Defense attorney says man crippled by mental illness

Mathis Winkler

SANTA ANA -- A paranoid schizophrenic unable to control his actions or

a cold-blooded murderer unwilling to seek help for his drug addiction.

These were the opposing personality profiles defense and prosecution

attorneys drew of Steven Allen Abrams during opening statements for the

trial’s sanity phase Monday.

Thursday, jurors convicted Abrams, 40, of murdering two children at a

Costa Mesa day-care center when he steered his car onto the crowded

playground on May 3, 1999.

They also found him guilty of seven counts of attempted murder and

three counts of causing grievous harm.

During this second phase of the trial, expected to last at least a

month, jurors will decide whether Abrams was mentally competent to

understand he murdered Brandon Wiener, 3, and Sierra Soto, 4.

Defense attorney Denise Gragg opened the proceedings by telling jurors

the defendant had long suffered from mental illness.

“Paranoid schizophrenia is what Mr. Abrams was suffering from in 1999

and what he has been suffering from for five to six years,” she said,

adding that a history of mental illness runs in Abrams’ family.

Gragg told the jury a gradual decline of Abrams’ sanity set in when he

fell in love with a married next-door neighbor in 1994.

Abrams began to believe that an unidentified government agency had

begun to control him through brain waves to train him as a killer.

“He saw messages in the clouds in the sky,” Gragg said. “He was

bombarded by messages from the brain-wave people. They were constantly

trying to get him under control.”

While Abrams had a long history of substance abuse up to 1994, Gragg

said that he stopped taking drugs other than marijuana after that. She

added, however, that Abrams had snorted a line of cocaine in April 1999,

a month prior to killing the children.

Attempts to treat his illness with medication have failed since his

arrest in 1999, Gragg said.

“He is still to this day telling staff about the brain-wave people,”

she said, while Abrams remained hunched motionless in his chair. “The

odds are great that Mr. Abrams will always be ready to believe that the

brain-wave people really exist.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Debora Lloyd refuted the argument that the killings

happened as a result of Abrams’ mental illness.

“Needless to say, this defendant has used so many drugs that it’s no

surprise that his brain is malfunctioning,” she said, adding that Abrams

began drinking alcohol at age 10, started smoking marijuana at 12 and had

taken every drug possible by the time he turned 20.

Lloyd added that his continuing marijuana abuse led him to murder

Brandon and Sierra.

“He could be a lot sicker and a lot more delusional and still know

that its wrong [to kill children],” Lloyd said, referring to Abrams’

mental state on the day of the murders. “This guy is functional except

that he’s taking pot.

“Even scumbags know that it’s wrong to kill children,” Lloyd

continued. “But that day, with the strength of marijuana, that’s the day

he got mad enough, angry enough. That’s the day he decided to do it and

he knew it was morally wrong. He knew that they were innocent when he was

driving into them .... He’s not legally insane. He’s mentally sick.”

After the opening statements, the defense called witnesses including

mental health professionals working in the Orange County Jail during

Abrams’ 1994 arrest for violating a restraining order against the

next-door neighbor.

Emily Hackler, a registered nurse and licensed clinical psychologist

and Harold Berlin, a psychiatrist, both could not remember examining

Abrams and had to rely on records for their testimony.

“He had no concept of what was going on,” said Hackler, who retired in

1995. She added that Abrams had denied any psychiatric history or hearing

voices as well as recent drug use.

“I suggested bipolar disorder,” she said, adding that she hadn’t been

able to give a definite diagnosis. “I thought maybe I was seeing someone

who had some manicky things going on.”

A neighbor, a police officer and Abrams’ younger brother Joseph all

testified that his statements about persecution by a “neighborhood watch

commando” had startled them. But they said that they could not detect

signs of drug abuse in Abrams’ behavior.

“It seemed like Steven,” said Kevin Firth, a neighbor, adding that he

encountered Abrams singing and fishing in a beach chair on 18th Street

one day. “He seemed totally coherent ... but the things he was saying

weren’t right.”

If the jury decides Abrams is legally insane, he will be deemed “not

guilty by reason of insanity.”

Committed to a mental health facility for treatment, he could be

released at some point.

If the jury finds Abrams to be sane, he faces life in prison without

parole or the death penalty.

The trial continues at Central Superior Court in Santa Ana at 9 a.m.

today.