In reversal, man found competent to stand trial in brutal Loring Park murder

The man charged in the brutal murder of a beloved Loring Park grocery store clerk last winter was ruled mentally competent to stand trial Tuesday, a reversal of an earlier determination that he was unfit to participate in his own defense.

Taylor Justin Schulz, 45, was charged with second-degree murder in the death of Robert Skafte on Dec. 9, 2023. Skafte, 66, worked at the Oak Grove Grocery store and was an acclaimed ballet dancer and beloved employee at the neighborhood store for nearly two decades. He was beaten and impaled with a golf club behind the counter.

Earlier this year, Schulz refused to appear for a virtual Hennepin County District Court hearing but was found mentally incompetent to stand trial by judicial officer Danielle Mercurio based off a mental competency evaluation that was ordered in the aftermath of the killing.

On Tuesday, Judge Julia Dayton Klein asked Schulz's lawyer, Emmett Donnelly, during a virtual hearing if he objected to the new evaluation which ruled Schultz competent to stand trial.

"We do not have grounds to contest the opinion at this time," Donnelly said.

Hennepin County attorney Liz Murphy also had no objections.

Messages left with Donnelly and Murphy were not immediately returned. The next hearing for Schulz will be set at a future date, while his bail remains set at $1 million.

When Schulz was ruled incompetent, then Hennepin County Attorney spokesperson Nicholas Kimball explained how that determination could change.

"If a judge determines that Schulz meets commitment criteria, treatment efforts to assist Schulz in attaining competence will begin," Kimball said. "If he is found to be competent in the future, the County Attorney's Office will immediately resume proceedings in the criminal case."

Court records show Schulz's history of mental illness, including a diagnosis of schizophrenia and self-reported PTSD. Schulz had received treatment and services through the VA in the past. He had lived in an apartment across the street from the Oak Grove Grocery and court records showed he had been evicted a week before the killing and had previously assaulted other apartment residents.

Charges, based on surveillance video of the attack, state that Schultz approached the store counter with merchandise and almost immediately walked around the counter and began kneeing and punching Skafte, who attempted to get away. Schulz dragged him back by his shirt and continued choking, punching and kicking him. He then retrieved a golf club from behind the counter.

He struck Skafte in the head and neck eight times before the head of the club broke off. Schulz then stabbed him with the broken shaft of the club before impaling him in the torso.

Police arrested Schulz in his barricaded apartment after a six-hour standoff. A witness told police they saw a resident run into the apartment with blood on his face and clothing.

Schulz was already the subject of a person-in-crisis welfare check after he called 911 "wanting to speak to the FBI, refused to give further information," according to emergency dispatch audio. He refused to come out of his 16th-floor apartment when police arrived and a negotiator was called to the scene.

A customer entered the grocery store less than two minutes after the attack and called 911.

Skafte trained and danced with Westside School of Ballet in Santa Monica, Calif., in the early 1980s, and Kansas City Ballet from 1984 to 1994. He then made Minneapolis home, dancing with the theater company Ballet of the Dolls, according to Westside's website.

Over the years, he coordinated community gardens and farmers markets and inspired neighbors with chalk art poetry outside the grocery store, which has remained shuttered since the killing. .

Star Tribune staff writers Kim Hyatt, Paul Walsh, Abby Simons and Louis Krauss contributed to this report.