Man accused of murdering girlfriend referred to mental health facility
An Indio man accused of using a knife to kill his girlfriend and setting fire to the Thermal mobile home she shared with her children was remanded to a state mental health facility today.
Christian Pacheco, 23, is accused in the death of 30-year-old Elilia Valdez, a mother of two whose body was found on March 18, 2017, in the area of 63700 Monroe St., about six hours after sheriff’s deputies found her mobile home ablaze.
No one was inside the mobile home, but “information obtained from witnesses indicated that a domestic violence incident may have occurred between an adult female resident and her boyfriend before the home was set on fire,” Riverside County Sheriff’s Sgt. Raymond Huskey said.
Pacheco was charged last year with murder, arson, assault and animal cruelty, but criminal proceedings have been suspended since last summer when his attorney, Christopher DeSalva, declared doubts as to the defendant’s mental competency.
Riverside County Superior Court Judge Otis Sterling ruled in March that Pacheco was incompetent to stand trial, meaning a defendant does not understand the nature of the criminal proceedings against him and cannot assist his attorney in his defense.
On Wednesday, Pacheco was remanded to the California Department of State Hospitals for a commitment not to exceed three years. The specific institution where he will be treated was not disclosed.
Pacheco is expected to remain committed to an institution until his competence can be considered “restored,” at which point criminal proceedings would be reinstated and Pacheco would be delivered back to a jail facility to continue his court case.
Two doctors testified during a two-day mental competency trial in March that Pacheco likely suffered from a mental disorder, though neither diagnosis was definitive.
Another issue was uncertainty over whether or not Pacheco may have been exaggerating the symptoms he displayed, also known as “malingering.”
Neither doctor testified to being able to determine whether or not Pacheco may have been exaggerating or faking, which Sterling said was problematic, as it was certainly possible to feign Pacheco’s symptoms, and there was a “high incentive” to fake or exaggerate a mental illness when someone is charged in a murder case. However, because the doctors did not definitively determine whether or not Pacheco was malingering, Sterling said he felt compelled to rely on their determinations.
“It would be easy for me to say `well, he’s just making it up,’ but I don’t have the benefit of these doctors’ expertise, their years of experience, their personal observations of being in the room at the time that they’re there,” Sterling said. “I have to give consideration to what their expertise is and the fact that they’ve been doing this and that they are the experts in this particular field.”
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