BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) - A Federal Bureau of Prisons medical center in Texas has been given more time to examine the mental health of a woman who told authorities she left her 2- and 4-year-old daughters to die in an unheated car during a frigid winter day in North Dakota.
Warden Jody Upton at the Federal Medical Center Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, asked U.S. District Judge Dan Hovland to give a forensic psychologist 45 days rather than 30 to examine Michelle Wounded Face.
“Additional time is required to conduct a thorough, adequate and comprehensive evaluation in order to determine the existence of insanity at the time of the offense,” Upton said.
Hovland, who ordered the exam last month, said “good cause has been demonstrated” and ordered the medical center to complete the evaluation no later than April 17 and submit a written report within two weeks of completion. The report will help determine whether Wounded Face is mentally competent to stand trial.
Wounded Face, 24, is a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe in South Dakota who has been living on the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota. She is accused of abandoning her daughters in a car for more than three hours on Jan. 3, in bitter cold. They survived.
Wounded Face acknowledged during an interview that she had left the children in the car to die, FBI Special Agent Megan Bennett said in an affidavit.
Both the prosecution and defense say Wounded Face has exhibited odd behavior, including drinking toilet water and claiming to be the daughter of gods. She plans to rely on an insanity defense, according to Assistant Federal Public Defender Ryan Costello.
He earlier asked the court to release Wounded Face from custody so she could pursue an evaluation and treatment at the State Hospital in Jamestown, but hospital officials refused to accept her. Officials declined to say why, telling The Associated Press that they can’t comment on individual cases.
Wounded Face faces two counts of child abuse and neglect that each carry a maximum punishment of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
The Carswell facility is where women in the federal prison system are sent for medical and psychiatric needs.
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