Community Corner
St. Louis 1992 Shooting Case Dismissed On Verge Of Trial
The St. Louis Circuit Attorney's Office has dismissed a case against a man who was found mentally incompetent to stand trial in 1993.
February 23, 2021
The St. Louis Circuit Attorney's Office has dismissed a case against a man who was found mentally incompetent to stand trial in 1993 and then had the case languish until he was scheduled to go on trial Monday. Zarreck McNear, 54, was charged in 1992 with counts including first-degree assault and attempted robbery after he allegedly shot a hotel co-worker and then tried to carjack a woman in downtown St. Louis. “The (state) Dept. of Mental Health has not notified the state and the court of any changes to (McNear’s) status of mental incompetency in nearly three decades, and the state is thus at a disadvantage for the lack of clarity of the department’s such determination,” Assistant Circuit Attorney Rob Huq said in a memo. McNear, 54, was charged more than 28 years ago with shooting a co-worker at the former Doubletree Mayfair Hotel and then trying to carjack former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Charlene Porter at gunpoint. Off-duty officers stopped the carjacking attempt and the co-worker survived the shooting. McNear’s lawyer, Philip Dennis, said his client, who has been diagnosed with autism and post-traumatic stress, never hid from authorities, lived in the same home for years and worked in the service industry over that time. “Everybody kind of dropped the ball on it,” Dennis said. “I have no idea why it sat for all this time.” A judge in 1994 ordered McNear committed to the Bellefontaine Habilitation Center but it’s not clear if he ever made it there or whether the center conducted court-ordered biannual mental evaluations to determine McNear’s competency, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
