Jury Finds Former Marine Mentally Competent to Stand Trial

A Murrieta jury deliberated a little more than an hour and a half before reaching a verdict in the mental competency trial of former U.S. Marine Kesaun Kedron Sykes.

The verdict was announced at 3:14 p.m. in a courtroom at Southwest Justice Center, and found Sykes mentally competent to stand trial, according to court minutes.

Sykes, 24, is charged alongside Kevin Darnell Cox, Emrys John and Tyrone Miller in the 2008 killing of a U.S. Marine sergeant and his wife at their French Valley home.

Sykes and the other defendants are accused of fatally shooting Marine Sgt. Janek Pietrzak, 24, and his 26-year-old wife, Quiana Faye Jenkins- Pietrzak, during an Oct. 15, 2008, robbery at the couple's two-story house at 31319 Bermuda Ave.

Sykes was examined because of an incident in January when he stood up during a hearing, urinated in his hand and flung it around the courtroom saying he was banishing unseen demons.

According to evidence presented during a 2009 preliminary hearing, the four defendants went to the victims' house late at night, armed with handguns, and forced their way into the residence after Pietrzak answered the front door.

The sergeant served with the men in the same unit at Camp Pendleton. His wife was a nurse at the base. They had only been married three months.

Sykes will appear in court Friday for a trial readiness conference, and the trial was given a commencement date of no later than July 25.

City News Service and Peter Surowski contributed to this report.