Sentencing delayed again in killing

A Las Vegas woman convicted in May of first-degree murder for the shooting of her husband while he was standing near a Nevada Highway Patrol trooper has again been ruled mentally incompetent.

Questions about Linda Carbary's sanity after her conviction prompted Chief District Judge Lee Gates to send her to the state mental facility at Lake's Crossing, near Sparks, for evaluation.

The 33-year-old woman was sent back to Clark County in December for sentencing after doctors prescribed medication that stabilized her mental condition.

But Gates on Tuesday ordered Carbary returned to Lake's Crossing. He said her mental condition again deteriorated because medical staff at the jail changed her medication.

She will stay at the state facility until it is determined she is competent to be sentenced to a mandatory life prison term.

The only choice for Gates will be whether the sentence should be with or without the possibility of parole after 40 years.

Before the March 15, 1997, murder, Carbary had told friends she intended to kill Jeffrey Carbary for leaving her, according to court records. After the shooting she bragged that she had followed through with her pledge.

Carbary had tried to shoot her husband through the windshield of his car after he rejected her attempts at reconciliation, but the bullet didn't penetrate the glass. Jeffrey Carbary drove off with his wife in pursuit, according to trial testimony.

The victim stopped next to the trooper for protection on Interstate 15 near Cheyenne Avenue, but Linda Carbary also stopped and confronted him despite the officer's presence, court records show. She fired a single bullet into his head.

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