Woman found fit to stand trial in shooting at Value Village

A woman has been charged in connection with a shooting in the Value Village parking lot in November after Eastern State Hospital declared she was fit to stand trial only months after telling a judge that she wasn’t competent.

A first-degree assault charge filed against Karen R. Eide was dropped in February after Dr. William Grant at Eastern said she was “delusional” and “not restorable to competency,” according to court documents. Eide was sent to Eastern to be committed but Eastern recently decided she is now competent to stand trial, said deputy prosecuting attorney Sharon Hedlund.

Grant wrote that Eide had a “well-developed, organized delusion” that the man she shot in the Value Village parking lot was stalking her, but he told police that she had been stalking him. Eide is a felon with convictions in Washington, Oregon and Alaska and is not allowed to possess a gun.

Eide told Grant that she met the victim at the Gypsy Jokers Motorcycle Club and believed his “minions” were following her as she traveled overseas for several months last year. She also said the victim had two planes constantly circling her no matter where she was and that cameras had been installed in her home, according to court documents.

She said she shot the victim because she believed he was reaching for a gun to shoot her.

“She is absolutely convinced that her delusional beliefs are true and would reject an insanity defense,” Grant wrote in a letter to the court in February.

Edie originally was arrested in November in Ritzville after she called police and said she had shot a man who had been stalking her.

She appeared in court Thursday after the first- degree assault charge was filed again. Her bond was set at $250,000.