Second Competency Exam OK'd for Mom Accused of Cutting Up Son with Circular Saw

A second independent competency exam has been ordered for a St. Clair Shores woman who is accused of killing and dismembering her adult son with a power saw.

Donna Scrivo, 60, has been charged with first-degree premeditated murder, disinterment and mutilation of a dead body, and removing a body without the medical examiner’s permission in connection with the death of her son, whose remains were found in garbage bags strewn across rural parts of St. Clair County.

After the first competency exam showed Scrivo was competent to stand trial, her attorney, Elias Muawad of Bloomfield Hills, asked for a second evaluation Tuesday in 405h District Court in St. Clair Shores, the Detroit Free Press reports.

Muawad, who recently took over as Scrivo’s, declined to comment on the specifics of the bizarre case, but he said a second independent competency exam is “a standard practice” and “something I have to do.”

Mark Huddad, a court-appointed attorney who represented Scrivo at her arraignment in February, had called her “a real sweetheart, very pleasant and very respectful.”

Last year, Scrivo sought guardianship and hospitalization of her son, Ramsay Scrivo, 32, who reportedly had been diagnosed with psychosis and had threatened suicide after the death of his father.

Among the evidence against her in his murder is surveillance video showing her buying the circular saw authorities say she used to cut up his body. It was found in one of the bags containing his body parts.

Authorities haven’t said exactly how Scrivo allegedly killed her son, who died of asphyxiation, according to an autopsy report.

But Assistant Prosecutor William Cataldo previously said in court that the victim had been “horrifically mutilated,” had ligature marks on his neck, suffered blunt-force trauma to his head and shoulders and then was likely placed in a bathtub and set on fire, the newspaper said.