A mental competency evaluation was ordered today for
a man accused of fatally stabbing the 3-year-old daughter of two of his co-
workers at a downtown Los Angeles garment factory on Halloween and attacking a
woman at another factory nearly eight months earlier.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mark Hanasono ordered criminal
proceedings suspended against Ricardo Augusto Utuy, 34, after Deputy Public
Defender Kevin McGurk asked him to declare a doubt about Utuy’s competence to
stand trial.
Utuy is charged with murder for the Oct. 31 attack on Ruby Vasquez,
along with the attempted murder of a woman who was stabbed at another downtown
Los Angeles factory on March 10.
Utuy allegedly attacked the girl after her parents brought her to work
at a factory in the 800 block of McGarry Street, near Eighth and Alameda
streets.
The girl’s mother saw her daughter, who had gone to give her father a
cookie, running toward her with Utuy close behind, according to prosecutors.
Utuy allegedly stabbed the girl multiple times with a knife. She was
driven from the scene in a private vehicle, which was met by an ambulance that
took her to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
Utuy, a Guatemalan national, later surrendered at the LAPD’s Rampart
Station and has remained in jail since then.
After seeing Utuy’s photo in news reports, the other alleged victim came
forward, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
LAPD Detective Supervisor Moses Castillo, who works in the Juvenile
Division’s Abused Child Section, called the March 10 attack “very similar” to
the attack on the girl, saying that the child’s family is “devastated” by
what happened.
“Obviously this is a case that has really touched all of our hearts,”
Castillo said.
