UPDATE, FEB. 3, 4:17 P.M.: Superior Court Commissioner Vickie Hix today ordered a third evaluation of Sonia Hermosillo to determine if the mother accused of tossing her 7-month-old son off a parking structure to his death is mentally competent to stand trial for murder. Two psychologists reached opposite conclusions about the La Habra 31-year-old, creating the need for the opinion of a third mental health professional scheduled to report back to Hix on March 9.
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ORIGINAL POST, FEB. 3, 8:25 A.M.: Sonia Hermosillo, the mother accused of tossing her 7-month-old
son off the fourth floor of the Children's Hospital of Orange County
parking structure and to his death, is scheduled to have a mental
competency hearing in a Santa Ana courtroom in five minutes.
The La Habra 31-year-old was on suicide watch shortly after being taken into custody for the murder of her son Noe Medina Jr.
On Aug. 22, 2011, the mother and son went to CHOC in Orange, where the baby came for treatment of medical issues but did not have an appointment scheduled that day. After parking her car on the fourth floor of the structure, Hermosillo is accused of removing a protective helmet Noe wore due to plagiocephaly–or a flattening of the head–before pushing him over the side.
As her baby was dealing with mortal wounds on the ground, Hermosillo is accused of walking inside the hospital, getting her parking validated and driving away. But someone had seen what happened and called 9-1-1. Noe was taken to UCI Medical Center while the Orange Police Department, which had received a license plate number from a witness, contacted the La Habra address the vehicle was registered to.
Hermosillo's husband told cops his wife and son were missing. Around 10:15 p.m. that same night, an Orange officer saw her drive past CHOC, pulled her over and arrested her.
Two days later, Noe died, and the charges against his mother were upped to murder.
She had been depressed since the boy was born with his medical conditions, Hermosillo's husband later told authorities. Her mental competency hearing has twice been postponed before. She has yet to enter a plea to the charges pending such a hearing.
Previous coverage:
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.