SALEM – A man accused of killing his psychiatrist more than two decades ago will remain committed to the Oregon State Hospital after a judge agreed with experts that he’s still dangerous and delusional.

Multnomah County Senior Judge Douglas Beckman found the evidence “overwhelming” to keep John Eaton at the hospital.

Eaton, 62, has never been tried for the 1985 death of Dr. Michael McCulloch. Witnesses said he calmly entered the psychiatrist’s Portland office and fired at least five rounds.

Shortly after the shotgun attack, doctors declared him insane, saying he suffered from paranoid schizophrenic psychosis. For many years, Eaton waived his right to a commitment hearing to determine whether he was fit to be released from the Oregon State Hospital.

Thursday’s civil commitment hearing was held at the hospital. Three psychiatrists and a social worker testified that Eaton continues to suffer from paranoid schizophrenia and still justifies the fatal shooting by saying he was given a court order to execute McCulloch.

Oregon Assistant Attorney General Gene Ebersole told the court that Eaton believed he was from the planet Calyphus, and that McCulloch was working with aliens. Eaton has said the Portland psychiatrist was hurting him by messing with the chip Eaton had implanted in his brain and stealing his cure for cancer.

Eaton answered several questions during the hearing. Ebersole said he was a presiding judge in the computer division of the “Court of Appeals for the Second Judicial District,” and, if he receives a court order to execute someone, he’d have to follow it.

Despite multiple medications the past 23 years, Eaton remains delusional and dangerous, hospital psychiatrists testified. For several years after the shooting, Eaton was kept in a maximum security ward because of his aggressiveness. But he’s now been in the hospital’s geriatric psychiatry unit for several years.