{"id":949549,"date":"2026-11-02T06:08:13","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T06:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/949549\/"},"modified":"2026-11-02T06:08:13","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T06:08:13","slug":"tamika-chesser-mentally-incompetent-to-commit-murder-court-hears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/949549\/","title":{"rendered":"Tamika Chesser &#8216;mentally incompetent&#8217; to commit murder, court hears"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">A private psychiatric report into the mental health of a former Beauty and the Geek contestant accused of murdering her partner has found she was &#8220;provisionally mentally incompetent&#8221; to commit the offence, a court has heard.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Warning: This story contains content some readers may find distressing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Tamika Chesser today appeared via video link in South Australia&#8217;s Supreme Court and pleaded not guilty to murdering Julian Story, and to destroying his remains to pervert the course of justice.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Mr Story&#8217;s dismembered body was found in the couple&#8217;s unit at Port Lincoln, on Eyre Peninsula, in June 2025 after emergency services responded to reports of a fire.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">A member of the public found the 39-year-old&#8217;s head in scrubland east of the regional city a month later.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The prosecution and defence today made a joint application for a further report into Ms Chesser&#8217;s mental competence and fitness to stand trial.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A man with short brown hair wearing a black T-shirt is kneeling down and patting a dog. \" class=\"Image_image__5tFYM ContentImage_image__DQ_cq\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/b09c97483ab733d38a12dc2b74e4948c.jpeg\" loading=\"lazy\" data-component=\"Image\" data-lazy=\"true\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"Typography_base__sj2RP FigureCaption_text__zDxQ5 Typography_sizeMobile12__w_FPC Typography_lineHeightMobile20___U7Vr Typography_regular__WeIG6 Typography_colourInherit__dfnUx\" data-component=\"Typography\">Julian Story&#8217;s remains were found across two locations in 2025. (Supplied: SAPOL)<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Prosecutor Eilis Noone told the court the defence had recently supplied a private psychiatrist&#8217;s report from November 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">&#8220;The opinion is that Ms Chesser is unfit and provisionally mentally incompetent to commit the offences,&#8221; Ms Noone said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">&#8220;In those circumstances the director does ask, as a joint application with my learned friend, for a further report to be ordered.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">That report was expected to take between four and five months to be completed, but the court heard &#8220;it might be closer to three [months]&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Justice Adam Kimber, who was presiding over the hearing, said that was &#8220;good news&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">&#8220;Hopefully that will come to pass,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Justice Kimber ordered the report, and scheduled the matter to return to court in February.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A private psychiatric report into the mental health of a former Beauty and the Geek contestant accused of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":949550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[33607,2973,43,31589,125810,514,516692,2968,44,54920,33603,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-949549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-beauty-and-the-geek","tag-courts","tag-headlines","tag-julian-story","tag-mental-fitness","tag-mental-health","tag-mentally-incompetent","tag-murder","tag-news","tag-plea","tag-tamika-chesser","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=949549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/949550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=949549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=949549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=949549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}