The mental fitness hearing of accused child killer Matthew Higa has been delayed for at least several weeks.

The hearing, before Circuit Judge Dexter Del Rosario, was canceled yesterday afternoon after prosecution and defense lawyers met with Del Rosario in his chambers.

Deputy Prosector Rom Trader said after emerging from the meeting that because three mental health experts who examined Higa would not agree on the defendant's fitness to stand trial, the hearing was postponed.

A status conference in the case will be in two or three weeks while attorneys review the findings of the three experts and determine how to proceed, Trader said.

Higa, 23, was not in court yesterday, and defense attorney Randy Oyama was not available for comment.

Higa is accused of murdering 23-month-old Cyrus Belt by throwing the child off an H-1 Freeway overpass into on-rushing traffic below.

At the request of defense lawyer Oyama, Del Rosario appointed the three-member panel of experts to examine Higa to determine whether he is mentally fit to stand trial.

Two of those experts, Martin Blinder and Steven Gainsley, found that Higa was damaged by years of abusing the drug crystal methamphetamine but is mentally fit to stand trial.

The third, forensic psychologist Dennis Donovan, disagreed with that finding.

"I don't think he is fit to proceed," Donovan said in a written report to the court. "I think he is mildly psychotic as a residual of his crystal methamphetamine use."

Higa faces a prison sentence of life without the possibility of parole if convicted of the murder charge.

Higa lived with his father in a Punchbowl area apartment on the floor above the unit occupied by Belt's family.

The child's mother, Nancy Chanco, was in court yesterday but left without comment after the hearing was canceled.