ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, May 22, 1996 TAG: 9605220074
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: TYLER, TEXAS
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
A Tyler man charged with capital murder after his mother's strangulation is being investigated in connection with the deaths of 12 elderly women in Richmond, Va., where he once lived.
Authorities have not named Karl A. Smetana as a suspect in the Richmond slayings, but the police departments and the FBI are following up all leads, Richmond City Manager Robert C. Bobb told the Tyler Morning Telegraph.
Smetana, 26, was arrested Saturday in connection with the Friday death of his mother, 50-year-old Margaret Hewes Lout. At his arraignment Tuesday, prosecutors requested that he be examined for competency after he, according to authorities, told police he strangled his mother to exorcise the demons from her body.
Smetana complained to state District Judge Cynthia Kent he has been in a ``daze'' the past two days and did not know what he was doing when he was being interviewed.
``I've been through a real traumatizing experience. Everything was confused in my mind. I did not know what I was doing, so I just did it,'' he told the court.
The judge instructed the suspect to discuss the matter with Tyler attorney Bill Wright, who was appointed to represent him. The judge also informed the suspect of his rights and ordered that his bond remain at $1 million.
Lout's body was found by another son in her northwest Tyler home Friday after she failed to show up to teach her math classes at Boulter Middle School, police said.
Police said that before moving in with his mother two years ago, Smetana lived in Richmond, where six elderly women were strangled and six stabbed to death beginning in the early 1990s. All the women lived alone, according to published reports in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Tyler police investigators said officers in Richmond contacted them Tuesday and requested information on Smetana.
Smetana was arrested Saturday in Wood County after the vehicle he was driving - his mother's - ran out of gas.
``We are cooperating with Richmond police,'' said Tyler Public Information Sgt. Terry Morrow. ``If they need any information about our case, we will give it to them.''
LENGTH: Medium: 53 lines KEYWORDS: FATALITYby CNB