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Trumbull judge rules Royce Honaker not guilty by reason of insanity
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Royce Honaker, 63, was found not guilty by reason of insanity Tuesday in the July 31, 2012, killing of his wife, Donna, at their Southington home.
Honaker listened to the judge’s ruling in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court with his attorneys, looking fearful and emotional in much the same way he did when he first was charged.
Honaker was evaluated by three mental-health experts, who all found that he suffered from mental illness, Judge Andrew Logan said in his ruling.
Though the experts did not agree as to whether Honaker knew the wrongfulness of his actions, Judge Logan ruled that “by a preponderance of the evidence,” Honaker did not know the wrongfulness of what he did.
A fourth evaluation will be conducted in the coming weeks to determine whether Honaker is a “mentally ill person subject to further court order,” the judge said.
Judge Logan will have a hearing at 11 a.m. Nov. 24 to rule on whether Honaker remains under court jurisdiction. Chris Becker, assistant Trumbull County prosecutor, said he believes Judge Logan will rule that way and will determine that Honaker must remain under the court’s jurisdiction for the rest of his life.
If so, Honaker will be evaluated again in six months and then every two years to help the court determine what level of care he should get, Becker said.
In his judgment entry, which Judge Logan read aloud, he said the Honakers had been married more than 40 years but had been estranged in the months leading up to the killing.
Donna Honaker had moved out of their home on Countyline Turnpike Road three months earlier but continued to bring food to her husband nearly every day. This was the reason she was at the house the day she was killed, the judge said.
Royce Honaker retired from Ford in 2006 after 33 years, the judge said. He left his job because he believed he was under investigation by the FBI for running lottery numbers, and his wife was helping the FBI investigate him, the judge said.
“He believed the FBI and his wife had conspired to poison him,” the judge said.
Donna Honaker’s cause of death was multiple gunshot wounds to the head and abdomen, but she also had been stabbed, the judge said. After killing her, he called 911 and advised he had done it. He also told the first deputy to arrive the same thing.
“The defendant’s paranoia regarding his wife and the FBI has not abated since this incident,” the judge said. “Throughout his treatment at Heartland Behavioral Healthcare, the defendant explained repeatedly that the FBI had his home under surveillance at the time of the offense,” he said. “He remains adamant that the FBI and his wife were plotting his murder.”
In the few months before the murder, Honaker was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and had been hospitalized, the judge said.
Among the three mental-health evaluations, Dr. Daniel Hackman said Honaker knew the wrongfulness of his actions, Dr. John Fabian said both that Honaker “understood and did not understand” the wrongfulness of his actions, and Dr. Thomas Gazley said Honaker did not know the wrongfulness of his acts.
Honaker remains detained until the Nov. 24 hearing.
Becker said it’s clear that Honaker was not faking mental illness. “It was pretty clear at the beginning he was not a stable person,” Becker said.