Mental Evaluation Set For Couple Accused Of Killing Baby

INDIO -A judge appointed two psychologists today to evaluate the mental state of a couple accused of killing their infant daughter near Desert Hot Springs and traveling around the country with the corpse before leaving it in a camper in Arkansas.

Jason Michael Hann, 34, and Krissy Lynn Werntz, 29, were indicted by a grand jury in September on a murder charge for the February 2001 death of their months-old daughter, Montana, in their trailer.

Hann also faces a special circumstance allegation of a previous murder conviction, which makes him eligible for the death penalty if found guilty.

Prosecutors will decide later whether to seek capital punishment for Hann.

Werntz, who is out of custody, and Hann appeared in court today for the first time together. Hann was extradited to Riverside County in November from Kentucky, where he was serving a sentence for the death of his first child.

Werntz is living in Indiana and traveled to California to appear for the hearing.

Riverside County Superior Court Judge Thomas N. Douglass appointed the psychologists after the defendants’ attorneys asked for Hann and Werntz to be evaluated.

Douglass asked for a copy of the report on the findings before a Jan. 13 trial-readiness conference. The judge allowed Werntz to remain released on her own recognizance.

Montana was born in Arizona in December 2000, and the family moved to a trailer park near Desert Hot Springs about a month later, according to a declaration in support of an arrest warrant prepared by Riverside County sheriff’s Investigator Gary LeClair.

Werntz told LeClair that on Feb. 10, 2001, she had gone to work and Hann had stayed home in their motor home with Montana.

Werntz said when she returned home, she picked up the infant from a bed in the bathtub, but the baby was dead, according to LeClair.

Hann told a Maine detective in 2002 that he had lost his temper and hit the baby on the side of the head with his hand, and she died later that day, LeClair wrote.

Hann decided to keep his daughter in a trash bag so they could keep her with them, according to LeClair, adding that the couple left California two months later to travel around the nation.

The couple left their daughter’s corpse in a trailer at a storage facility in Wynne, Ark., but when they didn’t make the rental payments, property managers seized the unit and put the contents up for sale, according to LeClair.

A man later bought the trailer from the unit and while cleaning it out, found the infant’s decomposed body. The infant’s injuries included skull and leg fractures.

The couple was arrested in April 2002 by Maine authorities at a Motel 6, according to court documents. They were sent to Arkansas in June 2002 to stand trial for the death of their daughter, but a judge there ordered the case to be turned over to California authorities because the death occurred in Riverside County, LeClair wrote.

Hann is being held at the Indio Jail without bail.