Ohio Man Committed After Fatal Pedestrian Stabbing

A homeless man who fatally stabbed a stranger outside a downtown Columbus hotel last year has been committed to a mental hospital. Franklin Common Pleas Judge Richard Frye on Tuesday called 55-year-old Thomas Wallace a "poster child" for the problems with the state's mental-health system. Wallace had been in and out of prisons and psychiatric hospitals for more than three decades before he randomly attacked 42-year-old Jerry Fugett on Sept. 6, 2012. Frye ruled last month that Wallace was not guilty by reason of insanity based on separate evaluations by a psychiatrist and a psychologist. They had determined that severe mental illness prevented him from knowing right from wrong. Judge Frye ordered Wallace confined in a maximum security mental hospital.