This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
A judge on Monday ordered doctors at the Utah State Hospital to conduct mental competency evaluations on a 25-year-old Smithfield man charged with fatally stabbing his father last month.
Shane Alan Hallstrom — charged with first-degree felony murder in the April 28 death of 58-year-old Calvin Leon Hallstrom — "does not appear to have a rational and factual understanding of the seriousness of the charges," wrote defense attorney Bryan Galloway in a motion filed last week in 1st District Court, asking Judge Kevin Allen to order the evaluations.
The judge set a status hearing for June 20.
Hallstrom had invited his father to the Smithfield home where he lives with his mother, with plans to go to dinner, according to a probable cause statement filed with the Cache County jail.
When the father arrived outside the son's home at about 5:30 p.m., the son hugged the older man, then jumped on his back and stabbed him in the neck with a paring knife, according one of several witness accounts of the vicious attack.
Shane Hallstrom's mother, LaDean Hallstrom, who is Calvin Hallstrom's ex-wife, said she was able to pull her son's hand off the knife and remove it from Calvin Hallstrom's neck following the attack, according to a probable cause statement filed with the Cache County jail.
As the woman was calling 911, she saw her son "slamming Calvin's head on the concrete, the jail statement says.
LaDean Hallstrom later told police that "Calvin and Shane had a strained relationship."
Police found the son kneeling in the street a few feet away from his father, who was unconscious and bleeding heavily from multiple knife wounds to the neck. The older man was rushed to Cache Valley Hospital, but died a short time later.