After legal delays, $2M bail for man accused of stabbing woman in popular Tacoma park

The 28-year-old man accused of attempted murder in a brutal stabbing attack at Point Defiance Park in Tacoma and whose mental fitness to stand trial has been in question was declared last week to be mentally competent.

Nicholas Fitzgerald Matthew was arraigned Thursday in Pierce County Superior Court following two 90-day periods of inpatient treatment at a state psychiatric hospital. A plea of not guilty was entered on his behalf, according to prosecutors. Judge Stanley Rumbaugh ordered him held in the county jail on $2 million bail.

A trial date was set for Dec. 10. A spokesperson for the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office said he would be surprised if the trial went forward that quickly. Matthew is represented by an attorney from the Department of Assigned Counsel. She did not respond to a request for comment Monday.

The random attack Matthew is accused of took place the afternoon of Feb. 10 while the victim, a woman, was walking alone on a trail. She later said in a press conference that she heard a man walking up behind her and offered to let him pass, but he declined, and he attacked her a short time later.

The victim was knocked to the ground with her legs and arms pinned, and she was stabbed repeatedly in the back, head, cheek and neck. Her skull also was fractured. The woman’s screams drew several other park goers who intervened and kicked the assailant off her.

Tacoma Police Department detectives identified Matthew as a suspect about a month later using a blood stain on the victim’s jeans. The stain was analyzed in a State Patrol crime lab that entered DNA into a national law enforcement database and found a match with Matthew on March 15. Later that month, he was arrested at San Francisco International Airport, where he was allegedly trying to flee the country to escape prosecution.

After being extradited to Pierce County, a judge ordered that a psychologist needed to evaluate whether Matthew had the capacity to understand the nature of the proceedings against him or assist in his own defense.

Dr. Jacqueline Means interviewed Matthew on May 1, reviewed medical and psychiatric records as well as other materials related to him and diagnosed him with symptoms consistent with schizoaffective disorder and a notable history of cannabis use. She found that he didn’t have the capacity to proceed to trial, and on May 15 a judge ordered him to be transferred to Western State Hospital for treatment.

Matthew was admitted to the facility two days later. During that first period of competency restoration, he refused to regularly take antipsychotic medications, and his treatment staff reported that he was not doing well from a psychiatric standpoint. According to an evaluation filed in court records, he did not change out of his Pierce County Jail uniform for nearly a month and at times refused to speak to family members.

He was documented saying he believed “they got the wrong guy,” and that his name was not Nicholas Matthew, but he refused to offer a different name.

Prosecutors petitioned the court in July to force Matthew to be medicated, arguing that a psychiatrist believed he could not be restored to competency without it and that administering antipsychotics were in his best medical interest, but records show the motion was withdrawn at a July 19 hearing.

Matthew has a history of mental illness. He served in the U.S. Army as a computer/detection systems repairer from 2015 to 2018. After he got out, he received treatment from the American Lake Veterans Affairs Medical Center near Lakewood until January 2022. According to a psychological evaluation, during that time he was treated for what appeared to be emerging symptoms of psychosis and mood swings, with increasing symptoms of mood lability, paranoia and auditory hallucinations.

The defendant remained at Western State Hospital for his second restoration period, which began in August. He continued to refuse nearly all of his medications and was described as having “not exhibited progress” toward treatment goals in mid-October.

Nonetheless, Dr. Roman Lokhmotov wrote in an Oct. 25 psychological evaluation that it was his opinion that Matthew had the capacity to to understand the proceedings against him and assist in his defense.

Lokhmotov, who diagnosed Matthew with unspecified schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorder, said the man’s thought processes were organized, and there was no clear evidence of delusional or illogical thinking in his references to potential defense strategies.

“His attention and concentration were adequate, and there were no signs of internal preoccupation,” Lokhmotov wrote. “His insight regarding mental health was poor, but no clear impairment with insight was evident when discussing competency-related material.”