Belmont student’s murder was 2nd in city committed by person deemed incompetent to stand trial

By Jeremy Finley

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    NASHVILLE, Tennessee (WSMV) — When Belmont student Jillian Ludwig was shot and killed by a man who had been released after being found incompetent to stand trial, Katherine Morrison could only shake her head.

Morrison does not know Ludwig or her accused murderer Shaquille Taylor, but the circumstances of the college student’s death were tragically familiar to the Bordeaux grandmother.

Roughly a year before Ludwig was murdered, Morrison’s 49-year-old son, Quintin Mason, was stabbed to death in downtown Nashville by a woman who had also been found incompetent to stand trial.

“(Ludwig’s murder) messed me up. That messed me up. I said, ‘Here we go again,” Morrison said.

Before Ludwig’s murder, a WSMV4 Investigation found hundreds of criminals in the city were deemed to be incompetent to stand trial. Because district attorneys are forbidden from prosecuting those found to be incompetent, the only option is to drop the charges and release them back out into the public.

On Dec 18, 2022, police say Judy Dozier stabbed Mason following a dispute over a phone.

After his death, Mason’s family would learn that Dozier had twice been charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and had been repeatedly evaluated by mental health experts.

According to a competency re-evaluation letter, on Feb. 25, 2022, the Vanderbilt Forensic Evaluation Team was asked to review Dozier’s competency to stand trial.

The letter states that Dozier was evaluated on March 8, 2022, and it was recommended that Dozier be hospitalized at Middle Tennessee Mental Health Institute.

At the end of the evaluation period at MTMHI, the MTMHI staff found Dozier was not competent to stand trial and met the standards for judicial commitment.

The letter goes on to state that Dozier was readmitted to MTMHI on August 1, and a letter from MTMHI on August 23 stated that Dozier was competent to proceed.

On August 30, the Vanderbilt Forensic Team received an order from the court to “evaluate Ms. Dozier’s competency to stand trial.”

It is unclear why Vanderbilt was asked to re-evaluate Dozier’s competency, and both the district attorney’s office and Vanderbilt’s Forensic Evaluation Team said they could not comment on the pending matter.

According to the competency letter, Vanderbilt’s team found that while Dozier had remained compliant with psychiatric medications since her return from MTMHI, she continued to have psychiatric symptoms, including delusional beliefs.

The Vanderbilt team found Dozier was not competent to stand trial, and was ultimately released.

Four months later, police said Dozier would stab Quintin Mason to death.

“Always kept thinking, how did she get out? Why was she released?” Morrison told WSMV4 Investigates.

But Morrison also has sympathy for the woman charged with killing her son, because Quintin also struggled with mental health issues.

Morrison said her son was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and also ended up at MTMHI for a competency evaluation after he led police on a chase during a mental health episode.

“It still hurts, and yes, there’s anger,” Morrison said. “But at the same time, I can sympathize with her being sick.”

Morrison said the court system must come up with a better way to handle the mentally ill who is often charged with crimes.

A bill has been introduced by Rep. William Lamberth, R-Portland, that would require criminal defendants found incompetent to stand trial to be committed to an “appropriate treatment facility.”

During our original reporting on the crisis, District Attorney Glenn Funk told WSMV4 Investigates that a lack of funding for what’s referred to as “training” for incompetent people accused of misdemeanor crimes.

That training, which would include a mental evaluation at a state hospital and potentially medication, explains the trial process and the accused criminal’s role in the crime.

The funding for this training falls to cities, and Funk said it’s simply too expensive for local municipalities to afford the expense.

As of now, Lamberth’s bill does not have a fiscal note, so it’s unclear how much money it could cost taxpayers.

Morrison said that given that two people have already died, some kind of action must be taken.

While he struggled with mental illness, she said her son was a talented musician, playing multiple instruments, and only truly wanted to make people smile.

“The music brought the peace. And it kept him grounded,” Morrison said. “That was my son.”

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