SMITH COUNTY, Texas — The man arrested in connection with the alleged attack and attempted sexual assault of a woman at Tyler's Rose Rudman Park in March 2019 has been found incompetent to stand trial.
According to the 241st District Court, James Earl Roberts, Jr., 33, of Tyler, was declared incompetent during a recent hearing. He is currently being housed in the Smith County Jail awaiting transfer to a mental health facility.
Smith County judicial records stated Roberts would be in court Wednesday for a plea hearing. However, when CBS19 crews arrived, officials said the hearing was mistakenly left on the record.
Editor's Note: The video above is from the perp walk when Roberts was initially arrested on March 20, 2019.
THE ALLEGED CRIME
According to the arrest affidavit, around 7:30 p.m. on March 14, a woman was finishing her run along the trail at Rose Rudman Park when she heard someone following her.
The affidavit says Roberts tackled her from behind, put his hand on her face, told her to be quiet and said he had a knife.
Roberts allegedly drug the woman into a wooded area as she tried to fight back and scream. He allegedly pushed her face into the ground while holding the knife to her neck.
RELATED: 'She did a fantastic job in fighting him': Tyler police describe attack at Rose Rudman Park
When the woman asked what the man wanted, Roberts allegedly told her he wanted to have sex with her. The affidavit says the woman told police Roberts molested her from behind while tightening his grip over her mouth.
At that point, according to the affidavit, the suspect attempted to pull her pants down.
The affidavit says the woman continued to fight until she was able to grab the knife from Roberts and throw it away. She grabbed her phone and attempted to unlock it. However, Roberts reportedly grabbed the phone and threw it.
The affidavit says Roberts again tried to take her pants off. At that moment, she kicked him. He then ran away.
The woman continued to scream for help. While waiting for help to arrive, the affidavit says she found a shoe in the creek that she believed was the suspect's.
Finally, a woman came to help her contact police.
Soon after, police helped to find the woman's phone the suspect had allegedly thrown into the woods.
The affidavit says police later found scrapes and scratches on her face, neck and fingers consistent with the blade marks from a dull knife.
Police say they identified the suspect through a fingerprint found on the victim's cell phone that he threw into the woods.
When police ran the partial prints, they got a hit that matched Roberts' prints.
Police say after further investigation, they secured an arrest warrant and arrested Roberts.
Roberts has a long history of criminal charges, dating back to 2007, including making a terroristic threat, DUI and burglary.
Piror to being taken into custody in connection with the attack, he was arrested on March 16, two days after the alleged incident, for public intoxication.
