Rodolfo Gonzalez had faced an unresolved attempted-homicide case involving his mother before she was found dead in July.
WAUPACA, Wis. — More than a year before Rodolfo Gonzalez was accused of killing his mother inside a New London apartment, Wisconsin authorities had charged him with trying to kill the same woman in a separate case that was later suspended because he was found mentally incompetent to proceed.
That earlier prosecution now forms an unusual and consequential backdrop to a new first-degree intentional homicide case. Gonzalez, 39, is accused of fatally attacking his mother on July 26 and then setting several fires in her apartment at Franklin Park Apartments. Prosecutors also charged him with recklessly endangering safety, arson, mutilating a corpse and resisting or obstructing an officer. Weeks after the new charges were filed, his attorney again raised the question of competency. Judge Troy Nielsen ordered an evaluation and removed a scheduled preliminary hearing from the calendar, leaving the new case temporarily focused on whether Gonzalez can participate in his defense.
The earlier case dates to Feb. 23, 2025, in Outagamie County. According to court records cited in the new criminal complaint, Gonzalez was accused of attacking his mother and another man in a residence with a rock and a knife. Prosecutors charged him with attempted first-degree intentional homicide. The accusation never proceeded to a trial because Gonzalez was found not competent to continue. A competency finding does not decide whether an accused person committed an offense. It determines whether the person is presently capable of understanding the legal proceedings and assisting counsel, meaning the underlying attempted-homicide allegation remained unresolved.
Gonzalez’s release from custody in the older case was approved at a May 7, 2026, hearing under conditions that included cooperation with treatment and evaluations. The following month, Outagamie County District Attorney Melinda Tempelis raised concerns in a court filing about administering those conditions. She reported that Criminal Justice Treatment Services was unwilling to accept the case for services because the criminal matter was suspended and Gonzalez was not on bond. Tempelis argued that appropriate releases were needed to permit monitoring of the court’s nonmonetary conditions and to aid any redetermination of competency.
The prosecutor’s June filing also drew an important distinction between different kinds of legal and practical capacity. Tempelis wrote that being found incompetent to proceed in a criminal trial was different from a person’s status under a separate civil mental-health order and different from being able to follow basic institutional rules. She noted that Gonzalez was living independently in the community and managing day-to-day activities at that point. Those observations did not amount to a new finding that he was competent to stand trial. They were part of the state’s argument about compliance with the conditions imposed after his release.
Less than three months after the May hearing, firefighters responded to smoke at the Franklin Park Apartments in New London. Inside a fifth-floor apartment, they found Gonzalez’s mother unresponsive on a bed. Authorities reported at least three separate fires inside the unit. Investigators also observed sharp-force injuries to the woman’s chest and neck and cat litter around her head. She was pronounced dead. An autopsy later concluded that multiple sharp-force injuries to the neck caused her death and that she had died before the fires were set.
Investigators reached that timing conclusion partly because the autopsy found no soot in the woman’s lungs and no carbon monoxide in her blood. The complaint says those findings indicated she was not breathing during the fires. Prosecutors allege that the fires were deliberately set afterward in an effort to conceal the homicide. The reports reviewed for this article do not identify a motive for the alleged killing, and the victim has not been publicly named in the coverage consulted. Authorities have instead identified her by her relationship to Gonzalez and by her role as the victim in both the 2025 and 2026 cases.
The July investigation moved beyond the apartment itself. Security video allegedly showed Gonzalez on the building’s fifth floor around the time the fires were set. Officers later located him sitting near an elementary school. Authorities said he resisted arrest, and deputies used additional restraints before taking him into custody. Investigators reported recovering two lighters from him, along with a Bible, while other accounts based on the complaint said multiple cellphones were among items collected. Those allegations and recovered objects remain evidence to be evaluated in court rather than proof of guilt by themselves.
Waupaca County prosecutors subsequently filed the five charges arising from the woman’s death and the apartment fires. Gonzalez was held on a $1 million cash bond. The existence of the earlier attempted-homicide case immediately made his competency history relevant to the new prosecution, but the prior finding did not automatically decide his status in the new case. Competency concerns a defendant’s present condition. A court may therefore have to evaluate the question again as circumstances change, even when another judge has previously found the same defendant incompetent.
That is what occurred at an Aug. 13 review hearing. Gonzalez’s lawyer raised the competency issue, and Nielsen ordered formal proceedings that include an evaluation. The judge also removed Gonzalez’s Aug. 17 preliminary hearing from the calendar. A preliminary hearing would ordinarily address whether there is enough evidence for the felony case to continue, but the competency question now comes first. The available reporting did not show that the court had reached a final decision on the new evaluation by Aug. 30.
The sequence puts two different counties and two unresolved prosecutions into the background of the same defendant’s legal status. The Outagamie County case involves the alleged 2025 attack and was suspended after the earlier competency finding. The Waupaca County case involves the July 2026 death, fires and arrest. Although both cases involve Gonzalez and his mother, each carries its own accusations, evidence and procedural requirements. The earlier allegations cannot substitute for proof in the newer homicide case, and prosecutors must independently establish every element of the new charges if the case proceeds to trial.
The history also clarifies what is known and what remains unknown. Court records show that Gonzalez had been subject to conditions following his release and that prosecutors had concerns about monitoring them. Those records do not establish that a violation of any particular condition caused the July death. Nor do the public reports reviewed identify a documented motive or provide evidence that any specific agency action could have predicted the later homicide. The record supports a timeline of separate legal events; it does not support speculation about decisions or outcomes that were not documented.
Likewise, the competency proceedings should not be confused with a defense based on a person’s mental state at the time of an alleged crime. Competency asks whether Gonzalez can understand and participate in the proceedings now. It does not determine whether he was legally responsible for his conduct on July 26. No such determination has been reported, and no jury has heard evidence on the charges. The court must first decide whether the prosecution is able to move forward with Gonzalez as an active participant in his defense.
For now, Gonzalez remains reported in custody under the $1 million cash bond while the new evaluation was pending. The preliminary hearing no longer had its original Aug. 17 date, and no replacement date was identified in the material reviewed. The next procedural step therefore depends on the competency process, while both the new homicide allegations and the older attempted-homicide case remain unresolved.
Author note: Last updated Aug. 30, 2026.