Court rules that convicted killer with dementia is competent to be executed

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) -- The man who has been on death row for nearly 40 years was found competent to be executed in court Friday, despite having dementia.

The judge ordered that Ralph Leroy Menzies failed to prove that his vascular dementia prevents him from understanding his punishment or the state's reasons for it, and because of that, he is competent to be executed.

Ralph Leroy Menzies was sentenced to death row in 1988 for killing Maurine Hunsaker, a mother of three.