By Janice Morse
The Cincinnati Enquirer

HAMILTON - Since his arrest on charges that he walked into a Butler County trucking company and fatally shot two workers, Tom West has repeatedly said he wanted to tell his story.

But that story is part of "an elaborate delusional belief system," a psychologist said in a report that led a judge on Tuesday to declare West incompetent to stand trial on murder charges that carry a potential death sentence.

Common Pleas Judge Keith Spaeth ordered West, 50, to undergo treatment at a maximum-security mental health center in Columbus and return to court for a hearing in six months.

West, a drifter who lived out of his van, was known as Joseph Eschenbrenner III when he was charged with molesting two young girls in Minnesota. He changed his name and got a job with Watkins Motor Lines in 1998. But he became convinced that the trucking company had learned about the molestation charges and was trying to coerce him into quitting, said Hamilton clinical psychologist Robert Kurzhals.

West thought the company was "placing toxins in his eyewash, giving him some type of chemical to shrink his penis, putting some type of toxic gas in his truck to affect his breathing, and infesting him with some kind of attack bugs," Kurzhals said.

West's lawyer, Noah Powers, said that is the story his client has wanted to tell: "What kind of defense can you mount with that?"

West resigned from Watkins a month after crashing his 80,000-pound tractor-trailer into an Alabama overpass abutment on Oct. 17, 2001. Kurzhals said he intentionally wrecked the semi, "not as an attempt to kill himself, but as an attempt to hurt the company financially."

West is accused of a Nov. 6 shooting spree Watkins' West Chester Township hub that wounded three men and killed Bob Lines, 65, of Springfield Township, and Donald Haury, 50, of Beavercreek, a Dayton suburb.

West cannot be evaluated for his plea of "not guilty by reason of insanity" until he is considered competent; Kurzhals said he thinks West's competency could be restored within a year. A hearing set for Dec. 7 could be held sooner if West's doctors report a significant change in his mental status.

E-mail jmorse@enquirer.com