- April 26, 2024
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A man charged in the nonfatal 2014 shooting of his live-in girlfriend in the Mondex is still incompetent to stand trial, Circuit Judge Matthew Foxman decided at an April 27 competency hearing.
Jonathan Edwin Canales, 29, will be sent back to the North Florida Evaluation and Treatment Center for further treatment.
"The state hospital will do their evaluation and do their treatment with the ultimate goal of restoring him to competency to ultimately send him back to face trial," State Attorney's Office spokesman Spencer Hathaway said.
Canales was earlier found incompetent to stand trial at a June 2015 competency hearing and sent to the Treatment Center, but the center later reported that he'd been restored to competency. That prompted Circuit Court Judge David Walsh, Foxman's predecessor, to hold a competency hearing for Canales Jan. 6, but Walsh made no determination at that hearing and ordered Canales back the psychiatric hospital for further evaluation.
The shooting occurred at about 8 p.m. Nov. 15, 2014 at the trailer the suspect and the victim lived in on Cherry Lane in the Mondex. Canales shot Tiffany Norman, then 25, through the neck, according to Sheriff's Office reports. She lost consciousness and woke up later in a bathtub, then pulled herself out and called 911 with Canales' phone at about 10:45 p.m.
She was telling a 911 dispatcher "I need an ambulance right now" when Canales took the phone away and told the dispatcher that Norman had shot herself with a .22 caliber rifle. The dispatcher could "clearly hear Ms. Norman in the background state, 'Stop lying,'" according to the Sheriff's Office report.
Paramedics took Norman to the hospital, and it was days before she was able to speak to deputies. When deputies were finally able to speak to her Nov. 25, she told them she hadn't shot herself and that Canales never tried to aid her.
Deputies initially charged Canales Nov. 15, 2014 with three counts of child neglect for failing to secure his loaded firearms inside a home where three children lived. He was released on bail, then arrested again Dec. 2 in connection with the shooting itself and charged with aggravated battery with a firearm, delaying treatment for an injured person and tampering with a witness or victim.
