Ex-employee charged with shootings withdraws insanity plea

<p>A trucker has withdrawn his innocent by reason of insanity plea to charges that he killed two men and injured three others in a Nov. 6 shooting at an office of the company that once employed him.</p><p>Tom West, 50, who said his former lawyer had entered the plea without his permission, withdrew the plea Tuesday at a hearing in Butler County Common Pleas Court. His former lawyer withdrew from the case after West complained he could not work with him.</p><p>He just doesnt believe he is insane. He has been adamant about that, said his current lawyer, Noah Powers.</p><p>West is to go on trial July 19 on two counts of aggravated murder and four counts of attempted aggravated murder for the shootings at the West Chester office of Watkins Motor Lines Inc. He could be sentenced to death if convicted of aggravated murder.</p><p>Judge Keith Spaeth granted a defense request for an order barring West Chester police detectives from contacting West at the jail. Wests lawyers said two detectives went to the jail Nov. 19 with the intent to interview West about the Watkins case. West had already been indicted and appointed counsel at the time of the visit.</p><p>If police had questioned him, it would have violated his rights, Powers said.</p><p>Relatives of Donald Haury, 50, a trucker killed in the shooting, glared at West as he entered the courtroom. West looked in their direction briefly, then straight ahead.</p><p>Haurys widow, Vicki Haury, said later that she wanted West to see the anger and hurt he has caused her.</p><p>The person you killed was someone who was loved, she said.</p><p>West, born Joseph John Eschenbrenner III, had worked as a trucker based in Watkins Atlanta office until 2001. Wests father said that his son had a grudge against the company because he said workers harassed him for crashing a truck.</p>