First-degree murder charge dismissed for Blaine man found incompetent to stand trial

A 77-year-old Blaine man charged with first-degree murder for shooting his neighbor last October is incompetent to stand trial, a Whatcom County Superior Court judge ruled. The man’s charge will be dismissed without prejudice, meaning the charge could be refiled in the future. 

On March 29, Judge Evan Jones issued a court order dismissing Wayne Harold Mahar Sr.’s murder charge and directing him to undergo a five-day involuntary civil commitment evaluation at Western State Hospital. The court found Mahar lacked the ability to understand the nature of proceedings against himself and ability to assist in his own defense and was unlikely to improve. 

Jones’s ruling followed a March 26 hearing on Mahar’s competency where two forensic evaluators testified that Mahar was unfit to stand trial.

Both forensic evaluators came to largely the same conclusions regarding the specifics of Mahar’s competency and gave the court their medical opinion that Mahar had an unspecified neurological disorder that likely included dementia. 

“Both doctors independently examined the defendant and reached the same medical conclusion,” Jones wrote in the court order dismissing the charge. “The court finds their testimony to be creditable and sufficient by a preponderance of the evidence to overcome the presumption of competency in this case.”

Mahar was arrested on October 4, 2023, after allegedly shooting his neighbor, 67-year-old Vincent Reames. Charging documents state a neighbor called 911 after hearing a gunshot and upon going outside to investigate, saw Mahar with a shotgun and Reames lying face down on his own property.

Mahar allegedly told both the witness and Mahar’s wife separately that he had shot Reames, claiming to his wife that it was in self-defense, according to charging documents. Mahar, who had a history of disputes with Reames, said he was sitting on his deck when Reames began verbally harassing him, but Mahar was unable to provide police details on Reames’ behavior. 

Mahar allegedly told detectives he wanted to kill Reames and Reames “deserved to be dead.” Mahar was later described as “jovial” during the interview. 

Mahar’s public defenders said during the hearing they almost immediately began having concerns on his competency and hired Alexander Patterson, a clinical psychologist, to evaluate Mahar. The court ordered Mahar to undergo a second evaluation from Roman Lokhmotov, a Washington State Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) evaluator, at Western State Hospital, where Mahar has been since March 1. 

Patterson and Lokhmotov spent 5 and 1.5 hours, respectively, talking to Mahar, according to their testimony. Mahar’s wife had told evaluators that Mahar began showing cognitive declines about a year before his arrest. Whatcom County Jail staff had noted examples of cognitive deficits, such as occasionally thinking he was in a military base, and described Mahar as “in and out of awareness of his current situation.”

Patterson said during the hearing that people’s awareness will fluctuate during the early stages of dementia and that while Mahar provided adequate responses at times, the larger picture showed he was incompetent to stand trial. 

The state rejected the defense counsel’s argument that Mahar was unfit to stand trial, arguing that Mahar did not meet case law standards to be considered incompetent and could improve with medication. Senior deputy prosecuting attorney Benjamin Pratt said Mahar was never diagnosed with a serious mental illness, understood the legal proceedings and could clearly respond to information.  

However, Pratt said during the hearing that if the court found Mahar incompetent to stand trial, the state did not have an argument to challenge that Mahar couldn’t improve. 

Mahar’s involuntary civil commitment evaluation started when DSHS received a copy of the court order. 

Neither Mahar’s public defenders nor the county prosecutor’s office responded to a request for comment.