CLEARFIELD – The case against an Osceola Mills woman accused of shooting her home care nurse was discussed recently during motions court in Clearfield County.
Marlene W. Kenjora, 71, 2637 Ashland Rd., Osceola Mills, an inmate of the jail, is charged with criminal attempt/criminal homicide, three counts of aggravated assault, discharge of a firearm into occupied structure, recklessly endangering another person and two counts of simple assault. She remains in the Clearfield County Jail in lieu of $1 million bail.
The charges stem from an incident in Decatur Township on Dec. 6, 2012 when Kenjora allegedly shot a psychiatric nurse in the head as she tried to call for help. The nurse was able to get to a nearby residence where she received assistance and an ambulance was called.
The commonwealth filed a motion to quash a notice of defense of insanity in the case. First Assistant District Attorney Beau Grove explained that the defense first needs to supply him with information regarding the nature of Kenjora’s infirmity at the time of the incident.
“We don’t know what they are claiming she has,” Grove told President Judge Fredric J. Ammerman.
Kenjora’s attorney, Ronald Collins, said he has a large amount of mental health records on his client, but he does not have one specific report stating her status. There is a problem getting more information from the experts who were previously treating Kenjora because there is currently a civil lawsuit against them.
Collins stated that because of limited resources in his office, he would not be able to supply copies of the material, but he agreed to allow representatives of the DA’s office make their own copies. Grove agreed that could be done.
Ammerman then ruled to continue discussion on the motion to allow Grove time to review the material before presenting his arguments regarding the insanity defense.
During the preliminary hearing in this case, the victim, Erin Schaeffer of Bellefonte testified that in December of 2012 she was working as a home care psychiatric nurse for Centre Homecare Inc. and at Kenjora’s home to review her medications. Kenjora had just gotten out of a psychiatric facility where she was prescribed new medications. The victim was also to check on Kenjora’s mood to ensure she was stable.
Kenjora yelled at her and called her “all sorts of names” as she tried to sort her new medications, which Schaeffer felt were not right. Kenjora was diagnosed as bi-polar and if her medications were wrong, her behavior would be manic, Schaeffer testified.
Schaeffer called Kenjora’s daughter at work to help, but she was either in a meeting or was unable to come to the phone. Schaeffer then called a crisis line, asking for a worker to be sent out for an evaluation. Schaeffer described Kenjora’s behavior as worse than it had been during an incident in November that had led to Kenjora being put in the psychiatric facility.
While the nurse was on the phone, Kenjora ran up a staircase to the second floor. Less than a minute later, she ran back down the stairs. Suddenly Schaeffer felt her head was wet and at first she thought she was sweating.
But when she pulled her hand away from her head, she saw blood on her hand. Schaeffer stumbled into a recliner. Kenjora was standing about six feet away holding a gun. Schaeffer then dropped everything and ran outside. Because her keys were still in the ignition of her vehicle, she was able to drive to a near by residence were she received assistance.
Schaeffer was taken to the Altoona Hospital where a bullet fragment was removed from the left side of her skull.