Court not sure if fatal crash driver can stand trial

FREMONT – The court still is trying to determine whether a man who caused a crash that killed an elderly couple on Thanksgiving 2013 on the Ohio Turnpike is competent to stand trial.

Andrew Gans, 25, is being treated at the Northwest Ohio Psychiatric Hospital in Toledo for an unspecified mental illness.

He faces four felony counts of aggravated vehicular homicide, and two of the charges have specifications that Gans was under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

Gans told state troopers at the scene he was on prescription drugs and had been drinking, but blood tests show he had neither drugs nor alcohol in his system.

He had a pre-trial in the case Thursday in Sandusky County Common Pleas Court.

He is charged with driving at more than 125 mph in the westbound lanes of the turnpike near Fremont, causing the crash that killed Wilbur and Margaret McCoy, both 77.

In March, Judge John Dewey ruled Gans was not competent to stand trial. The law allows a year for a defendant to become competent, and the deadline is Feb. 28, Sandusky County Prosecutor Tom Stierwalt said.

If Gans is not competent by then, the prosecutor's office could attempt to have him civilly committed to a psychiatric facility, Stierwalt said.

"It would probably be the end of any criminal charges against him," he said.

Last summer, Dewey ordered Gans to take his medication after the psychiatric hospital reported he was refusing to take his prescriptions.

Gans' attorney, Terry Rudes of Port Clinton, has said Gans has a history of mental illness and had not been given a specific diagnosis of his condition. Rudes was not available for comment Thursday.

mksmith@gannett.com

419-334-1044

Twitter: @kristinasmithNM