Mental Health Issues Stall St. Cloud Poisoning Case

ST. CLOUD (WJON News) -- A man accused of fatally poisoning his St. Cloud roommate has been found mentally incompetent to face the charges.

A Stearns County grand jury indicted 35-year-old Stuart Hanmer on 1st-degree premeditated murder and 2nd-degree intentional murder. He is accused of poisoning 33-year-old Cody Ernst with thallium. The CDC describes thallium as a tasteless and odorless heavy metal that "has been used by murderers as a difficult to detect poison".

According to the criminal complaint, St. Cloud Police say they learned on June 20th that Ernst had been poisoned.

Court records allege Hanmer and Ernst had coffee together on the morning of May 15th. The charges allege Ernst started experiencing symptoms of dizziness, vomiting, and suffering from "seizure-like" activity later that day.

After spending approximately one week at St. Cloud Hospital, Ernst left after refusing placement in a skilled nursing facility. He eventually ended up at the University of Minnesota Fairview Hospital, where he eventually underwent a heavy metals screening. Court records show it came back positive for a lethal amount of thallium in his system.

Ernst died on June 22nd while at Fairview Hospital. Court records allege a poison control pharmacist told police that the only way that amount of thallium would be in a person's system would be to ingest it.

Investigators spoke with Hanmer, who allegedly said he wasn't aware of what thallium poisoning was until after hearing Ernst had died, and denied poisoning Ernst.

Police used search warrants to seize and inspect Hanmer's phones. Court records allege officers found numerous searches on thallium in early April and again just days before Ernst began having symptoms.

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The complaint also shows police discovered three separate purchases of thallium that were sent to a P.O. Box in Hanmer's name, including one delivery signed by Hanmer on May 14th.

Because Hanmer was found incompetent to face the charges, the case is on hold until he can be restored to competency.