Amber Torrez, who has said she wants to plead guilty to the killings of a local educator and a taxi driver, was ordered Monday to undergo a psychiatric evaluation to determine if she was sane when the men were killed.
Psychiatrist Karen Fukutaki will perform the evaluation, ordered by Denver District Judge Christina Habas, who will then decide whether Torrez’s attorneys can – over her objections – enter a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity.
Habas already has found Torrez competent to stand trial in the March 28, 2004, death of John Hand, 55, founder of the alternative Colorado Free University, and the death of Masfin Gezahgn, 45, a cab driver from Ethiopia who was killed the next day.
Fukutaki testified last month that Torrez said she killed Hand because he had solicited her for prostitution and killed Gezahgn because he attempted to sexually assault her.
