TIMES SQUARE — The home health care aide accused of fatally pushing a woman in front of a train in Times Square has been deemed unfit to stand trial, her attorney said.
Court doctors found that Melanie Liverpool-Turner, 30, “does not have the mental ability to communicate with her attorney or to assist in her defense,” lawyer Mathew Mari told DNAinfo New York Monday.
Liverpool-Turner, who has a history of mental health problems including schizophrenia, will be moved from Rikers Island to a facility upstate that provides mental health services if the Manhattan District Attorney’s office agrees with the doctors, Mari said.
“She knows that she’s in a courthouse, she knows she’s in jail… but that doesn’t mean she’s fit to stand trial,” he said. “Being fit to stand trial means that you have to have the ability to communicate, and she’s never had that ability.”
Since her arrest, she’s refused to talk about her case to Mari’s investigator, doctors or the Mari himself, he added.
Liverpool-Turner has been charged with second-degree murder in the death of Astoria resident Connie Watton, 49, whom she is accused of shoving in front of a southbound 1 train as it pulled into the station at 42nd Street and Seventh Avenue on Nov. 7.
She will likely remain at the facility upstate until she is found fit for trial, Mari added.
