As a young girl growing up in Missouri, Megan Jolly loved to read, dance and dress up. For her 20th birthday, she and her mother wore formal gowns to dinner on a cruise ship to Cozumel, Mexico.
She pursued an advanced degree in political science. Family said she became a cybersecurity expert and settled into a meticulously decorated home in Lake St. Louis.
“She had great aspirations,” her mother, Sharyn Jolly, told The Marshall Project – St. Louis. “I don’t know what happened.”
Megan Jolly started racking up mental health wellness checks in recent years, according to police records. In 2023, officers questioned her for walking down a suburban roadway dressed in a white robe and Santa hat near her home. After fleeing an emergency room, she spent extended time in a psych ward at a community hospital but continued to spiral.
Jolly, 52, has been held at the St. Charles County Justice Center since early 2024 for allegedly biting a family member and unlawfully entering their home.
She was deemed incompetent to stand trial, so her case is stalled in criminal justice purgatory until — and if — the Missouri Department of Mental Health can help her.
When someone is unable to assist in their own defense, a judge can order an evaluation to determine their mental capacity to proceed to trial. They await that outcome either in jail or out on bond. If they are found incompetent, the case pauses until doctors say the person’s mental state has been restored.
Missouri’s competency-to-stand-trial system has become so overloaded that even people accused of low-level crimes now wait years for effective treatment. Administrators have responded with new programs that are supposed to relieve stress on state forensic hospitals and defendants, but reporting suggests that those efforts aren’t nearly enough.
In the past two years, the average wait to be admitted into a specialized state facility after being deemed incompetent to stand trial has risen from eight to 14 months, according to the Missouri Department of Mental Health. On Oct. 21, there were 489 people in line, up from 252 in July 2023 and just 10 in 2013.
And yet, there’s a line to get in line. About 200 people are waiting for an evaluation after being approved for one.
Once in a state facility, mental health officials estimate about 80% of the patients will have their competency restored, typically in four to six months of treatment. Those who can’t be restored are generally placed under civil commitment or guardianship.
One reason given for the backlog was a threefold increase in the number of requests for court-ordered competency evaluations over the past decade. The surge in demand has outpaced public policy changes to address the crisis, which has been exacerbated by poor access to effective treatment in the community and a shortage of state psychiatric beds.
As a last resort, most defendants bide their time in county jails that sheriffs acknowledge aren’t equipped to meet mental health needs.
In May, 64-year-old Timothy Beckmann accidentally choked to death on food while being held in a Kansas City jail waiting for a treatment bed. He had schizophrenia and had previously lived in several nursing homes around the state where he was described in court records as “unable to care for himself” and “belligerent.”
At the time of his death, Beckmann had been jailed nearly eight months for allegedly breaking into a house and eating a burrito.
“He was really lost,” said Annie Legomsky, director of client advocacy for the Missouri State Public Defender. “When you look at everyone else who’s on the competence waitlist, they’ve also been lost.”
Even when a person’s competency is restored, understanding the court process is different than being on a path to recovery, advocates say. Sometimes treatment doesn’t stick.
The system allowed Robert Johnson, 59, to linger seven years in the St. Louis city jail on a murder charge. He’s often refused to come to court. In September, a judge thanked him more than 10 times for attending a hearing. The last time he appeared in court, mace was used to get him out of his cell.
Joshua Cupp, 49, accused of exposing his genitals near a popular church and school in St. Louis, had been incarcerated more than 400 days despite facing a maximum punishment of 180 days, his public defender argued in early October. Cupp, listed as homeless, was one of about 50 people on the backlog accused of a misdemeanor.
Jolly wasn’t always on the margins. She’s been stuck there long enough for her formerly dyed-red hair to turn gray. In January, her home was auctioned off on the St. Charles County courthouse steps — right across the street from where she’s being held indefinitely. The longer she’s in jail, the harder it will likely be to restore her competency.
