MIDDLETOWN, Conn. -- A former Colorado man accused of killing a Wesleyan University student in a bookstore cafe is undergoing a mental health evaluation to help determine whether he is fit for trial.

Stephen P. Morgan, who appeared briefly Tuesday in Middletown Superior Court, has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, intimidation based on bigotry or bias and carrying a pistol without a permit.

Morgan, 30, is accused of fatally shooting Johanna Justin-Jinich, 21, of Timnath, Colo., at her job in a bookstore cafe near the Wesleyan campus on May 6. He has been held without bail since he surrendered to police two days later.

Police have said Justin-Jinich, a junior at Wesleyan, knew Morgan from a six-week summer course they took together at New York University in 2007. A New York City police report showed that Morgan threatened the victim in 2007 when they were both attending NYU.

Justin-Jinich filed a harassment complaint against him on July 10, 2007, claiming that he was calling her repeatedly and sent her insulting e-mails for at least a week.

In one e-mail, Morgan allegedly said Justin-Jinich was "going to have a lot more problems down the road." According to the report filed with New York police, Justin-Jinich said she felt "scared" and "threatened" by Morgan's e-mails.

Morgan, who is from Boulder, Colo., was enrolled at the University of Colorado in 2007, according to CU records. Prior to that, he lived in Colorado Springs from 2002-2005 and owned a home there.

Police said Morgan may have been staying at a Middlefield motel for a couple of days prior to the crime and among the items found in his room was a journal where he wrote that he hoped to make Wesleyan "the Jewish Columbine." He reportedly targeted Wesleyan students and Jews in his journals. Justin-Jinich came from a Jewish family, and her grandmother was a Holocaust survivor.

Justin-Jinich was shot multiple times at point-blank range after a man wearing a wig walked up to her at the bookstore café.

"She was a beautiful person, but it was also the beauty of her soul shining through that made her that beautiful," Adele Eastman, a friend and former teacher, said in May.

Police had interviewed Morgan outside the bookstore right after the fatal shooting without realizing he was a suspect. He was let go. Police say they zeroed in on Morgan after finding his car parked nearby, a box of ammunition and an empty handgun holster. In Morgan’s car, police found a journal in which he spelled out a plan to rape and kill Justin-Jinich before going on a campus shooting spree, officials have said.

Richard R. Brown, Morgan's attorney, said Tuesday that it is too early to say whether Morgan may claim insanity as part of his not guilty plea. If he does pursue a mental health defense, prosecutors would review the evaluation that Brown ordered and could require another evaluation by experts of their choosing.

Brown said he hopes the mental health evaluation is finished by the time Morgan returns to court Jan. 26.

"The bottom line is this is obviously an extremely serious case coupled with what one may characterize as a bizarre set of tragic facts," Brown said.

Prosecutors have ordered an analysis of information found on Morgan's computer, including e-mail messages and documents, and DNA analysis of Morgan's clothes that might show whether he was close to Justin-Jinich when she was shot.

Justin-Jinich would have graduated next year from Wesleyan. The elite liberal arts school in central Connecticut has about 3,000 undergraduate and graduate students.