Slain Baton Rouge nurse’s reported attacker to remain in mental health treatment facility

A judge has ordered a Lake Charles man accused of unleashing a deadly attack on a Baton Rouge General nurse to spend at least another six months in an East Feliciana mental hospital.

Jessie Guillory, 58, appeared in court for a sanity hearing in his manslaughter case tied to the killing of Lynne Truxillo, a 56-year-old registered nurse.  

Guillory was a behavioral health patient at Baton Rouge General on April 4, 2019, when he reportedly attacked Truxillo after she tried to stop him from assaulting another nurse at the hospital’s Mid City campus, according to police. Guillory directed his ire at Truxillo after she came to the aid of her colleague, grabbing her neck and striking her head on a desk, police said.

She sustained serious injuries and died a week later. Authorities classified her death as a homicide.

Truxillo’s death prompted Louisiana legislators to pass a law in her memory — the Lynne Truxillo Act — that establishes requirements for health care facilities aimed at preventing workplace violence that threatens medical professionals. 

Guillory has undergone evaluations from mental health specialists, who have diagnosed him with dementia and schizophrenia. He remains under judicial commitment at an Eastern Louisiana Mental Health System facility, where he is receiving treatment, a Louisiana Department of Health official said Thursday. State District Judge Eboni Johnson Rose extended his involuntary commitment another six months and scheduled a Nov. 13 court date to review his mental competence again.

Guillory showed signs of mental and physical deterioration during Thursday’s hearing. A bailiff had to push him into the courtroom in a wheelchair. When Guillory appeared for his review, he couldn’t recall his name or birth date. He did have knowledge of the reason he was in court, telling the judge “I’ve got a murder charge.”

But when Johnson Rose noted doctors found him unfit to be tried in the manslaughter case, Guillory said, “I don’t know nothing about it.”