PARIS — A Denmark woman charged with two counts of murder is delusional and not competent to stand trial, a psychologist testified Wednesday.

Tzara Jones of Denmark appears last year in Oxford County Superior Court in Paris by video conference from Oxford Country Jail on two murder charges. screeenshot from video

Andrew Wisch, a forensic psychologist who performs mental examinations for the Department of Health and Human Services to determine whether criminal defendants are able to assist in their defense and whether they were criminally responsible at the time a crime occurred, took the witness stand in Oxford County Superior Court after meeting twice with 54-year-old Tzara Jones.

She is charged with two counts of intentional or knowing murder and faces 25 years to life in prison on each charge.

Wisch said he met with Jones at Riverview Psychiatric Center in Augusta where he interviewed her and administered tests to gauge her competency.

“She was more adamant about some of those delusional ideas and those delusional ideas were very much intertwined with the case,” he said about his second examination of Jones.

“Just as an example, she was not concerned about the charge at all because she holds the delusional belief that she is God’s daughter, that God is going to take care of her and that, essentially, any engagement with the adjudication process is irrelevant because, as she put it, she believes she was going to Israel and not back to jail,” he said.

“I had more fleshed out information this time with respect to my concerns about both her reasoning skills and her ability to appreciate charges in her legal situation and her ability to assist counsel,” he said of the second meeting.

Wisch said he was unable to determine whether Jones had been criminally responsible for her actions at the time of the two homicides because she would need to be competent before he could interview her about those events.

He said Jones indicated she was hearing voices, but was not taking any medication and may never have taken any medication that might help her with her delusional condition.

Defense attorney Verne Paradie and Assistant Attorney General Lisa Bogue agreed that Jones should be transferred from Cumberland County Jail in Portland, from where she appeared by videoconference in court Wednesday, into the custody of the commissioner at the Department of Health and Human Services in an effort to restore Jones to competency.

Justice Maria Woodman agreed, finding that Jones was not competent to stand trial.

Jones is accused of killing Michael Willett, 69, and Aremean Mayo, 93, whose bodies were found at Jones’ home at 7 Fuller Lane in Denmark on Nov. 25, 2023.

Willett was described as Jones’ “domestic partner” and Jones had been Mayo’s caretaker, according to court records.

Jones had told authorities who were conducting welfare checks on the two victims that Willett was out of state hunting and that Mayo was at a hospital, police said.

Armed with a search warrant, state and county officers entered Jones’ home and found her in a bed near the kitchen, allegedly pretending to sleep and refusing to speak, according to court records.

Jones was taken to a hospital for a mental health evaluation “due to her erratic behavior,” court records said.

Willett was found in a bed in the home and Mayo was found partially in bed, her head and upper body off the bed.

Both victims had been stabbed in the chest and had been dead more than 24 hours, according to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

Authorities located a kitchen knife covered in red and brown stains in the area where Mayo’s body was found, according to court records.