Case against babysitter accused of kidnapping will go forward
Abigail Hanna's attorney withdrew her request for a competency hearing Wednesday.
The kidnapping case against a 21-year-old Topsfield woman will go forward after her attorney withdrew a request for a judge to decide whether Abigail Hanna was competent to stand trial.
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A competency hearing had been scheduled for Wednesday in Salem Superior Court, but defense attorney Susan McNeil informed the court it was no longer needed, a spokesperson for the Essex County District Attorney’s office said. A status hearing will be held on June 14.
McNeil did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
Hanna has been held since she was arrested November 21, a day after the 2-year-old girl she’d babysat for was found bruised, burned and naked along the side of the road in Rowley. The toddler had been taken from her Hamilton home hours earlier.
She faces charges of kidnapping, assault and battery by with a dangerous weapon, assault and battery on a child, and breaking and entering in the nighttime. She faces up to 15 years in prison on the kidnapping charge alone.
Hanna has spent much of the last six months at the Worcester Recovery Center, a state hospital, as questions of her mental health and ability to understand the charges against her were assessed. Last month, a judge ordered her to prison after the hospital said she no longer needed to be there.
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