Kobe was an 8-month-old Chihuahua/wirehaired terrier mix.

A Baker City man accused of stealing a family’s dog and then leaving it to die outside town in 2020, and who was later ruled mentally unable to aid in his defense on criminal charges, is scheduled to return to court in November.

Clayton Carter Hickman, 20, is slated to attend a hearing Nov. 18 at 1:45 p.m. in Baker County Circuit Court.

The purpose is to determine whether he is capable of participating in his defense.

The legal issue is whether Hickman, who has been required to undergo mental health counseling through New Directions Northwest in Baker City, has completed what’s known as “community restoration.”

That means in essence that he is mentally capable of assisting with his defense.

In a July 26, 2022, letter from Rebecca Frolander, the Wallowa County district attorney who is prosecuting Hickman, to the Baker County Circuit Court, she references a letter from New Directions Northwest stating that Hickman “has completed community restoration.”

“It appears that Defendant can now aid and assist his attorney, and the proceedings should resume,” Frolander wrote in the letter.

Frolander was assigned to handle the case due to a conflict of interest — the dog’s owner, Stephanie Beard, is a Baker County employee.

Baker County Circuit Court Judge Matt Shirtcliff, formerly the Baker County district attorney, also recused himself from the case, so it was assigned to Judge Thomas B. Powers, presiding judge for the 10th Judicial District of Oregon, which includes Union and Wallowa counties.

Hickman was arrested on Sept. 13 of this year in Baker City on a charge of driving while under the influence of intoxicants.

Hickman is also charged with fleeing or attempting to elude a police officer, and reckless driving, based on the same incident, which happened Sept. 13, according to court records.

Case dates to 2020

Hickman was arrested in July 2020 on charges of first-degree theft, a Class C felony, and two misdemeanors, animal abandonment and second-degree criminal trespassing.

He is accused of taking Kobe, an 8-month-old Chihuahua/wirehaired terrier owned by Stephanie Beard and her family, and abandoning the animal.

The Beards, with help from family and friends, searched for Kobe for more than a month.

Stephanie Beard and her husband, Luke, found Kobe’s remains on an embankment off Old Highway 30 southeast of Baker City on Sept. 2, 2020, while they were driving home from a day-long search in the Ebell Creek area.

Stephanie Beard said in a 2020 interview that although her family didn’t know Hickman well, they had let him stay in an outbuilding on their property as he was finishing high school during the spring of 2020.

She said she hadn’t seen Hickman recently before Kobe went missing on July 19, 2020.

A neighbor who says he saw Hickman take the dog from the Beards’ yard helped police identify him as a suspect.

Hickman was indicted on the theft, animal abandonment and trespassing charges by a grand jury on Aug. 27, 2020.

Hickman’s entry of a plea in court was postponed several times in the fall of 2020 and in the winter and spring of 2021.

On June 21, 2021, Judge Powers ruled that Hickman lacked the mental fitness to proceed with the criminal charges.