Four guys were killed by a suspect using a metal bar while they slept on the streets of New York.
NEW YORK (AP): His attorney told jurors on Tuesday that a man on trial for killing four men while they slept on the streets of New York City with a metal bar had been diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was released from prison months earlier and was hearing voices telling him that he had to kill forty people or he would die too. At his trial in a Manhattan state court, 31-year-old Randy Santos is claiming insanity. He has admitted to carrying out the 2019 Chinatown rampage through his attorneys.
However, they contend that because mental illness has contaminated his mind with illogical ideas and made him violent, he is not criminally liable. If they are successful, Santos might be transferred from prison to a mental health treatment center. The voices had to end for him. In their opening comments, Marnie Zien, Santos’ attorney, said, “He needed to save his own life.” “He didn’t see any other way out.”
“Not guilty” plea
The 31-year-old Santos has entered a not guilty plea to charges that include first-degree murder for the murders of Florencio Moran, Nazario Vásquez Villegas, Anthony Manson, and Chuen Kok, as well as attempted murder for assaults that seriously injured two other men. In 2019, there were 319 murders in New York City, 52 of which took place in Manhattan. Assistant District Attorney Alfred Peterson told jurors that surveillance footage showed Santos “repeatedly lifting the bar up over his head and bringing it down on the head” of one victim. According to Peterson, a couple out on a date on Bowery Street in Manhattan witnessed him using the same weapon to beat another man.
Santos was discovered by police carrying the bar, which was coated with hair and blood. According to the prosecutor, testing revealed that it contained blood from some of his victims on one end and his DNA on the other. The verdict will decide whether Santos is sent to a mental health center or prison. Santos faces a life sentence if the jury rejects his insanity defense and finds him guilty. If not, he can be forced to undergo treatment for however long it takes. Peterson told the jury that evidence will demonstrate that Santos “knew exactly what he was doing and the consequences of what he was doing – that he was killing these men,” urging them to ignore Santos’ mental health claims and convict him on all counts.
Before launching the assault, Santos “saw the coast was clear” after glancing up and down the street, according to Peterson. According to Peterson, he then stopped to allow a pedestrian who might have been a witness to leave the area before yelling at another man. According to the prosecution, he was aware that “it was legally and morally wrong.” According to Peterson, Santos even identified himself in the attack’s security footage. “Yeah, that’s me,” he said to authorities when shown the video following his arrest.
On October 5, 2019, between 1:30 and 2 a.m., Santos, a Dominican Republic native who immigrated to New York as a youngster, attacked five men, repeatedly striking their heads with a 4-foot (1.2-meter) bar he found on the street, according to Peterson. The victims were between the ages of 39 and 83. David Hernandez, a 49-year-old man with severe injuries who was the only survivor, stumbled to a nearby street where police were attempting to resuscitate another Santos victim. According to Peterson, Santos had conducted a “trial run” approximately a week prior, severely injuring another man in a separate Manhattan neighborhood by striking his head with a wooden stick.
Santos sat between his attorneys at the defense table wearing an untucked white button-down shirt and a tie. Since his arrest, Santos has alternated between jail and mental health treatment institutions. Through a Spanish interpreter, he heard Zien’s opening remarks, but as Peterson continued, he took his headphones off. In New York, it can be very difficult to prevail with an insanity defense. Santos’ attorneys must persuade the jury that he lacked morality and was unaware of the repercussions of his acts. The approach has yielded inconsistent outcomes.
A jury determined that a guy who killed a young tourist in 2022 by driving his automobile through throngs of people in Times Square was so psychologically unstable that he didn’t know what he was doing that he was exonerated of all charges and transferred to a mental health facility rather than prison. However, a Manhattan nanny was found guilty in 2018 of killing two children under her care while their parents were abroad after a jury rejected her attorney’s arguments that she had an untreated mental disorder, had hallucinations and heard voices, snapped, and had no idea what she was doing.
Santos was diagnosed with schizophrenia two months prior to the killings, according to his attorney. Zien claims that although Santos was aware that attacking the men was illegal, he felt compelled to do it in order to save his own life. She claimed that the ambush was the final in a series of escalating violent incidents that started with an altercation with his grandfather. According to authorities, he has been arrested at least six times in the past for allegedly choking a guy at an employment agency, punching a homeless man inside a Brooklyn shelter, and punching a tourist he believed was making fun of him on a subway train.
According to Zein, Santos was diagnosed with schizophrenia during his final incarceration before to the killings. Zein stated that after being freed in August 2019, he was prescribed medication and offered treatment referrals, but he never used them. According to Zein, Santos arrived at a hospital complaining of hearing voices in his mind and had previously been diagnosed with schitzophreniform, a shorter-term mental illness. She claimed that although he was questioned about his drug use, he did not receive the necessary therapy.
