Doctor says killer had psychotic disorder (California)

By: JOHN HALL - Staff Writer

FRENCH VALLEY ---- A psychiatrist specializing in the treatment of addiction told jurors Monday that he believes Dustin Stanford was suffering from a psychotic disorder caused by methamphetamine when he stabbed his girlfriend 22 times, killing her.

Stanford, 25, is charged with murdering 21-year-old Amber Frink on Aug. 13, 2004. The body of the Murrieta woman was found with a bayonet protruding from her back in a bedroom of Stanford's parents' Murrieta home.

Stanford's attorney, Jeff Zimel, has conceded his client killed Frink, but is asking jurors to convict him of manslaughter rather than first-degree murder, saying the killing was caused by meth-induced psychosis.


Dr. Theodore Williams was the final witness called by the defense Monday and both sides have now rested their cases. The Southwest Justice Center jury is expected to hear closing arguments Wednesday before beginning deliberations.

Before Zimel called Williams, his expert medical witness, Stanford's mother again took the witness stand. Deputy District Attorney Stephen Gallon continued his cross-examination of Gail Stanford that started Friday. The prosecutor played an audiotape of a conversation between Stanford and his mother, recorded during a telephone call from jail two months after the killing.

In the tape, Gail Stanford asked her son, "Did you guys fight?"

"Who?" Dustin Stanford asks.

"You and her," his mother says.

"No. I don't even know why I did it," Stanford responds.

Gail Stanford told the prosecutor jail doctors had been giving her son medication and she didn't know if he was taking it the day of that conversation.

"I don't know what was going through his mind at that time," she said.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/03/21/news/californian/18_48_283_20_06.txt