloody scene around 10 minutes later and dialed 911.
Footage shared by prosecutors stops before the violence begins. Leahy is said to have killed Blessing as she emptied the washing machine’s lint collector.
The attack was a random one and Blessing did not know her killer, according to investigators.
Prosecutors say the murder was premeditated and that Leahy had set out to kill a woman on the evening of the murder.
Leahy is said to have scoped out the laundry room before selecting Blessing as his victim.
He followed a different young woman into the room at 9:45pm on May 10, around 15 minutes before the attack on Blessing.
He left the room one minute later, then returned to the area at 10pm while Blessing and another student were inside.
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The suspect who cops say is Leahy appeared to scope out the security camera and its wires while Blessing sat on the floor in front of a dryer.
Prosecutors allege that Leahy unplugged the camera before he attacked Blessing, according to court documents obtained by KOMO.
Blessing’s family said the transgender student was ‘courageously living their life as who they were until it was tragically cut short’
Prosecutors say the murder was premeditated and that Leahy had set out to kill a woman on the evening of the murder
The suspect who cops say is Leahy appeared to scope out the security camera and its wires while Blessing sat on the floor in front of a dryer
Leahy turned himself in to the police days after the slaying
‘[Leahy] comes back into the laundry room and stares directly into the camera mounted to the right of the door,’ the filing stated.
‘He appears to follow the path of the power cord with his eyes and head from the camera around the wall above the doorway.’
Leahy turned himself in to the police days after the slaying, after surveillance pictures of the suspect were released amid an urgent manhunt.
He has been charged with first-degree murder and is being held on $10 million bail at the King County Jail.
Leahy was a student at University Prep, an elite $25,000-a-year private school in Seattle, and for some time, he was ‘popular’ among his peers, according to an old classmate speaking to the Seattle Times.
But the classmate said Leahy underwent a ‘big personality shift’ in tenth grade, saying there was a ‘moment where the light went off a little bit where he wasn’t social.’
‘He went from him hanging out with us to him sitting by himself and reading books,’ the classmate, who wanted to remain anonymous, said.
Leahy became ‘erratic,’ according to his ex-peer, and, in one bizarre episode, he ranted to other students about drawing ‘boxes inside of boxes that made no sense.’
Blessing’s family said the transgender student was ‘courageously living their life as who they were until it was tragically cut short.’
‘Juniper was simply the most amazing human being we have ever known — highly intelligent, extremely talented, and deeply sensitive to the needs of others,’ her family said in a statement via the Human Rights Alliance.
