(Tribune News Service) — The case against a man accused of strangling his 80-year-old grandfather to death in his Frederickson, Wash., home has been dismissed because the defendant has been found mentally incompetent.

Antonio Ray Perez, 30, was arrested and charged in April 2022 with unlawful imprisonment and first- and second-degree murder in the killing of his grandfather, Raymond Leroy Plattner. Charging documents said Perez spoke in a “satanic voice” to his mother after he killed Plattner the morning of April 12 and tried to tape up his mother.

Perez was ordered to have his mental health evaluated when he first appeared for arraignment, and he was sent to Western State Hospital for two 90-day terms and one six-month term of inpatient treatment. The efforts to restore his mental competency were unsuccessful, and Pierce County Superior Court Judge Grant Blinn dismissed the charges Jan. 5.

Blinn ordered Perez to undergo a civil commitment evaluation to be committed to a state psychiatric hospital operated by the Department of Social and Health Services. The dismissal without prejudice means prosecutors could refile charges if Perez is found competent at a later date.

Plattner was a Tacoma native who served in the U.S. Navy for 22 years, according to his obituary. After he retired from the military in 1979 as a command master chief, he spent another two decades working for Boeing. Plattner was buried in Tahoma National Cemetery east of Kent.

Psychological evaluations filed in Perez’s case show he has no history of receiving mental health treatment. He was initially diagnosed with unspecified schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorder when he was first interviewed by a psychologist at the County-City Building in downtown Tacoma. His most recent evaluation diagnosed him with delusional disorder, persecutory type.

The psychologist determined Perez had the capacity to understand the nature of the proceedings against him but more than likely lacked the ability to assist in his own defense.

“Mr. Perez is suffering from persistent and fixed paranoid and persecutory beliefs, which are significantly impairing his ability to effectively use logic and reason,” the evaluation stated.

Perez was born in Tacoma, and he told one evaluator that he had a difficult childhood with repeated instances of abuse. He also noted he was diagnosed with a congenital disease affecting the kidneys early in life, but he was skeptical of his diagnosis and stopped taking his medications for it. According to court filings, Perez reportedly dropped out in his junior year of high school but later earned his diploma and GED. He went on to work in construction.

At Pierce County Jail and in conversations with mental health professionals, Perez said he believed he was the target of a wide-ranging conspiracy for murder, and he reported that his thoughts and mind had been tracked by the government.

Perez’s first admittance to Western State Hospital was delayed by 252 days due to a lack of bed space, according to court records. DSHS was held in contempt of court due to the delays, and it was ordered to pay $300 per day to the registry of the court until Perez was admitted, totaling $75,600.

Psychologists wrote in their evaluations that they were not able to determine the origin of Perez’s psychological symptoms, but that according to his self-report and the timeline provided in police reports, he might have been experiencing them since at least 2020.

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