On Monday, the father of a 4-month-old girl charged with the murder of his baby daughter on June 23 heard a judge pronounce the verdict of his court-ordered, pre-trial competency hearing.

“A judge today found him competent to stand trial,” spokesman Dan Donohoe, said of 34-year-old Lee Mason Dupay.

Dupay’s next court date is a case setting hearing on Sept. 20 at the Regional Justice Center in Kent.

At his arraignment July 11, Dupay’s lawyer raised the issue of his client’s competency to stand trial, so the court ordered the evaluation and set the competency return hearing.

The baby’s mother, Mariah Leshay Phillips, 24, pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder at her July 11 arraignment.

Shortly after 5:45 a.m. on June 23, Auburn Police found the baby in the 1400 block of 17th Street Southeast, unconscious, not breathing and cold to the touch. She displayed obvious signs of severe malnourishment, including a protruding rib cage, and had unexplained injuries under her chin. Although Valley Com directed her parents to begin and continue CPR until police and the Valley Regional Fire Authority arrived, when firefighters got there, they pronounced the baby dead.

According to the police report: “The child appeared to be extremely malnourished, as her rib cage was clearly visible, along with the separation line of her stomach muscles, and her stomach was distended. The child’s legs contained no ‘baby fat …’ and the muscles and bones were clearly visible. ‘Baby fat’ typically located on an infant’s thighs and arms were absent and replaced with sagging skin.”

Police later arrested Dupay and Phillips, and detectives took protective custody of the couple’s 2-year-old twin daughters and turned them over to Child Protective Services.