Competency hearing set for triple murder suspect

BILLINGS (AP) — A federal judge in Montana has scheduled a hearing later this month that could reveal the fate of a man who was found incompetent to stand trial in a triple homicide on the Crow Indian Reservation.

Twenty-five-year-old Sheldon Bernard Chase is being held at a federal psychiatric hospital in Missouri for the 2011 shooting of his grandmother, cousin and cousin’s boyfriend near Lodge Grass.

After Chase was found incompetent because of unspecified mental illness, federal authorities asked a judge in Missouri to determine if he should be indefinitely committed to a psychiatric hospital. Those proceedings have been sealed.

Authorities have said Chase would have to be forcibly medicated to stand trial.

U.S. District Judge Susan Watters on Tuesday ordered an Aug. 27 hearing that could reveal more details.