University Place man was accused of murdering his wife. Here’s why charges were dropped
An 81-year-old University Place man accused of bludgeoning his wife to death is no longer facing murder charges after a judge found him incompetent to stand trial following a years-long legal battle over his mental fitness.
James Edward Flora was charged with first-degree murder in August 2020 after he walked into Tacoma General Hospital on Aug. 3 and asked for someone to check on his wife, Ella Flora, because he’d choked her, according to court records. When Pierce County Sheriff’s Department deputies went to their home, they found Flora’s wife dead against a back wall.
The county medical examiner found that Ella Joyce Flora, 74, died of blunt-force injury. A bloody hammer was found in the living room, and the defendant told investigators he’d hit his wife with it repeatedly because he believed she’d been unfaithful to him for years. According to court filings, Flora also accused his wife of practicing “witchcraft” on him and trying to poison him, but defense attorneys said he had no evidence to support his claims.
Superior Court Judge Grant Blinn dismissed the murder charge Nov. 3 because Flora lacked the capacity to understand the nature of the court proceedings or assist in his own defense due to a mental disease or defect, records state. At least four psychologists previously found that he had an unspecified neurocognitive disorder that was possibly dementia.
Flora was ordered to undergo a civil commitment evaluation to be committed to a state psychiatric hospital operated by the Department of Social and Health Services.
One of Ella Flora’s daughters, Patrice Flora-Powell, told The News Tribune her mother was a selfless, funny and honest woman. Ella was a role model to her, she said, instilling in her and Ella’s grandchildren a sense that they could do anything they set their minds to.
Ella Flora was born in Texas and married James in Portland, Oregon, where Flora-Powell, her younger sister, Dionne Flora, and Flora-Powell’s own children grew up. Ella Flora worked in banking, and her daughter said she worked her way up from being a teller at Wells Fargo to eventually becoming an investigator in employee relations for KeyBank after moving to Tacoma in 1998.
Flora-Powell, 59, recalled that her mother loved to spend time with her coworkers, at happy hours and even after she retired in 2015.
“She still had a monthly date with all of her coworkers, that they could get together because they said they need to just listen to Ella so they could just laugh for the day,” Flora-Powell said. “They said it’s not the same at KeyBank without her crazy personality.”
Ella Flora was also known for her cooking, and Flora-Powell said she’s still trying to get her mother’s cornbread dressing and sweet potato pies right. As she and her mother got older, the two still found time to sit together on porches and patios to talk and laugh.
“Just talking and talking about everything under the sun and beyond,” Flora-Powell said. “So she was truly like a best friend, you know, that we just will never get again.”
Her mother’s death was a shock to her, she said. Her parents were married for more than a half-century, and she grew up with them having a good relationship. She remembers her father as the man who took her to the library as a child and drove her cross-country to college. She said the last three years have been a roller coaster of grief, anger, hopelessness and sadness.
The outcome of the case left her feeling “torn,” Flora-Powell said.
“Part of me says I want somebody to pay because I didn’t want my mother to die in vain,” she said. “But then I also have the side of me that I understand why they had to release him, you know, because he’s so sick, and his health is failing.”
Flora was first found incompetent to stand trial about two months after he was arrested for killing his wife. A judge ordered him to undergo two 90-day stays at Western State Hospital to see if treatment would improve his mental competency, the first of which was delayed by more than three months until February 2021 due to a lack of bed space.
Further psychological testing continued to find Flora mentally incompetent. His attorneys from the Department of Assigned Counsel wrote in a court filing that four doctors made that conclusion, and they also considered further treatment to likely be unsuccessful because he had suffered “permanent and irreversible brain damage.”
Prosecutors sought a jury trial to determine Flora’s competency, and in May 2022, after a month-long trial, jurors unanimously found he had the ability to stand trial on his murder charges.
Flora’s attorneys said four doctors testified their client wasn’t competent, but it appeared to them that jurors relied on the opinion of a single doctor who said it might be possible Flora was feigning incompetence to escape the consequences of his actions.
Prosecutors’ evidence included the testimony of Christopher Graver, a neurologist who evaluated Flora and reviewed the records, testing and interpretations of psychologists on staff at Western State Hospital, according to the Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office spokesperson, Adam Faber. In an email, Faber said prosecutors also presented the defendant’s video-recorded interview with detectives and recordings of his phone calls from jail.
After a Washington appellate court declined to hear the defendant’s appeal of the competency verdict, Flora’s attorneys sought another competency evaluation which again found him mentally unequipped to stand trial. In a motion to dismiss the case, the attorneys said it was “cruel” to continue to incarcerate Flora rather than get him the inpatient care he needed.
Sarah Tofflemire, one of Flora’s attorneys, said Tuesday that recently while her client was held at the Pierce County Jail, his medical condition seriously deteriorated, and his cognitive ability became worse.
Prosecutors said he was transported to a local hospital the week of Oct. 30 and then was taken back to jail.
“Given the new opinion that he was not competent, we decided to dismiss the case without prejudice and refer him back to WSH for civil commitment,” Faber said.
The Prosecuting Attorney’s Office spokesperson said if Flora is ever considered for release from Western State Hospital, prosecutors could re-evaluate his competency and re-file charges if appropriate.
