A person on trial for bludgeoning 4 homeless males to loss of life with a metallic bar as they slept on the road in decrease Manhattan had been identified with schizophrenia when he left jail months earlier and was listening to voices telling him he wanted to kill 40 folks or he would die too, his lawyer advised jurors on Tuesday.
Randy Santos, 31, is asserting an madness protection at his trial in state courtroom. By way of his attorneys, he has acknowledged committing the 2019 Chinatown rampage. However, they argue, he’s not criminally accountable as a result of psychological sickness has polluted his thoughts with irrational ideas and left him susceptible to violence.
In the event that they succeed, Santos could possibly be despatched to a psychiatric therapy facility as a substitute of jail.
“He wanted the voices to cease. He wanted to save lots of his personal life,” Santos’ lawyer, Marnie Zien, mentioned in a gap assertion. “He noticed no different means out.”
Santos, 31, has pleaded not responsible to prices together with first-degree homicide within the deaths of Florencio Moran, Nazario Vásquez Villegas, Anthony Manson and Chuen Kok and tried homicide prices for assaults that left two different males severely injured. They had been amongst 319 killings in New York Metropolis in 2019, together with 52 in Manhattan.
Surveillance video captured Santos “repeatedly lifting the bar up over his head and bringing it down on the top” of 1 sufferer, Assistant District Lawyer Alfred Peterson advised jurors.
A pair out on a date on Manhattan’s Bowery road noticed him beating one other man with the identical weapon, Peterson mentioned. Police discovered Santos carrying the bar, which was lined with blood and hair. Testing confirmed it had his DNA on one finish and blood from a few of his victims on the opposite, the prosecutor mentioned.
Verdict will decide if Santos goes to jail or psychological facility
If the jury convicts Santos, rejecting his madness protection, he could possibly be sentenced to life in jail. In any other case, he could possibly be involuntarily dedicated to therapy for so long as obligatory.
Peterson urged jurors to look previous Santos’ psychological well being claims and discover him responsible on all prices, telling them that proof will present that Santos “knew precisely what he was doing and the results of what he was doing — that he was killing these males,” the prosecutor mentioned.
Santos regarded up and down the road and “noticed the coast was clear” earlier than beginning the assault, Peterson mentioned. He then paused to let a pedestrian — and potential witness — depart the world earlier than wailing on one other man, Peterson mentioned. He knew “it was legally and morally mistaken,” the prosecutor mentioned.
Santos even acknowledged himself in surveillance video of the assault, Peterson mentioned. Proven the footage after his arrest, he advised police: “Yea, that’s me.”
Santos, a local of the Dominican Republic who moved to New York as a baby, attacked 5 males between 1:30 a.m. and a couple of a.m. on Oct. 5, 2019, bashing their heads repeatedly with a 4-foot bar he discovered on the road, Peterson mentioned. The victims ranged in age from 39 to 83.
The lone survivor, critically injured 49-year-old David Hernandez, staggered to a close-by road the place law enforcement officials had been making an attempt to revive one other Santos sufferer.
Peterson mentioned Santos had performed a “trial run” a couple of week earlier, badly hurting one other man by bashing his head with a wood stick in a special Manhattan neighborhood.
Santos, who has gone forwards and backwards from jail to psychiatric therapy services since his arrest, wore an untucked white button-down shirt and a tie as he sat between his attorneys on the protection desk. He listened to Zien’s opening assertion by a Spanish interpreter, however moved his headphones off his ear as Peterson spoke.
Prevailing with an madness protection will be notably powerful in New York. Santos’ attorneys should persuade the jury that he didn’t perceive the results of his actions and didn’t know proper from mistaken. The technique has had combined outcomes.
In 2022, a person who killed a younger vacationer when he drove his automobile by crowds of individuals in Instances Sq. was cleared of accountability and despatched to a psychological well being facility as a substitute of jail after a jury discovered he was so psychologically disturbed he didn’t know what he was doing.
However in 2018, a Manhattan nanny was convicted of killing two youngsters in her care whereas their dad and mom had been away after a jury rejected her lawyer’s claims that she had an undiagnosed psychological sickness, heard voices and noticed hallucinations, snapped and didn’t know what she was doing.
Identified with schizophrenia two months earlier than killings, lawyer says
Zien mentioned Santos knew that attacking the boys was legally mistaken, however — in his thoughts — he needed to do it to save lots of his personal life.
The ambush, she mentioned, was the final in a line of more and more violent episodes that started with a conflict together with his grandfather.
He has at the least six prior arrests, police mentioned, together with allegations that he punched a vacationer he thought was laughing at him on a subway prepare, choked a person at an employment company and punched a homeless man inside a Brooklyn shelter.
Throughout his final jail stint earlier than the killings, Santos was identified with schizophrenia, Zein mentioned. He was launched in August 2019 and given referrals for therapy and prescriptions for treatment however by no means used them, Zein mentioned.
Santos was beforehand identified with schitzophreniform, a shorter-term psychological well being situation, and turned up at a hospital complaining that he was listening to voices in his head, Zein mentioned.
He was requested about drug use however didn’t get the therapy he wanted, she mentioned.
