More therapy suggested for slaying suspect

A man who went to a state mental hospital instead of facing trial in the 2001 slayings of four people in Des Moines still isn't mentally fit to stand trial, but doctors also found that additional treatment could help.

Western State Hospital staff members believe there are "additional treatment alternatives" that could help Leemah Carneh, 26, become competent so that he could finally stand trial for four counts of aggravated murder, Deputy Prosecutor Roger Davidheiser told a King County judge Wednesday.

The doctors recommended that Carneh spend three more months at the state mental hospital for those efforts.

But Carneh's attorney, Louis Frantz, said it's not clear whether a judge can send Carneh back for another attempt to make him mentally fit to stand trial because such efforts have repeatedly failed.

Superior Court Judge Palmer Robinson is giving attorneys a chance to look into the legal issues surrounding the unusual case. A new hearing was tentatively set for Feb. 15.

Carneh has been at Western State since October 2005, when a judge found that he was still too mentally ill to face the charges and dismissed them.

But King County prosecutors filed the charges again in November, after learning Carneh had made some improvement and could soon be allowed to walk the hospital grounds alone -- or venture off them.

Carneh alternately had been found competent and incompetent since his arrest in 2001, holding delusions about his parents, his birth and his race. He apparently believed that he has supernatural powers.

He is accused of beating and stabbing Josie Peterson, 17, and shooting her boyfriend, Taelor Marks, 17, and his grandparents, Richard Larson, 63, and Jane Larson, 64. All were found dead March 9, 2001, in the Larsons' home.

Prosecutors contend Carneh was obsessed with Peterson, an Evergreen High School cheerleader who apparently shrugged off his interest.