photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Aaron B. Wright, left, appears Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025, in Douglas County District Court.

A Douglas County judge has ordered a competency evaluation for a man charged with fatally stabbing a 35-year-old Lawrence woman last summer.

The public defender for Aaron Blake Wright filed a motion for the evaluation last week, and Judge Amy Hanley granted it on Wednesday. The evaluation is for the purpose of determining whether Wright is competent to stand trial — that is, whether he is able to understand the proceedings against him and to participate in his own defense. The court will appoint a licensed physician or psychologist to examine Wright and to make a competency determination within 60 days.

If he is deemed incompetent, he could be sent to a facility such as Larned State Hospital until his competency is restored.

photo by: Contributed

Jina Anne Reyes-Woehler

Wright, 63, is facing a second-degree murder charge in the death of Jina Reyes-Woehler, a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and mother of two. Her body was found Aug. 29 behind the vacant VFW building in the 1800 block of Massachusetts Street.

Wright, a resident of the Lawrence Community Shelter at the time, told police that he had been drinking alcohol with Reyes-Woehler and others the day she died. According to allegations in his arrest affidavit, he was found the next morning with numerous bloodstains on his clothes, but he denied involvement in the killing, claimed that he had blacked out and blamed other men for the crime.

Wright is being held on a $1 million cash or surety bond in the Douglas County Jail. He has a lengthy criminal record, including two convictions for attempted first-degree murder in Douglas County in 1996. He was released from prison in that case in 2013, according to the Kansas Department of Corrections. He was accused of having sent an explosive device to the home of a woman who shared his last name.

In addition to the murder charge, Wright is currently facing charges of criminal threat, battery on a law enforcement officer and disorderly conduct from a March case, as well as burglary and theft charges from an August case, all in Douglas County.