Man charged in killing of Kansas priest may be incompetent for trial, lawyer says
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Defense filed motion for competency evaluation after defendant’s courtroom outbursts.
- Hermesch faces first-degree murder charge in April 3 shooting that killed Carasala.
- Shooting shook Seneca community; school children heard gunfire during recess.
The man charged in the April shooting death of a Catholic priest in northeast Kansas may be incompetent to stand trial, his lawyer said in a court document filed Tuesday.
Jason Belveal filed a motion in Nemaha County District Court requesting a competency evaluation for Gary Lee Hermesch after a contentious hearing during which Hermesch went on an angry tirade.
“Defendant’s counsel believes that the defendant may not be competent to stand trial,” Belveal wrote in the motion. “Wherefore the counsel requests this Court order a competency evaluation pursuant to K.S.A. 22-3302.”
Hermesch, 66, is charged with first-degree murder in the April 3 death of the Rev. Arul Carasala, a popular Catholic priest, outside the Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church rectory in Seneca.
Hermesch attended Tuesday’s hearing via Zoom from the Jackson County Jail in Holton, Kansas, where he is being held on $1 million bond. At one point, he demanded that Belveal be removed as his attorney “before I take my headphones off and slam them against the wall,” according to The Topeka Capital-Journal.
Referring to Belveal, Hermesch told District Magistrate Judge Scott Anson that “I want to get rid of him” and said he refused to look at his attorney or “listen to anything he says,” the Capital-Journal reported. After that, his microphone was muted.
Anson scheduled Hermesch’s next court hearing for Dec. 18.
Shooting jolts town
Carasala’s brutal killing shook the town of about 2,100 roughly 120 miles northwest of Kansas City. No motive for the fatal shooting has been revealed.
School was still in session when the gunfire erupted that April 3 afternoon. Fourth graders at Saints Peter and Paul Catholic School were outside playing behind the rectory during recess when they heard the gunshots. Other students heard the blasts through the school windows.
According to the probable cause affidavit, Nemaha County Sheriff Richard Vernon said he was notified at about 2:50 p.m. that a dispatcher was taking a 911 call reporting that someone had been shot near Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church about a block east of the Sheriff’s Office.
Vernon said he also was told that a possible suspect was pulling up outside the office. Vernon and Undersheriff Robert Cross went outside and saw a man later identified as Hermesch getting out of a Ford Explorer. The man told Cross that he needed to be arrested because “he had just shot Father Arul,” Vernon said in the affidavit.
As Vernon checked the SUV to make sure no one was inside, the document said, he heard Hermesch tell Cross that the priest was in front of the parish. Vernon said he drove to the church and found Carasala on the ground in front of the rectory “with blood coming from his head and pooling around his head on the ground from what appeared to be a gunshot wound.”
Vernon said he could hear Carasala breathing and moaning, and the Saints Peter and Paul school principal was kneeling on the ground trying to help the priest. An ambulance crew arrived about a minute later, Vernon said. When he couldn’t find the gun at the scene, Vernon said he called Cross and learned that Hermesch had told Cross it was in an orange bag in his SUV.
Vernon talked to a witness who said when he heard the gunshots, he went around the rectory and saw Carasala on the ground bleeding. The witness said he saw a vehicle heading west and that he had taken a photo of it. Another witness told Vernon that she saw a man shoot Carasala three times, then drive west and stop in front of the police station.
While still at the scene, Vernon said he learned that Carasala, 57, had died at the Nemaha Valley Community Hospital. A search of Hermesch’s vehicle turned up a revolver with three spent rounds in it.
Two Kansas Bureau of Investigations employees arrived around 6 p.m. and attempted to interview Hermesch at the jail, Vernon said in the affidavit, but Hermesch had requested a lawyer and wouldn’t talk to them.
Ordained in India
Carasala grew up in Cuddapah, India, and was ordained there in 1994, according to the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas. He served in the archdiocese for more than 20 years and was the dean of the Nemaha-Marshall region.
Retired Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann said Carasala was “a devoted and zealous pastor” who had been a priest at Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church for 14 years.
“This senseless act of violence has left us grieving the loss of a beloved priest, leader, and friend,” Naumann wrote in a post on social media after the shooting.
Hermesch, of Tulsa, was raised in the Seneca area, attended high school there and has many relatives still in the region. A brother works for the Nemaha County Sheriff’s Office, and another relative works at the Nemaha Valley Community Hospital, where medics rushed Carasala moments after the shooting.
In recent years, Hermesch wrote a series of angry letters to the editor of the local newspaper, The Courier-Tribune, criticizing the Catholic church for becoming too modern and even referring to it as the “fake Catholic church.” He blamed some of the country’s problems on the Novus Ordo Mass, which replaced the Traditional Latin Mass in the 1960s as the standard form of the Mass.
This story was originally published October 15, 2025 at 10:15 AM.
