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Karagin
Imperial Karagin Army
Imperial General
Joined: 04-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 4120
Location: United States
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 Posted: 09-Aug-2002 01:13 Post subject: Bigfoot defense |
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http://msn.espn.go.com/outdoors/general/news/2002/0802/1413354.html
Bigfoot named by defense in triple murder
Yosemite killer obsessed with the hairy beast, defense tells jury
By Brian Melley
Associated Press
SAN JOSE, Calif. — The hairy beast of legend known as Bigfoot wanders through the mind of Yosemite killer Cary Stayner.
It is a fixation that led to his beheading nature guide Joie Armstrong, a psychiatrist testified recently in Stayner's triple-murder trial.
Two decades after he said he first saw the apelike creature near a cabin in Yosemite National Park, Stayner remains obsessed with Bigfoot in a religious or mystical way, said Dr. Jose Arturo Silva, an expert called as part of Stayner's insanity defense.
"He literally thinks about this continually," Silva told jurors in Santa Clara Superior Court. "It's been going on for decades."
Stayner first saw the hirsute humanoid in Foresta, near where Armstrong lived in a cabin, and continued to make pilgrimages to the site. On one of those visits, in July 1999, he killed Armstrong, Silva said.
The beheading was a merging of two elements: his connection to the place and his sense that reality has a "catastrophic, Armageddon-like, end-of-the-world quality," Silva said.
While the figment of his imagination does not alone explain the defense theory that he was insane when he killed three park tourists, it is symptomatic of Stayner's larger mental illnesses.
Stayner, 40, faces the death penalty if convicted of murdering Carole Sund, 42, her daughter, Juli, 15, and Silvina Pelosso, 16, in February 1999 while they were staying at the rustic lodge where he worked outside the park as a maintenance man. He already is serving a life sentence after pleading guilty in federal court to killing Armstrong.
Silva said the same guiding force of destiny in the Armstrong killing also played a role in the killings of the three park tourists. Stayner felt his acts were preordained in some way, Silva said.
"He says, 'I could be wrong about this, but I hope I'm not," said Silva, a court-appointed forensic psychiatrist who spent more than 21 hours interviewing Stayner.
Silva also said Stayner was haunted by recurring images of floating heads and felt the teachings of 16th century French soothsayer Nostradamus applied to him.
Francis Carrington said he doesn't know where the defense is heading with the evidence, but he thinks it doesn't justify the killing of his daughter, Carole Sund, and granddaughter, Juli.
"When someone acts as cold blooded and covers up for months that doesn't seem like a person that doesn't know what he's doing," Carrington said outside court.
The testimony was interrupted when prosecutor George Williamson asked for a break because he was "brain dead."
Judge Thomas Hastings scolded Williamson for making the remark in front of the jury, and later told defense lawyers to speed up their case by making their points more clear.
"It's an understatement to say it's dry," Hastings said. "It reminds me of a lecture a professor is giving in medical school."
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Karagin
Only the dead have seen the end of war. - Plato
"Wasted trip Man. Nobody said nuthin' about lockin' horns with no tigers." Oddball
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Vampire
Free Worlds League
Lieutenant Colonel
Joined: 05-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 917
Location: Spain
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| Posted: 09-Aug-2002 04:47 Post subject: RE: Bigfoot defense |
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Who cares? Hang the murdering bastard, sane or not.
I have come to the conclusion that insanity is no excuse at all, and even if it was, executing these people is like shooting a rabid dog.
If the offender is so mentally unbalanced as to be a menace to society and cannot be cured then execution is a merciful solution.
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Memento audare semper
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Gunslinger Patch
Royal Black Watch Regiment
Major
Joined: 04-Mar-2002 00:00
Posts: 1611
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| Posted: 09-Aug-2002 04:58 Post subject: RE: Bigfoot defense |
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Here, here. I have a favorite saying about stuff like this which I actually thought up myself. When you see a dog foaming at the mouth, the only useful thing left for any civilised person to do, is to shoot the dog. That rabies ain't the dog's fault doesn't matter one bit, you still have to shoot the dog.
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"Those who beat their guns into plows will plow for those with guns..." -Thomas Jefferson
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Sir Henry
Team Bansai
Senior Tech Specialist
Joined: 04-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 4899
Location: United States
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| Posted: 09-Aug-2002 08:02 Post subject: RE: Bigfoot defense |
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Rabies can be passed on, Mental instability can't....It can be given, but not passed....
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Sir Henry
A Dragon in the disguise of a bunny, is still a Dragon.
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Ronin
ComStar
Colonel
Joined: 05-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 908
Location: United States
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| Posted: 09-Aug-2002 18:38 Post subject: RE: Bigfoot defense |
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True, but both are a threat to those around them. The sad truth is that most criminal that are truly mentally ill are about 99.9% unlikely to be cured. But we can only keep them in the mental hospital until their symptoms improve (or the money runs out), and the person is back on the street. They aren't any better, actually usually worse off now that they have no way of getting their meds, and sadly most end up committing another crime, usually more violent than the first.
This is but one of many moral, ethical, and legal quandries that criminologist eggheads like me are trying to figure out.
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