MANKATO — While motions were made and orders were filed last week in the murder case against Travis Ryan Earle, the status of the case hasn’t changed: Earle, who admitted to killing his father in 2022 in their rural Mankato home, remains in the Minnesota Security Hospital and remains, for now, not competent to stand trial.
The status of those charges changed briefly last week when a Blue Earth County District Court judge ordered the charges be dismissed. The judge’s order for dismissal cited state law requiring the charges be dropped after three years unless the state files written notice of an intent to prosecute when the defendant becomes fit to stand trial.
But the law also states that the written notice doesn’t apply in cases where defendants are charged with violent crimes.
Earle’s pair of second-degree murder charges qualify as violent crimes. That prompted Blue Earth County prosecutors to ask the judge to vacate the order that dismissed the charges. Judge Andrea Lieser agreed and vacated her own order the next day.
Today the case remains in the same status as it did prior to the initial order for dismissal. Earle is evaluated regularly. If he’s someday deemed competent to stand trial, the prosecution will move forward.
Earle faces second-degree murder charges in the stabbing death of his father, Steven Earle, 59, in April 2022. Steven Earle later died during surgery but was able to implicate his son.
Earle and his father lived together at 208 Eleanor St., just outside Mankato city limits in South Bend Township. The father called 911 to report his son had a knife and had beaten him up before.
First responders arrived to find Travis Earle waiting in the yard, while the father was inside bleeding from multiple stab wounds. Steven Earle died that evening after being transported to a Rochester hospital.
Earle told detectives the dispute started over a canceled cable subscription.