Concerns include inability to meet with attorney
By Heather Ruenz
Editor
A man charged with attempted murder will undergo a competency evaluation because of concerns brought forth by his attorney at a preliminary hearing late last week.
Jason L. Grant, 27, of Madison, appeared in Walworth County Circuit Court Dec. 5. He is charged with attempted first-degree intentional homicide, strangulation and suffocation and false imprisonment, all as a repeater.
Public defender Travis Schwantes requested proceedings be delayed because of concerns about Grant’s competency.
Judge Phillip A. Koss and Assistant District Attorney Diane Donohoo asked Schwantes to provide additional information about the request.
Schwantes said he had reason to believe it might be difficult for Grant to assist counsel at trial and had concerns about Grant’s ability to understand his rights. Schwantes also referred to the criminal complaint.
Koss granted Schwantes’ request based on the information in the criminal complaint but in response to Schwantes’ subsequent request that Grant be evaluated as an inpatient, Koss said an expert would make that decision.
A status conference is expected in a couple of weeks but as of Monday, the date and time were not listed on the Wisconsin Circuit Court Access website.
Details of the case
Grant allegedly tried to kill a Whitewater woman he met on Facebook by beating and stabbing her at her apartment.
According to police and the criminal complaint, Whitewater police responded to the woman’s South Janesville Street apartment Nov. 18 after a neighbor reported hearing a domestic disturbance coming from the unit. When police arrived, they heard whimpering and crying from inside the apartment, according to the complaint. While knocking on the door, the door opened, and an officer saw a man inside the apartment, later identified as Grant, holding a large knife in his hand, according to the complaint. Grant dropped the knife when he saw the officer, according to the complaint.
The officer reported Grant’s socks, hands and arms were covered in blood. As Grant was being handcuffed, he said, “Put the mother—ing handcuffs on. I’m gone away for the rest of my life,” according to the complaint.
Grant later said, “They going to give me 100 years, man. It would have been a real murder in this mother—er in a minute. I’da got less time for a murder. I’m probably gonna get more time for a f—in’ attempt murder.”
Another officer found the woman in the bedroom of the apartment. The woman was lying facedown on the floor with blood covering her face and hands and a stab wound to the left side of her torso, according to the complaint. The officer saw a knife on the floor near the woman, and the woman said Grant had taken the knife from the kitchen and stabbed her with it.
The woman was taken to Fort Memorial Hospital in Fort Atkinson where she told police she’d met Grant on Facebook and invited him to stay at her residence, according to the complaint. On the night of Nov. 17, she said, Grant drank heavily and asked for the woman’s prescription medication, and that caused an argument. The woman said she called a friend to pick her up, and Grant came into the bedroom, closed the door and said, “You ain’t f—ing going nowhere,” according to the complaint.
The woman said Grant then pushed her into a wall, choked her and lifted her off the ground by her neck, according to the complaint. The woman said she believes she lost consciousness. She said Grant then hit her several times in the face and told her to “shut up” because she was screaming and crying, according to the complaint.
The woman said she felt trapped and couldn’t leave, but then Grant let her up and she went into the living room, according to the complaint. She said Grant then grabbed a knife and said, “F— this. I have to finish you off.”
The woman said she then ran to her bedroom and locked the door. She said Grant broke open the door and said, “Bitch, you’re going to die,” according to the complaint. The woman said she told Grant, “Don’t, I have kids,” and Grant then stabbed her in the left side with the knife, according to the complaint. She said Grant then dropped the knife, flipped her over the bed, struck her in the head with a piece of bed frame and again tried to stab her, according to the complaint.
At that point, the woman said she was able to get her hands on the knife and struggled with Grant for the knife. She said Grant got the knife to her throat, and then they heard someone knock at the door that turned out to be Whitewater police, according to the complaint.
An officer saw a deep cut to the woman’s hand between her thumb and pointer finger and a small cut on her pinky finger. The woman had a stab wound to her left side, a stab wound below her right shoulder and a smaller wound to her right shoulder, according to the complaint. Both her eyes were black and blue and her face was swollen.
Grant is charged as a repeater, having been convicted of possession with intent to deliver heroin in Dane County in 2011. The felony conviction adds up to four years prison time to each of the charges he faces in this case, if convicted.
