A 70-year-old Indianapolis man who is facing a Level 1 felony in Brown County for child molesting has been found incompetent to stand trial at this time.
William Zimmerman was accused of molesting an 8-year-old girl at Brown County State Park in September 2015. He was arrested more than a year later.
The girl, her father and her mother identified Zimmerman in statements given to the Greenwood Police Department.
Zimmerman was scheduled to go to trial on June 10 this year, but the trial has been put off.
Prosecutor Ted Adams said last week that Zimmerman underwent a liver transplant in 2017 and nearly died afterward. He recovered, but on the eve of his jury trial scheduled for this past January, Zimmerman fell and had to be hospitalized. He suffered bleeding on the brain, Adams said.
In February, Zimmerman fell again.
“These falls have resulted in serious complications, and four experts rendered opinions that he would not be competent to stand trial,” Adams said.
The Division of Mental Health will provide services to him in an attempt to restore him to competency. If Zimmerman is determined to be able to understand the proceedings and assist in his defense, the case will go to trial, according to the order filed May 8.
If it is not probable that he will be able to understand the proceedings and assist in his defense, proceedings will begin to commit Zimmerman, the court order says.
The allegations first came to light when the girl’s sister told her aunt about the incident, and the aunt then told the girl’s mother, according to a probable-cause affidavit completed by Brown County Deputy Brian Shrader.
In an interview with police, the girl described waking up around midnight in Zimmerman’s camper and that he was molesting her.
After Zimmerman went to sleep, the girl said she ran out of the camper to a tent where her aunt, uncle and sister were sleeping. She did not tell them what had happened then because she was scared they would not believe her, the report said.
While talking to police, the girl also described another incident at Zimmerman’s Greenwood home, as well as times leading up to the first alleged incident when Zimmerman had shown increased interest in the girl, the report said.
Last August, Zimmerman’s lawyer filed a petition for a competency examination. A hearing took place Jan. 9 this year.
On Jan. 14, an order was issued determining Zimmerman competent to stand trial after three doctors — Dr. Don Oliver, Dr. Rebecca Mueller and Dr. George Park — examined him. But less than a month later, defense attorneys filed a petition to reconsider his competency.
At a hearing on May 7, Dr. Frederick Nolen and Dr. Olive testified after doing further evaluations of Zimmerman’s psychological state.
Nolen said that Zimmerman is not competent to stand trial because he has suffered two strokes, and his “short-term to long-term memory memory transfer” has deteriorated to the bottom 1 percent for his age group.
Nolen noted that Zimmerman has “significant slowness” when processing new information, and that Zimmerman has “no ability to abstractly reason.”
According to the report, Zimmerman’s chance of improvement are “extremely poor.”
In Olive’s report, he noted that Zimmerman understands the charges against him, the seriousness of the charges and the potential consequences if he is convicted. He wrote that Zimmerman is unable to seek advice from his lawyers and make reasonable decisions based on that advice.
“We hope to have our day in court, and I know the professionals at the Department of Mental Health will do their best to restore Mr. Zimmerman’s competency so that he may stand trial,” Adams said.
When Zimmerman was released on bail, he was required to wear an electronic monitoring device with GPS tracking as a condition of his bond. That is no longer a condition of his bond as of May 7. A no-contact order will remain in place.
“Obviously, this is a difficult turn of events for the prosecution and the young person involved in this matter,” Adams said.
“The consequences of these events are truly unprecedented; however, every person involved, including Mr. Zimmerman, deserves to have their day in court, and we hold on to hope that we will achieve that goal,” he said.
