Man to plead guilty to attack on deputy

Saturday, Feb. 7, 1998 | 11:09 a.m.

Gordon Terry Murphy waived his right to a preliminary hearing Friday in Carson City Justice Court and is scheduled to enter the plea Feb. 17 in Carson District Court.

In exchange for his guilty plea to a charge of resisting a peace officer with a deadly weapon, prosecutors agreed to drop a charge of assault with a deadly weapon.

"I am inclined to ask for the maximum prison term in this case due to the severity of the crime," Deputy District Attorney Anne Langer said.

Deputy Cate Summers, the officer involved in the incident, attended Friday's court hearing.

"I hope whatever time he does he can use it to benefit his life," she told the Reno Gazette-Journal.

Murphy was charged with taking Summer's gun in a Dec. 11 struggle in Carson City. One shot was fired, but no one was injured.

Summers approached Murphy shortly after he walked out of Carson-Tahoe Hospital's Life Stress Center, where he was undergoing a mental evaluation, deputies said.

Murphy, who has a history of mental illness, was acting erratically, according to witnesses.

Murphy was taken to Lake's Crossing Center for the Mentally Disordered Offender in Sparks after his arrest and later was deemed competent to stand trial.

Prosecutors earlier dropped a charge of attempted murder against him.

"We thought there might be some difficulty in showing that the defendant intended to kill Deputy Summers," Langer said.