On 11/28/2015, Stuart Stuart Hearell (left) was reported missing from Cornerstone Manor in Scottsville, KY. He was last seen on 11/26/2015 around 7am. On 12/24/2015, around 8pm, Tommy Mulhall (right) came to the Police Department and confessed to killing Mr. Hearell around Thanksgiving.

SCOTTSVILLE — An Allen County man suspected of killing another man and burying his body has been found competent to stand trial.

Tommy Mulhall, 44, of Scottsville, appeared in Allen Circuit Court on Tuesday for a closed-door competency hearing. 

Mulhall is charged with murder, tampering with physical evidence and abuse of a corpse in connection with the death of 58-year-old Stuart Hearell of Scottsville.

The homicide is believed to have happened on Nov. 26 at Mulhall’s residence on Cartertown Spur Road, where he and Hearell had been drinking several beers, according to court records.

Hearell was subsequently reported missing, but Mulhall walked into the Scottsville Police Department headquarters on Dec. 24 and confessed.

A grand jury indicted Mulhall, but he was not arraigned until he underwent a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation.

Dr. Timothy Allen evaluated Mulhall for the Kentucky Correctional Psychiatric Center.

Allen’s May 18 report of the evaluation has been sealed, but a summary of his findings that appears in Allen Circuit Judge Janet Crocker’s order in which she ruled Mulhall competent indicates that Allen found Mulhall to have the capacity to appreciate the nature and consequences of the criminal proceedings against him and can participate in his own defense.

Allen also determined that Mulhall did not have a mental illness or intellectual deficit to cause him to lack the ability to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law at the time of the alleged crimes, according to Crocker’s order.

Tuesday’s hearing featured testimony from Allen given via telephone.

After the competency hearing, Mulhall was arraigned in open court and pleaded not guilty to all counts, Allen County Commonwealth’s Attorney Clint Willis said.

Mulhall, who is represented by attorney Pat Roemer of the Department of Public Advocacy, is scheduled to return to court Sept. 6 for a status conference.

That date is also the deadline for Willis to provide discovery evidence and make any plea offer to Mulhall.

Mulhall and Hearell knew each other from when they both stayed at Cornerstone Manor, a personal care facility in Scottsville.

Hearell lived there as a ward of a state and was known to wander from the facility, but police said he normally returned on his own.

According to court documents, Mulhall told police he met up with Hearell in Scottsville around Thanksgiving, they traveled to Tennessee to buy beer and returned to Hearell’s single-wide trailer.

In an affidavit, SPD Detective John Rose stated that the two drank several beers before Mulhall “snapped.”

“Mulhall … hit Hearell in the head with part of a toilet lid,” Rose stated in the affidavit. “Mulhall advised he then stabbed him with a kitchen knife and buried Hearell on the east side of the mobile home with a shovel.”

Police recovered pieces of a toilet lid, a knife, a pair of black shoes, handwritten notes and a shovel from the residence and collected swabs of suspected bloodstains, according to a search warrant.

Hearell’s body was found where Mulhall claimed to have buried it, and authorities confirmed Hearell’s identity through fingerprints, court records show.

An autopsy determined that Hearell died from blunt force trauma.

Mulhall is in Allen County Detention Center in lieu of a $1 million cash bond.

— Follow courts reporter Justin Story on Twitter @jstorydailynews or visit bgdailynews.com.