Laurel Mountain homicide suspect ruled competent to stand trial

A Westmoreland County judge ruled Tuesday that a Laurel Mountain man accused of killing his live-in girlfriend nearly five years ago is competent to stand trial.

Judge Meagan Bilik-DeFazio said Gregory R. Randall, 62, is mentally fit to assist with his defense after hearing expert testimony from a defense psychologist and a prosecution psychiatrist last year.

Randall has been jailed nearly five years on charges he beat Angela Marie Cavalero, 52, to death in May 2014. Police said Randall beat her 29 times in the head and face with a hammer and a wine bottle during a domestic dispute.

Her body was found six days later. Randall was arrested after he was found in Robinson Township in Allegheny County.

His case has been delayed numerous times over pretrial issues and the competency hearing.

The defense sought to have Randall found incompetent for trial because of memory and cognitive impairments as a result of a traumatic head injury he suffered when he was 19 in a severe car crash that left him in a coma.

Bilik-DeFazio rejected that argument, stating that the defense’s expert, psychologist Sue Beers, failed to conduct a competency exam on Randall, while the prosecution’s expert, psychiatrist Bruce Wright, did.

“Dr. Wright asked defendant several questions specifically pertaining to his case and his competency to stand trial, and defendant provided appropriate answers to all of these questions,” Bilik-DeFazio wrote in an opinion. “Dr. Beers, however, did not ask defendant any such questions because she was not asked to perform a competency examination.”

Wright testified that he believed Randall has a “mild neurocognitive disorder, but he did not feel that it rose to the level of affecting his competence,” Bilik-DeFazio wrote.

A trial date has not been set.