With Indiana County President Judge Thomas Bianco having scheduled an evidentiary to determine Ronald Weiss’s competency to stand trial for murder, Weiss’s attorney on Friday asked for permission to have an expert help prepare his case.
Weiss is awaiting a retrial for the murder of 16-year-old Barbara Bruzda of Tunnelton in 1978. He was convicted in 1997 but a federal judge overturned the verdict in 2018. His court docket sheet still does not note the date for the hearing.
Judge Bianco also last week ordered that arguments be rescheduled on a prosecution motion to dismiss Kevin Foley’s petition for relief from his murder conviction. Foley was found guilty in 2009 of the stabbing death three years earlier of Blairsville dentist John Yelenic. Arguments on the prosecution’s motion had been scheduled for this Tuesday, but have now been moved to October 9th.
Foley is serving life in prison without the chance for parole at SCI Mahanoy in Schuylkill County.
