Santa Fe HS shooting suspect still unfit for trial after 6 years

Dimitrios Pagourtzis, the Santa Fe High School student accused of killing 10 people in a May 18, 2018Photo byJennifer Reynolds/The Galveston County Daily News via AP, Pool

Dimitrios Pagourtzis, a Santa Fe gunman, killed off his 8 classmates and two educators in 2018. He was a part of the mass gun-firing and killings of 2018 in Santa Fe.

Dimitrios Pagourtzis is now unfit to stand trial. He has been admitted to North Texas Hospital for 12 months as Galveston County Judge Lonnie Cox ordered.

He was first found incompetent during the trial session in 2019. Since then, regular checkups have been done, and reports are submitted.

Until his health improves, the charges and cases against Pogourtzis will remain the same.

The data from North Texas State Hospital states that Pogourtzis was hospitalized for 1,513 days as of Jan.23.

Further, the KPRC investigation reports that competency was 229 days in the fiscal year 2022, 227 in the year 2023, and 126 days in the fiscal year 2024.

According to the reports, Pogourtzis was one of the 11 patients who received competency restoration for more than five years as of December 23.

The State Health and Human Services Commission data reports an expenditure of $1013 per day for treatment of a patient in North Texas State Hospital.

The court documents show that the attorneys of Pogourtzis are seeking an insanity defense apart from the competency issue.

In a 1960 U.S. Supreme Court case from the U.S. Department of Justice, the court must determine "whether [the defendant] had a sufficient opportunity to consult an attorney based on his current reasonable understanding and whether he did so․

Pagourtzis is accused of killing students Chris Stone, Aaron McLeod, Angelique Ramirez, Jared Black, Kimberly Vaughan, Sabika Sheikh, Christian Garcia, and Shana Fisher, as well as teachers Cynthia Tisdale and Anne Perkins.

He is also accused of injuring more than a dozen people, including former Santa Fe police officer John Barnes.