Published: January 29, 2007 08:42 am      

LeGrande execution further delayed

Sunday, January 28, 2007 — Psychiatrists evaluating Guy Tobias LeGrande, the man sentenced to death for murdering a local woman, have been allowed more time to determine if he is mentally stable enough to be put to death.

State officials announced in October that LeGrande was scheduled for execution Dec. 1, 2006, for the 1993 murder of 26-year-old mother of two, Ellen Munford.

However, the morning of Monday Nov. 27, in Stanly County Superior Court, Judge Robert Bell granted the death row inmate a stay of execution.

The stay was granted to give psychiatrists at Dorthea Dix Hospital in Raleigh time to evaluate LeGrande’s mental state.

Bell asked doctors to report their progress and findings to him 45 days after LeGrande was admitted for the 60 day evaluation period.

Several days ago, just a week before, the first evaluation was to be completed, Bell filed a court order to amend his previous time limit on the evaluation.

With the stay extended, doctors must now present their completed mental evaluation reports on LeGrande in about a month, by March 5.

A defense motion lodged by one of LeGrande’s attorneys, Jay Ferguson, led to the Nov. 27 special hearing.

LeGrande’s erratic behavior while wearing a Superman T-shirt, and incoherent ramblings in court set a tone for legal analysis regarding his competency to represent himself and now, to face the death penalty.

During the November hearing a forensic psychiatrist testified for the prosecution in November, that he viewed LeGrande as being competent to be executed but also testified he’d diagnosed LaGrande with a mental disorder.

In his written report he stated that not only he, but another doctor viewed LeGrande “as exhibiting hypomanic behaviors,” and was “diagnosed with a Mixed Personality Disorder with Grandiose, Narcissistic, and Hypomanic Traits.”

As a result of the legal maneuvering and at the judge’s discretion , LeGrande, 47, continues to be the subject of mental evaluation in Raleigh where he awaits execution or clemency for the first degree murder comitted 13 years ago.

The victim of the crime, Ellen Munford, suffered two close range and fatal shotgun blasts to the back right shoulder more than a decade ago, according to police reports.

Lagrande was taken into custody in January 1995 but was found not to be alone in the murder conspiracy.

Munford’s estranged husband, Howard Thomas ‘Tommy’ Munford, Jr. was a conspirator and is now serving a life sentence in prison.

That conviction was handed down in 1996 after investigators discovered the murder-for-hire plot.

Although Munford Jr. drove to Myrtle Beach S.C. before the homicide, he was found guilty of both solicitation to commit murder and second degree murder.

Blackmail letters LeGrande wrote Munford Jr. demanding $10,000 for the crime linked the two men, who met while working together at Jay’s Downtowner, an Albemarle seafood restaurant.

Munford Jr. apparently planned to collect $50,000 in insurance money for Ellen’s death.

His involvement in the conspiracy also warranted the death penalty in Hinson’s eyes.

In July 1993, the day Ellen was killed, she was home at 40379 Tower Rd. where she and her then boyfriend, David Swaringen, lived.

Swaringen arrived to discover her body inside the house and called the Stanly County Sheriff’s Office.

Jay Almond may be contacted at snaponline21@yahoo.com.