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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Thursday, May 28, 2009

Higa mental fitness hearing postponed


By Jim Dooley
Advertiser Staff Writer

Hawaii news photo - The Honolulu Advertiser
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A hearing on the mental fitness of accused child killer Matthew Higa was postponed yesterday to June 24.

Higa is accused of murdering toddler Cyrus Belt in January 2008 by dropping the 23-month-old boy from an H-1 Freeway overpass near Punchbowl into onrushing traffic.

Prosecutor Peter Carlisle, anticipating a defense that Higa's actions were caused by long-term drug use, filed a legal memo listing evidence it intends to introduce to refute that defense.

The evidence will show the extent that Higa had control over decisions to use drugs "and his knowledge of the effect drugs have on him," Carlisle's memo said.

The list begins with a July 25, 2006, incident, when police went to Higa's home and found him in his bedroom "with drug paraphernalia and crystal methamphetamine nearby," the memo said.

Later incidents included two 2007 visits to The Queen's Medical Center, including one in December 2007 which resulted in a diagnosis that Higa had a "meth-induced psychotic disorder."

"On the morning of Cyrus' death, Higa took him to the bottom of the street and let him wander into the street while he sat on a wall and watched," the prosecutor's memo said.

After a police officer retrieved the child and returned him to the Punchbowl apartment of his mother, Nancy Chanco, Higa was then "confronted and accused" by Chanco's boy-friend, the memo said.

Higa and his father lived in the same apartment building as Cyrus and his mother.

"Following Cyrus' death, Higa displayed bizarre behavior while at HPD cellblock and was taken to Queen's Medical Center for an evaluation," the memo continued.

While in prison awaiting trial, Higa "was seen with his head in the toilet, saying he was drinking his own urine for Jesus," memo said. Higa has denied that conduct.

Higa's father reported that the defendant "smokes ice, talks to himself" and was "talking to himself more" in the days just before Cyrus was killed, according to Carlisle.

Higa "won't go to rehab" and smokes ice "every day or two to three times a week," the memo quoted Higa's father as saying.

"Several times, Higa tried to buy drugs from Nancy (Cyrus' mother) but she would take his money and never come back with drugs," the memo said.

Higa "would sneak up on Cyrus' mother and scare her. She would slam the door in his face," the memo said.

Circuit Judge Dexter Del Rosario will rule on the question of whether Higa is mentally fit to stand trial.

Two of three court-appointed mental health experts who examined Higa last year found him mentally competent for trial.