Kyle Steven Williams has been found competent to stand trial for the 2021 murder of Kelly Jo Marie Kocurek of Hastings.
Attorneys for Williams dropped their objections to a competency report filed in the case in January earlier this year. On Monday, Judge Dannia L. Edwards issued an order finding Williams, 34, competent.
Williams’ jury trial had previously been scheduled for late February and early March of this year but was put on hold when a psychiatric evaluation was requested.
A motion hearing in the case is scheduled for Oct. 21 at 9 a.m., with a jury trial on the docket to begin Nov. 4 at 9 a.m.
Williams remains held in the Dakota County Jail with bail set at $2 million, charged with the alleged murder of Kocurek, who passed away May 23, 2021.
Williams was indicted by a grand jury in Dakota County on March 30, 2023, on charges of Murder in the First Degree (Domestic Abuse), Murder in the First Degree (Premeditated) and Murder in the Second Degree (With Intent/Not Premeditated).
Kocurek was died from injuries sustained in an incident in a Hastings motel on May 18, 2021. She was staying at the motel waiting to go to an inpatient treatment facility. She called her mother to bring her a suitcase she had left at home. When her mother arrived at the hotel, Williams, Kocurek’s boyfriend, was also there.
After an exchange where Kocurek’s mother expressed her desire that Williams not be there, the mother left. On the drive home, she received a call from Williams that Kocurek was not breathing, and she rushed back to be with her daughter. Less than a week later, Kocurek was pronounced dead. Her mother reported seeing Kocurek lying motionless in the hospital leading up to her death looking like she had been severely beaten repeatedly with several bruises on her face and neck.
A lengthy autopsy performed by the Ramsey County Medical Examiner determined that Kocurek’s death was a homicide, and she died from asphyxiation. Notes from the Medical Examiner included details of several injuries that could not be self-inflicted, including facial fractures and facial hemorrhages and hemorrhages in both eyes.
During the initial investigation, witnesses at the hotel reported hearing “wrestling or fighting” before Williams was seen running in the hallway with blood on him.
According to the criminal complaint, Williams had given several different accounts of the events to investigators but had always stuck with the story that Kocurek strangled herself with a cord.
Williams had left the state before charges were filed, and the charge of second-degree murder was issued in October of 2021. The warrant for Williams’s arrest was executed in Arizona and he was returned to Minnesota to stand trial.