Jonathan Canales, the veteran accused of shooting his wife in their Mondex home in November, was deemed incompetent to stand trial in a hearing before Circuit Judge J. David Walsh Wednesday. Canales is to be involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital.
It was an unusual situation. Canales was not in court, nor was he in custody, nor, for now, does there appear to be a bed ready for him in a facility.
Canales, 27, was initially booked at the Flagler County jail on an attempted first-degree murder charge in early December, two weeks after his wife, a mother of three young children, was hospitalized with a gunshot to the neck. He claimed she shot herself with a .22-caliber gun. His wife gave a different and disturbing account of “hearing a pop” as she sat at the kitchen table, then finding herself alone and bleeding in the bathtub before managing to call 911. Earlier in the evening, Canales had walked around the house with the .22 strapped to him, telling her it would be easy to shoot her, and no one would know.
The couple’s three young children were in the house, with loaded firearms at their bedroom door. The shooting took place at 6351 Cherry Lane in the Mondex.
Canales was initially charged with three counts of child neglect. Those charges were dropped on Jan. 8. He was also charged with delaying medical treatment for an injured person, a charge stemming from allegedly keeping his wife in the bathroom and turning off the lights as she bled. That charge was dropped, so was a tampering-with-a-witness charge. The attempted murder charge was reduced to an aggravated battery with a firearm charge.
Canales was released on $100,000 to his parents, where he’s been staying—in Ormond Beach, at 1460 North U.S. 1, since shortly after the shooting.
His attorney, Garry Wood, said Wednesday: “it really wouldn’t have been a good idea for him physically to be in court today.” Wood said Canales has been on medication. “Without going into more salacious details, I can tell you that Mr Canales experienced quite a decomposition mentally when he was in the jail, there were some serious issues that had to be addressed,” the attorney told the judge.
Wood said Canales was evaluated by a doctor and fund to be incompetent to stand trial. He submitted the doctor’s report to Walsh, who had to make the determination about Canales in his absence: the judge was concerned that Canales was not in the courtroom, prompting Wood to explain the circumstances. Wood said he’d dealt with a similar case in Volusia County where the defendant was found incompetent to stand trial, and was not in custody at the time: the defendant voluntarily reported to jail, from where he was committed to a hospital. Wood was asking for the same treatment of Canales.
“I will adjudge the defendant Canales incompetent to proceed,” Walsh said, finding him qualified for treatment. “When can we do that?”
It’ll be up to Canales to report to the Flagler County jail once the Department of Children and Families has secured a bed in a secure psychiatric facility. Meanwhile, his bond status may continue, the judge said.
Once committed, the judge said he expects periodic reports from the hospital, and subsequent hearings that will determine Canales’s competency for trial. For now, however, Canales is “off the active docket pending a report from the hospital,” Walsh said.
Anonymous says
If his parents think they are safe because he would never do it to them, they’re fools.
Nicole says
Second person incompetent to stand trial in Flagler county. Interesting considering it takes a lot to be deemed incompetent. Take Aileen Wuornos for example. She thought radio waves were entering her brain while in jail, yet she was determined competent and was executed.
Two Sets of Laws says
White kids have “ADD”! Black kids are just “BAD”! White men are “Deemed Incompetent”! Black men are “Angry Criminals”! With all the young white men in this community being busted for child porn and abuse they’ll probably make that legal or some sort of corrective disorder for “those” they want to slip through the cracks.
KB63 says
The real tragedy of this story is that he is at his parents house. He is taking medication (maybe, when he feels like it). He is a vet, yet there isn’t a bed available to him. At least his parents had the money to bail him out – think of the numbers of people in the jail under these same conditions, “experiencing quite a decomposition mentally when in jail”. Yet in September 2014 when Universal Health wanted to build a 63 bed psychiatric hospital in Flagler, Halifax Health didn’t want them to take away from their money. There is something so, so wrong with the system. Good wishes to him & his family & hopefully nothing goes wrong before they can get him in a facility for real help.
Anonymous says
Just because someone served in the military doesn’t mean they didn’t have serious problems even before they entered service. How many times have we heard parents urging their out of control kids to “join the army” like it’s some kind of treatment program…or solution to a underlying and long-standing issue? Yeah, the service will whip him into ship and teach him discipline! Let’s send them off to kill OTHER people.
A.J. says
What about the mother and the children. I’m glad the mother did not die. White men get away with all wrong. I hope his parents know what they are doing. What about the grand children and their daughter in law. Did society forget about his wife, he shot her. Is anyone taking care of her. I know this happened a few years ago but he gets away with attempted murder. Being a white man doesn’t mean you do wrong and get away with a slap on the wrist. What can be say to his children when Putney are old enough to understand.