Competency of Minneapolis man accused of beating his disabled daughters dropped

The house where Jerry Lee Curry and Shelia Machelle Wilson lived
The house where Jerry Lee Curry and Shelia Machelle Wilson lived with their family in south Minneapolis in February 2018.
Evan Frost | MPR News file

The lawyer for a man accused of beating, shackling and raping his disabled daughters for years dropped a challenge Wednesday that could have delayed the man's trial.

Jerry Curry, 52, faces eight felony charges ranging from stalking to rape in a case against his adult daughters that the Hennepin County attorney called the most horrific of his career.

Curry was deemed competent to stand trial on the charges last year, but his lawyer William Selman was set Wednesday to challenge those findings from the court-ordered evaluation.

Instead, Sellman said he would not go forward with the challenge. He declined to comment further, after previously expressing concern about Curry's competency.

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Jerry Lee Curry and Sheila Wilson
Jerry Lee Curry and Shelia Machelle Wilson were charged in February 2018 with abusing their disabled twin daughters.
Courtesy of Hennepin County Jail

The mother of the young women, Shelia Wilson, has pleaded guilty to lesser charges and has agreed to testify at Curry's trial, which is slated for Feb. 19.

The twins told investigators they were often chained to the door of their parents' bedroom in a south Minneapolis home. They were deprived of food, beaten and sexually assaulted. Their younger sister, who was 11 at the time of the arrests, told investigators she was hit in the head with a golf club.

Hennepin County launched a review of its earlier interactions with the family after Curry and Wilson were arrested and charged last year.

The county had opened and closed at least two cases on the family and neighbors had repeatedly called police to the home more than four dozen times over a six-year period ending in June 2017.