Conn. court rejects appeal of mentally ill suspect

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — The state Supreme Court has rejected the appeal of a mentally ill man ordered into state custody in 2010, after officials discovered to their shock that he had been released from a mental hospital 18 years earlier without their knowledge in connection with a 1991 murder.

Justices on Monday upheld lower court rulings in the case of 79-year-old Pedro Custodio, who was found incompetent to stand trial in the 1991 shooting death of Waterbury neighbor Amerigo Pagan Cruz.

Custodio was sent to a mental hospital in 1992, but released later that year. Court officials in 2010 discovered that Custodio had been a free man for nearly two decades and he was rearrested.

Custodio appealed his 2010 arrest and a judge's ruling ordering him into the custody of mental health officials.