A mental competency hearing for Raymond Boothe, who is charged in connection with the death of his son last summer on the Kansas Turnpike, was being held Wednesday in Leavenworth County district court.

Boothe, of Cameron, Mo., is accused of first-degree murder in the death of his 11-year-old son, Levi, last August along I-70 near Lawrence.

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Last November, the state had found Boothe mentally competent to stand trial.

But the case hit several delays while court officials waited on completion of a second, independent mental evaluation.

Family members have said that in the days preceding Levi’s death, Boothe, a union carpenter, had been acting erratically.

The morning of the boy’s death, Boothe drove from his family’s home in Cameron, Mo., to Creston, Iowa, where he was seen buying gasoline while wearing only his underwear. He later picked up Levi at a group home for children with disabilities, drove back to Osborn, Mo., a small town outside Cameron. There, Boothe picked up his three children and told his sister that he and the four children were going to Oklahoma.

After leaving Levi on the turnpike, authorities contend, Boothe drove to Lawrence, where he apparently drove around for almost three hours before crashing his four-door Dodge sedan in an apparent suicide attempt at 27th Street and Lawrence Avenue. None of the four occupants was seriously injured.

Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty in the case.

For more on this story, see the 6News reports at 6 p.m. and after the Royals game on Sunflower Broadband’s Channel 6, and pick up a copy of Thursday’s Journal-World.