Limon found mentally fit for trial

Criminal proceedings were reinstated Tuesday, Feb. 23, against a Cottonwood woman accused of attempted murder and other crimes in connection with the alleged beating of her boyfriend's 7-year-old son last year.

A Redding psychologist who evaluated Rachel Ann Limon, 27, reported that she is mentally competent to stand trial.

Shasta County Superior Judge James Ruggiero, who reimposed the proceedings against Limon, also set a March 18 preliminary hearing for her and her brother, Gregory Matthew Limon.

The case against Rachel Limon was suspended last month after her Redding defense attorney, David Wilson, told Ruggiero that she had been unresponsive in his efforts to represent her.

Ruggiero appointed clinical psychologist David Wilson - no relation to the attorney - to evaluate her.

Limon, who remains in custody in Shasta County jail in lieu of $1.5 million bail, is charged with attempted murder, torture, aggravated mayhem, child abuse and four related enhancements.

She and her brother, who is accused of child abuse, being an accessory and obstructing or delaying an officer, were arrested Dec. 11 after sheriff's deputies went to a Rhonda Road residence in response to an anonymous report that a severely abused child was there.

The badly injured child was found in a bedroom and it's believed that he would have died within 24 hours without medical treatment, a Shasta County sheriff's report says.

Nicknamed "The Christmas Boy" by two Shasta County women who established a fund for him, the child suffered six broken ribs and a collapsed lung, among other injuries. He is now in foster care.

Sheriff's investigators have said that Rachel Limon admitted to having inflicted some of the boy's injuries as acts of revenge against the boy's biological mother.

Rachel Limon is facing several life sentences if convicted.

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