Man Charged In Amtrak Train Stabbing Will Not Stand Trial
BERRIEN COUNTY (WWJ/AP) -- The man accused of stabbing four people last December aboard an Amtrak train in southwest Michigan will not stand trial.
A Berrien County Judge has ruled that Michael D. Williams is unable to aid his own defense of attempted murder charges and will not stand trial based on mental incompetence.
According to his sister, Williams was paranoid and feared people were after him which is why he attacked the people on the train in Niles, Michigan. He will undergo mental health care and have periodic evaluations.
Williams was charged with four counts of assault with intent to murder.
The 44-year-old Saginaw native is accused of stabbing a conductor and three fellow passengers when the train stopped in Niles, about 10 miles north of South Bend, Indiana. Police rushed to the train and subdued Williams with a stun gun.
He later told detectives that the "guy he was talking to on the train turned into a demon and he had to fight" him, according to court documents.
Police said the victims were in stable condition. The train with 172 passengers was traveling from Chicago to Port Huron, which is 60 miles northeast of Detroit.
A sister, Tracy Williams, told The Saginaw News that she spoke to her brother last week. She said her brother seemed to be hallucinating and feared for his life as he tried to get to Saginaw.
"We were having conversations back and forth, and I said, 'You know, Mike, this doesn't make any sense. Why are they after you?'" Tracy Williams said. "Whatever he believed in his head was real to him. Nothing I could have said could make him think any different."
She said her brother is a military veteran who moved to Atlanta last summer to get a commercial driver's license and work as a cross-country trucker.
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