Overview
- The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner on June 12 ruled that 81-year-old actor James Handy’s death was a homicide caused by a stab wound to the torso with contributing neck compression.
- Police say Handy was found unconscious with a stab wound outside a Tarzana home on June 3 and a 911 caller at the scene reportedly confessed, saying, “I am the son of man, I just killed the man of sin.”
- Forty-four-year-old Michael Gledhill, the son of Handy’s girlfriend, was arrested at the scene, charged with one count of murder and a special allegation that he used a deadly weapon, and held on $2 million bail.
- Superior Court judges have ordered psychiatric evaluations and are weighing transfer to mental-health court as they examine Gledhill’s competency to stand trial, with a next hearing set for late June.
- Handy was a long-serving character actor with nearly 150 credits, his family has said the suspect had a schizophrenia diagnosis and stopped medication before the killing though that claim is not independently verified, and prosecutors say a conviction could carry decades in prison.