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Friday, October 24, 2014

Murder LA 000060

30 year old Steven Walter Robinson Jr. was recently found guilty of two counts of attempted murder for the second time.

On Sunday, February 24th 2008, Robinson went to a Fullerton movie theater to watch The Signal but was told to leave after being found with both alcohol and hallucinogenic mushrooms.

Robinson, who reportedly collected knives and went by the myspace handle "Psychokiller666" back when myspace was a thing, somehow got back into the theater anyway. At some point during the movie he stood up and stabbed 38 year old Julio Sanchez several times around his torso and even his head. Sanchez fled the theater and Robinson went on to attack a 65 year old man, slashing his arm and hitting him in the head with a hammer.

Both victims survived but Robinson escaped the scene. He was eventually apprehended at his brother's Las Vegas apartment.

At trial, Robinson's defense claimed that he was too doped up to have intended to kill his two victims. Intent is a necessary component of attempted murder. His public defender said that he had been on the mushrooms for 7 hours and believed that the movie was instructing him to kill. A certain image in the film, "accompanied by an annoying, warped, bass-heavy sound," was the trigger.

The jury didn't buy it and he was found guilty in 2009 of two counts of attempted murder. This conviction was later overturned when an appellate court found that the presiding judge had not properly instructed the jury about intent and mental disorders.

This led to a new trial and in September 2014 Robinson was again found guilty on the same charges. Sentencing is scheduled for November.

Robinson, then and now
via OC Register and LA Times