A California woman was sentenced to two years of probation and 100 hours of community service after stabbing her boyfriend 108 times, resulting in his death.
Bryn Spejcher was only charged with probation due to the killings being performed after smoking marijuana.
The defense argued that smoking marijuana led her to a psychotic episode.
The New York Post shares more:
The California woman who was convicted of killing her boyfriend by stabbing him 108 times during a “cannabis-induced psychosis” received a slap on the wrist Tuesday.
Bryn Spejcher, 33, was sentenced to two years’ probation and was ordered to perform 100 hours of community service after being found guilty of killing her new boyfriend, Chad O’Melia, according to the Ventura County Star.
Ventura County Superior Court Judge David Worley ruled that Spejcher “had no control over her actions” when she entered into a psychotic episode and stabbed O’Melia, 26, repeatedly in his Thousand Oaks apartment on May 28, 2018.
Experts for the prosecution and defense both found that the marijuana bong hit given to Spejcher threw the woman into the deadly psychotic episode.
“From that point forward, she had no control over her actions,” Worley said, according to the outlet.
Spejcher and O’Melia had been seeing each other for a few weeks before she brutally murdered the 26-year-old accountant.
After Spejcher had killed O’Melia, law enforcement found the woman covered in blood, hysterically crying next to her boyfriend’s body, still gripping the knife.
If you want to get away with murder in California, all you have to do is smoke marijuana.
People online were quick to call out the ridiculous nature of this case:
*note to self-if in California and stab someone and kill them. Make sure you have some weed on you, and you will not go to jail.😅😅😅
— GENZ4GOP (@Genz4GOP) January 24, 2024
Let me see if I get this right. In California you can smoke cannibis, stab your boyfriend 108 times, found guilty by a jury, and Judge says no prison time.
California woman who got high, stabbed boyfriend 108 times will not go to prison, judge ruleshttps://t.co/gFNO08pI2t
— Bruce Chambers (@bruce31049) January 24, 2024
Good morning America. In California if you stab someone 101 times while smoking Marijuana it's ok.
In Boston it ok to rape with no consequences.
Joe Bidens America— Steven Ericksen (@ericksen_steven) January 24, 2024
The Los Angeles Times shares more:
Spejcher had been dating O’Melia for a couple of weeks when she went to the apartment. Shortly after taking a second hit from a bong, Spejcher began “hearing and seeing things that weren’t there” and believing she was dead, and that she had to stab O’Melia in order to bring herself back to life, according to the district attorney’s office.
In her closing statement, Spejcher told the judge, “I wish I could go back in time and prevent this tragedy from happening.
“I wish I had known more about the dangers of marijuana,” she added. “Had I known, I would never have smoked it that night or at all.”
Her attorney Michael Goldstein lauded the ruling.
“Today, Ventura Superior Court Judge did the right thing and imposed a sentence that was fair and accurately reflected Ms. Spejcher’s conduct and recognized that it was the contents of the marijuana she was given that was the sole cause of her psychotic breakdown,” he said. “It was clear that she had no control of her faculties and never intended to cause any harm. All of the medical experts agreed, including the expert called by the district attorney’s office.”
My prayers go out to the family of the boyfriend who tragically lost his life.
I can’t imagine what they are going through right now.
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