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Mentally ill killer committed to psychiatric hospital, possibly for life
By Ed Runyan
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 as long as the rest of his life, a judge has ruled.
Judge Andrew Logan of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court on Tuesday committed Honaker to Heartland Behavioral Healthcare Hospital in Massillon. He said 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. 10 after a trial lasting less than an hour. In the few months before the slaying, Honaker was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and had been hospitalized, the judge said in his Nov. 10 ruling.
Honaker stood calmly during Tuesday’s hearing, a departure from his demeanor Nov. 10, when he cried through much of the hearing.
Jude Logan said Honaker will return to court at 8:30 a.m. May 24, 2016, for his first commitment hearing. The hearings will determine whether his level of care can be adjusted based on how he is doing.
“It’s sad for everybody,” Honaker’s attorney, John Juhasz, said after Tuesday’s hearing. “He has an obvious mental illness. The family is broken apart. They lost Donna. Your heart goes out to everybody.”
Honaker could have gotten a life prison sentence if he had been convicted of his wife’s slaying, and Judge Logan has the authority to keep Honaker hospitalized for that same length of time as a result.
Donna Honaker, Royce Honaker’s wife of 40 years, had moved out of their home on Countyline Turnpike Road three months before her death 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. He also believed his wife was helping the FBI investigate him, Judge Logan 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.
In May 2013, Judge Logan ordered that Royce Honaker be taken to Heartland to restore his competency to stand trial. He returned to Trumbull County in August 2014.
“The defendant’s paranoia regarding his wife and the FBI has not abated since this incident,” the judge said Nov. 14. “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,” Judge Logan said. “He remains adamant that the FBI and his wife were plotting his murder.”
Honaker was evaluated by three mental-health experts, who all found that he suffered from mental illness. 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.