The man accused of fatally shooting Robin Kaye, a longtime American Idol music supervisor, and her husband, the musician Thomas Deluca, inside their Los Angeles home last July, was declared incompetent to stand trial on Friday. A Los Angeles judge ordered him committed to a state hospital for mental health treatment.
The ruling followed a procedural reversal last month, when the judge initially reached the same conclusion but later withdrew it, saying she wanted to see the defendant, Raymond Boodarian, in person. Boodarian had refused transportation to the Nov. 13 hearing, prompting the judge to make a preliminary finding in his absence before reversing it later that day. Boodarian refused transportation to court again on Friday, leading the same judge to reinstate her prior ruling.
Superior Court Judge Maria Cavalluzzi ordered Boodarian to be “committed to the California Department of State Hospitals for treatment to restore competency.” She said a bed would be ready for him on Jan. 16. She set a follow-up status hearing for March 19.
Before the ruling Friday, Boodarian’s defense attorney, Nancy Kolocotronis, told the court that her client had stopped communicating with her. The lawyer said she tried to visit with him while positioned outside his cell but was “unable to make meaningful contact.”
“So he was non-responsive when you tried to talk to him?” the judge asked. Kolocotronis said yes. “That’s consistent with him refusing today. He has refused to appear once again,” the judge ruled. She said an involuntary medical order would remain in effect, allowing doctors to medicate Boodarian against his will, if necessary.
Boodarian, 22, is charged with murdering the couple during a daytime burglary of their Los Angeles house in July. During a court appearance in August, Boodarian peered through a plexiglass window in a Van Nuys courtroom and did not respond when Judge Martin L. Herscovitz attempted to address him.
“He does have severe mental health issues,” Ms. Kolocotronis told the court at the time, noting that Boodarian was wearing a suicide-prevention gown. After several unsuccessful attempts to get a response, Judge Herscovitz said for the record that the defendant was “staring out into space and not responding to the court’s questions.”
Prosecutors say Boodarian was burglarizing the couple’s Encino home on July 10 when they returned from a shopping trip and encountered him. The couple, both 70, were allegedly shot multiple times with a firearm Boodarian found inside the house. Boodarian then fled. The bodies were discovered four days later during a welfare check.
According to a search warrant affidavit obtained by Rolling Stone, police received a call at 4:10 p.m. from a neighbor reporting that someone had climbed over Kaye’s fence and may have been attempting to break into the home. A second radio call generated at 4:44 p.m. said “the 911 caller identified himself as Raymond Boodarian and advised that someone broke into his office,” the affidavit states. “The 911 caller then stated, ‘Please don’t shoot me.’”
Home surveillance footage showed a man wearing a black baseball cap, gray shirt, dark pants, and black sandals climbing over the front fence into the property at 4:06 p.m., the affidavit said. Kaye and Deluca were seen arriving home at 4:43 p.m. About 10 minutes later, the suspect was captured on video leaving the property while concealing a handgun in his waistband.
Police responded to the home on the day of the shootings but did not see signs of a break-in and did not enter the residence, officials said.
If tried and convicted as charged, Boodarian could face the death penalty or a maximum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Any trial would require that a judge first find him competent to participate in his defense.
Kaye began working on American Idol in 2009 and “was truly loved and respected by all who came in contact with her,” a representative for the show said. She also worked in the music departments for the NAACP Image Awards and programs, including Lip Sync Battle. Deluca was a songwriter and performer who composed music for artists including Micky Dolenz of the Monkees, according to the website Melodic Rock Classics.
