Tuesday, August 8, 2023–11:03 a.m.
-John Bailey, Rome News-Tribune-
This story is possible because of a news-sharing agreement with the Rome News-Tribune. More information can be found at northwestgeorgianews.com.
A Floyd County Superior Court judge has ordered an evaluation to determine the mental capacity of a man charged in the brutal killing and mutilation of a young Cumming man.
Brandon Christopher Risner, 22, is accused of stabbing, disfiguring and disemboweling his former friend 21-year-old Aaron William Davis in November 2022.
Risner’s attorney Jeffrey Heller requested two mental health evaluations. He said his client exhibited behaviors that led him to believe Risner should be evaluated to determine criminal responsibility at the time of the act and whether he is competent to stand trial, according to court documents.
Chief Judge John “Jack” Niedrach ordered that the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities conduct the evaluation.
Davis was a recent Brigham Young University-Idaho graduate, and the two men had a long history together. They went to high school together and attended The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Cumming.
On Nov. 11, 2022, Davis came to Rome to see Risner on his way to visit other friends in Alabama. When he didn’t arrive at his destination, the Davis family reached out to police. Rome police discovered his abandoned vehicle in a ditch behind the levee at Heritage Park. An investigation led police to Risner’s home at 1002 Collinwood Road.
Police began searching the area near Risner’s Collinwood address and found Davis’s body in the woods off Tumlin Drive. It was in a 6- to 8-foot hole left by a large uprooted oak tree and concealed under 6 to 12 inches of dirt, police reports stated.
When contacted, Risner initially fled but later turned himself into police.
Risner is charged with felony murder, aggravated assault, aggravated battery, concealing the death of another, abandonment of a dead body and theft by taking, as well as misdemeanor removal of body parts from the scene of a death, tampering with evidence and obstruction of an officer.
The process of conducting a mental evaluation can add months, and potentially a year or more, to the time before a case goes to trial.
Another local case is on hold pending the mental evaluation of a 30-year-old man who is accused of killing his 82-year-old grandmother in late 2021 and keeping her body stored in a freezer until it was discovered by Floyd County police.
Robert Keith Tincher III is accused of forcing his grandmother, Doris Cumming, alive into plastic bags sometime in December 2021. He then dragged her through the residence and placed her in a large freezer, breaking several of her bones.
Police say Tincher kept Cumming’s body in a freezer in her home for a time and then moved the freezer to a nearby storage unit. Approximately four months later, that freezer was discovered by police.
Tincher was arrested in April 2022 on felony malice murder, concealing the death of another, aggravated battery and felony murder charges.