More than a year and a half after her arrest, with much of the time spent since then determining whether or not she was competent to stand trial, the Canyon Country woman accused of killing her brother was formally charged with murder.
Jessica Paige Greenback, 27, appeared Tuesday in San Fernando Superior Court where she was arraigned on a felony charge of murder.
“She pleaded not guilty,” Ricardo Santiago, spokesman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office said Tuesday afternoon.
Greenback was ordered to appear back in court Dec. 14.
Greenback was arrested Feb. 8, 2015, on suspicion of murder and remained in custody with bail set at $ 6.15 million in one of the Santa Clarita Valley’s eight domestic violence-related homicides last year.
A criminal complaint filed by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office alleges Greenback shot and murdered her brother, then tried to murder her father and a family friend in the apartment the family shared on Danielson Street in Canyon Country.
The complaint against Greenback also includes a charge of child abuse for allegedly exposing a child, her younger sister, to the shootings.
In March last year Greenback’s attorney “raised a doubt about her mental health,” the prosecutor at the time said.
Greenback was transferred to the Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino for psychological assessment. The mental health assessment was ordered under section 1368 of the California Penal Code, the prosecutor said.
She was declared incompetent to stand trial in late April 2015, but by Oct. 13 last year her criminal case resumed “when it was found she was competent to assist in her defense,” District Attorney’s Office spokesman Ricardo Santiago said.
The 5-foot-9, 150-pound Greenback is alleged to have shot her brother, Johnnie Greenback, and father, Sonny Greenback, each in the head, according to court documents and a homicide detective who investigated the case.
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