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The Baltimore Sun
From Staff and Wire Reports
23 May 1991
PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY
Upper Marlboro – A woman accused of deliberately running down and killing a 10-year-old boy with her car has been found mentally fit to stand trial, but a judge has ordered further testing.
Kathlynn Ann Najera, 33, a dental hygienist from Bowie, was charged with first-degree murder after she allegedly plowed her car into the youngster on purpose May 12 in Upper Marlboro. Ms. Najera, who did not know the boy, allegedly told police that she ran him down as he rode his bicycle on the shoulder of U.S. 301 to “teach the world a lesson.”
The boy, Dewayne Hawkins, died of a head injury Friday and was buried Tuesday in Suitland.
Ms. Najera’s attorney said Tuesday that if her client is compelled to stand trial, she probably will raise an insanity defense, based on her client’s use of the drug Prozac. The drug is an anti-depressant that is the focus of a number of lawsuits.
At a hearing Tuesday, attorney Elvira White noted that the determination that Ms. Najera was mentally competent to stand trial had been made by a Maryland social worker, who interviewed her briefly at the Prince George’s jail. Ms. White asked for “a more thorough, full-scale, inpatient evaluation” of her client at a psychiatric hospital.
Ms. Najera has been charged with assault with intent to commit murder in the case of Richard J. Marek, a 47-year-old Upper Marlboro bicyclist struck from behind shortly before the Hawkins youngster was hit.