DENVER - A judge says a man charged in the 1996 beating death of a 27-year-old woman in Denver is competent to stand trial.

The Denver Post reports Judge John Madden also found sufficient probable cause Friday to bind Chester Leroy Todd's case over for trial.

Todd, who is wheelchair bound and in the advanced stages of Parkinson's disease, is charged with first-degree murder after deliberation and felony murder after sexual assault.

Authorities say he had been wanted since the discovery of Sherri Lynn Majors' body in an alley in March 1996.

Todd, who was a truck driver at the time of the slaying, allegedly abandoned his truck in Iowa shortly after the slaying when he learned a warrant had been issued for his arrest.

Police learned his whereabouts and arrested him in Las Vegas last year.