“The system is about as broken as it gets,” her mother said.
Following unmet budget requests to address the backlog, the Missouri Department of Mental Health received $3.2 million in fiscal year 2023 to add 25 beds and staffing at St. Louis Forensic Treatment Center – North, one of three state hospitals that does competency restoration.
Soon after, a new law went into effect allowing outpatient treatment in the community for those on bond. Another $2.5 million was approved for a pilot program that’s supposed to offer competency restoration services to people waiting inside five of the state’s biggest jails. And an additional $1.7 million was approved for two forensic mobile teams to support people waiting in remote jails.
St. Louis Forensic Treatment Center – North provides outpatient forensic evaluation and focuses on inpatient competency restoration.
Despite the need and increased funding, only 16 defendants were receiving outpatient treatment in mid-October.
“When (the mobile units were announced), the inference that we had as jail administrators around the state was, ‘Thank God, finally, they’re going to start coming to our facility, they’re going to start seeing the feces on the wall, the urine being thrown,’” Kevin Coates, who used to run the Marion County jail near Hannibal, said in an interview.
The jail-based competency restoration program has been slow to launch. In mid-October, 33 people were enrolled at four participating jails: in Jackson, Clay and St. Louis counties, and the city of St. Louis, which is just now getting started.
Greene County, the fifth jail, never got out of the gates. Sheriff Jim Arnott previously said he would not participate in a “warehousing contract” of people with mental illness who shouldn’t be in jail.
At one point over the summer, there were 32 people in the St. Louis County jail deemed incompetent to stand trial. Several of them weren’t candidates for in-house competency restoration services because they refused. Others were deemed too violent or psychotic to participate.
“They just don’t remember anything,” Dr. Paula Oldeg, medical director of the jail, said in an interview. “Every week, it’s Groundhog Day.”
Of the 16 participants in the St. Louis County jail program between mid-January and mid-September, Oldeg said two were restored to competency. She said the program probably isn’t a good solution to the statewide backlog, but she’s glad to have the extra services and better access to pricey, long-acting injections to treat psychosis.
In September, Missouri Department of Mental Health Director Valerie Huhn was back in front of state lawmakers, explaining how it will take a variety of efforts to get ahead of the backlog.
“We only have about 300 beds for competency restoration,” Huhn testified at a hearing.
Adding to the challenges of limited capacity, she said about 60% of direct-care staff quit the agency each year, and help from the outside has been slow, with “limited community placement” options for this clientele.
She testified that mental illness is worsening for those waiting in jail.
Jolly was booked into the St. Charles County jail on Feb. 6, 2024. She pleaded not guilty to allegations of assault, burglary and property damage.
On March 19, 2024, a prosecutor requested that the state evaluate her mental capacity to stand trial. Following an extension, the state filed the exam results five months later, which declared her incompetent. Then, in early November of that year, the judge ordered Megan committed to the state for competency restoration treatment, which officially put her in the long line and paused her criminal case proceedings.
St. Charles County Justice Center, where Megan Jolly is currently being held.
In a May update, Huhn and other leaders of the department acknowledged in court records that Jolly still needed treatment and that there were many people ahead of her in line.
“To reduce delays, the department has worked diligently to improve staff recruitment and retention, as well as to expand bed space,” the letter stated.
Agency leaders said then that the mobile forensic team had been in touch with Jolly in jail.
Sharyn Jolly said her daughter still thinks she’s been kidnapped in jail. She has an ongoing case in probate court to be named her daughter’s guardian and conservator to preserve her remaining assets. The case has faced numerous delays.
Reached by email in mid-October, Megan Jolly didn’t respond to questions from The Marshall Project – St. Louis about her well-being. She only said that she wanted her public defender to work on the “false charges.”
Her mother, frazzled by ongoing uncertainty, said Jolly should be in a mental health facility getting appropriate treatment.
“This is doing nothing,” she said.
