By Bay City News Service
A Sonoma County Superior Court this afternoon authorized medication of a Sebastopol woman who was found mentally incompetent to stand trial for killing her mother at their Sebastopol area home in February.
Judge Jamie Thistlethwaite said 24-year-old Julia Franzen could involuntarily be given anti-psychotic medication if she refuses to voluntarily take the medication to restore her to competence.
A hearing will be held May 23 to determine where Franzen will be housed until her competence is restored. She could be sent to Napa State Hospital.
Dr. Christopher Wadsworth testified this afternoon that Franzen suffers from an unspecified severe psychotic illness. He said he expects the medications will improve her condition characterized by delusions and disorganized thoughts.
If untreated, she presents a threat to herself and others, Wadsworth said.
Franzen never entered a plea to killing her mother, Nancy Franzen, 59, in their Tocchini Street home on Feb. 4. Criminal proceedings were suspended pending the doctors' reports on her mental competence.
Nancy Franzen's body was found on the floor of a bedroom after Franzen showed up at a neighbor's house with a knife and blood on her hands, the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office said. Franzen told her neighbor she had just killed someone then ran back to her house, sheriff's Lt. Steve Brown said.
Court records show six cases since March 2011 involving domestic violence, battery, false imprisonment, vandalism and violations of probation by Julia Franzen. During that time she was found both mentally competent and incompetent, ordered to participate in an anger management program and allowed to have peaceful contact with her mother.
Nancy Franzen worked as a nurse at Palm Drive Hospital and at the Sutter VNA & Hospice, now known as Sutter Care at Home.
