Vic Ryckaert

vic.ryckaert@indystar.com

The voices and delusions that haunt Michael Dean Overstreet's mind are what led a judge to spare him from a death sentence in the 1997 murder and rape of Franklin College student Kelly Eckart.

St. Joseph Superior Court Judge Jane Woodward Miller ruled Overstreet is not competent to be executed, in a 137-page decision released today.

Johnson County Prosecutor Brad Cooper, who was a deputy prosecutor on the team that won the conviction against Overstreet in 2000, issued a strongly worded reaction to The Star via a text message.

"I was angry and suspicious when this case was sent to a distant judge who is not accountable to the Johnson County citizenry or a grieving mother who couldn't even afford to drive up for the hearing," Cooper said.

"The idea that this convicted rapist murdering monster is too sick to be executed is nothing short of outrageous and is an injustice to the victim, her mother, the jury and the hundreds of people who worked to convict this animal."

The Indiana Supreme Court transferred Overstreet's case to the St. Joseph County court after Johnson Superior Court Judge Cynthia Emkes, who presided over Overstreet's trial, removed herself for health reasons.

Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller's office is reviewing the decision and has not yet decided whether to appeal.

"Our thoughts are with the family and friends of Kelly Eckart, who have endured many years of uncertainty in our criminal justice system," Zoeller said in a statement. "We respect the appeals process that includes procedural safeguards for the defendant and the difficult decisions our judges face in this area of the law, but our focus will continue to be on honoring the victims of all such crimes."

The ruling means Overstreet remains on death row, but cannot be executed unless his mental condition improves.

Miller heard evidence on the case during a four-day hearing in September in which mental health experts agreed he suffered from schizophrenia.

The state argued that his illness should not excuse him from his just punishment.

Miller's ruling laid out a detailed explanation as to why she sided with Overstreet's lawyers, who argued that he was delusional and has no "rational understanding" of why the state of Indiana plans to execute him.

"Overstreet spends at least twenty hours a day by himself," Miller wrote. "He lives in a world where voices tell him what to do and criticize him when they feel he has erred. Shadow people populate his world with such frequency that they no longer bother him; he views them, instead, like mice."

Defense attorney Steven Schutte said attorneys set up a prison phone call and spoke with Overstreet this morning to explain the ruling.

"He was confused," Schutte said. "He doesn't know what the decision means."

Overstreet, according to psychiatrist Dr. Rahn Bailey, who testified in September, believes that he is in a kind of coma, which Overstreet describes and "being already dead" and "like he is up in the air, looking down" on himself.

Overstreet, experts testified, believes that execution and death would have no real effect on him.

"He believes he's already dead," Schutte said. "That's the delusion."

Overstreet was sentenced to death for the 1997 murder and rape of Kelly Eckart, 18.

Eckart, a Franklin College student, was driving to her Boggstown home after a shift at the Franklin Walmart when prosecutors say Overstreet bumped his van into her vehicle and abducted her on a country road. DNA and other evidence linked Overstreet to the killing.

"I still believe in the judicial system," said Connie Sutton, Eckart's mother. "He is going to spend the rest of his life on death row.

"Maybe, just maybe, with this illness that he has, he's gonna suffer more than if he was put to death."

Call IndyStar reporter Vic Ryckaert at 317-444-2701. Follow him on Twitter: @VicRyc.