Judge: Honaker must spend the rest of his life in a state mental hospital

WARREN — Royce Honaker, 63, who killed his wife, Donna on July 31, 2012, at their Southington Township home, is a mentally ill person who must be committed to a state mental hospital for the rest of his life, a judge has ruled.

Judge Andrew Logan of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court committed Honaker to Heartland Behavioral Healthcare Hospital in Massillon. Honaker will be evaluated in six months and then every two years to determine what level of care he should receive.

Judge Logan found Honaker not guilty by reason of insanity Nov. 14 after a trial lasting less than an hour.

In the few months before the murder, Honaker was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and had been hospitalized, the judge said in his Nov. 11 ruling.