photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Aaron Wright, left, appears with court-appointed attorney Gary West on Wednesday, June 24, 2026, in Douglas County District Court.

A man accused of murdering a 35-year-old woman last summer in Lawrence has been declared incompetent to stand trial.

Douglas County District Court records indicate that Aaron Blake Wright, 64, was found unfit for trial earlier this month and was ordered by Judge Amy Hanley to undergo treatment under the supervision of Larned State Hospital.

Generally, a person is deemed incompetent to stand trial when he is unable to understand the charges against him and to assist in his own defense.

Wright’s court-appointed defense counsel, Gary West and Madeline Muller, requested the competency evaluation last month, just three weeks before Wright’s trial was set to begin on Aug. 3.

Wright, who was a resident at the Lawrence Community Shelter, is accused of second-degree murder in the stabbing death of Jina Reyes-Woehler, a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and mother of two whose body was found Aug. 29, 2025, behind the vacant VFW building in the 1800 block of Massachusetts Street.

He is also charged in two other cases with burglary, attempted theft, criminal threat, battery on a law enforcement officer and disorderly conduct.

Wright, who has a history of discord with court-appointed attorneys, was also ordered to undergo a competency evaluation in December 2025, as the Journal-World reported.

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.