After months of treatment, the 19-year-old Las Vegas man accused of bludgeoning to death a fellow Knox College student, Andrea Racibozynski of Naperville, has been found mentally fit to stand trial.
Officials in Galesburg, where Racibozynski, 19, died March 29 after she suffered several blows to the head, said the murder trial of Clyde Andrew Best has been scheduled for Feb. 8.
Knox County State’s Atty. Paul Mangieri said Circuit Judge James Stewart made his ruling Wednesday after a report from a clinical psychiatrist with the Illinois Department of Human Services. Best’s trial has been on hold since early May, when the defendant was ruled mentally unable to handle the proceedings.
Mangieri said he plans to try the case himself.
“We’re pleased at this point that we can move forward,” he said.
The Racibozynski family declined to comment.
Best’s attorney, James Shadid of Peoria, would not comment on his client’s treatment but said Best “seemed fine” in court Wednesday.
“He’s fit for trial,” Shadid said, “which means he can understand the proceedings and assist in his own defense.”
Neither side has ruled out a plea bargain.
“We will be considering all of our alternatives,” Shadid said.
A pretrial conference has been scheduled for Jan. 19.
The events that led to the charging of Best, a freshman at the western Illinois liberal arts college, with first-degree murder date to the early hours of March 29, when he and Racibozynski stood in a group of Knox students near a library on campus.
Minutes later, she would be discovered near death in a blood-splattered stairwell. She died later that day in a Galesburg hospital.
The freshman was known around campus for her kindness and contagious smile, her on-air work at the school’s radio station and her religious faith, friends said. In high school, she was remembered as a talented member of Naperville North’s Spirit Squad, a competitive flag corps.
Best has been described by acquaintances as bright and engaging and as an aspiring lawyer. Police have not been able to point to anything in Best’s past that would suggest he had struggled with violent behavior.
Shortly before 1 a.m. on the day she died, Racibozynski told friends at a fraternity party in the Sigma Nu house, just off campus on West Street, that she was heading to her dorm, according to Galesburg police. She left with a group of friends, police said.
Galesburg Police Chief John Schlaf said the group met up with other students, including Best, on the quadrangle.
“Each of the students was then re-evaluating what they wanted to do at that point,” Schlaf said.
Police believe Racibozynski and Best met for the first time then. It was about 1:15 a.m., Schlaf said, when Racibozynski apparently changed her mind about going home and decided she wanted to return to the party.
Police said that Best offered to walk her back to the Sigma Nu house and that Racibozynski accepted. But Best first wanted to drop off his jacket in his dorm room in Seymour Hall, a few steps away, according to investigators.
Police said the two entered the building just off the quadrangle and walked up a flight of four stairs to a landing. It was between 1:15 and 1:30 a.m.
“That’s when some kind of altercation took place,” Schlaf contended.
Police and prosecutors allege Best picked up a brick being used as a door prop in the hallway and repeatedly struck Racibozynski with it. She was badly beaten in the head and face.
An item of physical evidence at the crime scene led investigators to Best’s floor and ultimately to his room. Schlaf declined to elaborate.
By 4:25 a.m., Best had been arrested and removed from the dormitory. Less than three hours later, police requested a search warrant for Room 210–Best’s room–in Seymour Hall.
Investigators discovered a bloody shirt there, Schlaf said. Police then obtained a search warrant for Best’s 1994 Dodge Shadow.
In the car, police allegedly discovered bloodstained pants and a brick they believe is the slaying weapon.
Mangieri said he believes enough physical evidence exists to get a conviction, even if no motive for the attack is established. Prosecutors have asked for blood and hair samples and palm prints from Best.
Two factors that Mangieri said he does not expect to surface at trial are race–Best is black and Racibozynski was white–and Best’s employment background. Although they say they will not introduce the information in court, prosecutors have verified that Best worked as a clerk in an adult bookstore in the weeks before the slaying.
Investigators also have said they do not believe the killing stemmed from an attempted sexual assault.
Former Knox student Andy Bayles, a member of the Illinois Army National Guard, said he drilled near Galesburg with Best, a Guard reservist. Everyone who knows Best describes him as a straight-arrow, Bayles said.
“People felt bad even swearing around him,” Bayles said. “He was such a proper person.”
