Kansas City woman accused of decapitating her son and dog in 2022 found competent for trial
Two years after Tasha Haefs was ruled mentally unfit to stand trial
By Zoë Shriner
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KANSAS CITY, Missouri (KCTV) — Two years after she was ruled mentally unfit to stand trial, the mother accused of killing her 6-year-old son has been deemed competent and will be in court later this month.
According to previous AP reporting, police received a call from a woman in February 2022 “saying she was concerned someone was trying to harm her. The woman told police she believed the devil was trying to attack her. She denied having any mental illness and hung up the phone, officials said.”
When officers arrived at the woman’s residence to perform a wellness check, they found blood leading up to the front door and could hear her singing inside. They knocked, but the woman did not open the door and sang louder.
An officer reportedly looked inside the house and saw the child’s decapitated head, at which point the officers forced their way into the home through the back door.
Once inside, they found Haefs, who was 35 years old at the time, with blood on her legs and feet. The body of the decapitated child was lying nearby and they found a decapitated dog in the basement.
Court documents state that Haefs admitted that the child, 6-year-old Karvel Stevens, was biologically hers and she had killed him.
At the time, “Haefs’ family members [said] she had struggled for years with drug addiction, depression, severe trauma and hallucinations,” AP reported.
The Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office charged Haefs with first-degree murder and armed criminal action, but in June 2022 she was ruled mentally unfit to stand trial.
As a result, she was placed in the custody of the Missouri Department of Mental Health where she reportedly refused to take her medications or cooperate with her treatment plan.
In August 2023, she was removed from court when she began yelling and cussing during her hearing, calling the judge and other people in the court “demented monsters.”
In early March 2024, a motion was filed, ruling Haefs as competent to stand trial nearly two years after she was first placed in the state’s custody.
Her first court date is scheduled for March 29.
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