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Boardman man scheduled for mental incompetency hearing
By Bruce Walton
BOARDMAN
A competency hearing is to be scheduled for a Lemont Drive man facing charges after police discovered his mother’s body, which had been decaying for a little more than a week, in the house they shared.
Philip Bergman’s appointed attorney, John Laczko, told Judge Joseph M. Houser of Mahoning County Area Court at a Tuesday hearing his client would plead not guilty by reason of insanity. Bergman did not speak at the hearing.
Judge Houser ordered a mental competency evaluation to be scheduled for Bergman.
“He has a history of mental-health treatment, which throws up some red flags as far as whether he understands the legal process or whether he may have even understood what he was doing at the time of the commission of the alleged offense,” Lackzo said of Bergman.
Boardman Detective Jerry Kamensky agreed Bergman could be mentally incompetent based on his observations in the investigation. He added that in his interview with Bergman after the arrest, Bergman told the detective he was admitted to St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital for his mental-health issues in the past as well as having a history of taking medication.
Bergman, 45, faces charges of failure to report a death and abuse of a corpse after police discovered Jacqueline Bergman’s body May 3 in the garage of her home, after a concerned neighbor called police after not seeing the 85-year-old for a few weeks.
The body had been decomposing for a little more than a week, said Dr. Joseph Ohr, Mahoning County deputy coroner and forensic pathologist. Philip Bergman was living in the house, according to the police report, and officers arrested him when he returned to the house that evening.
Dr. Ohr also reported May 6 the autopsy revealed Jacqueline Bergman had a broken leg, followed by the shock, pain and blood loss that contributed to her death.