A California woman was found guilty Friday of involuntary manslaughter after reportedly stabbing a man 108 times and her dog while in an alleged weed-induced psychosis state, according to Law&Crime.
The suspect Bryn Spejcher, 32, was convicted of killing Chad O’Melia, a man that she had reportedly been seeing for a few weeks, according to KTLA5. Spejcher was found in O’Melia’s Thousand Oaks, California apartment on May 28, 2018, screaming hysterically while lying in a pool of the victim’s blood, the outlet reported.
Spejcher also stabbed her dog, Arya, and attempted to take her own life with a serrated bread knife, according to Law&Crime. (RELATED: NYC Police Say Suspect Was ‘Hearing Voices’ Just Hours Before Allegedly Stabbing Family Of 3 To Death)
Spejcher and O’Melia had reportedly taken several hits from a bong filled with weed the night before when the California woman allegedly suffered from Cannabis-Induced Psychotic Disorder causing her to have an “out-of-body experience,” prosecutors claimed.
“She had an out-of-body experience,” Ventura County Senior Deputy District Attorney Audry Nafziger stated, according to Law&Crime. “She could see her own dead body, and she could hear voices, emergency room doctors doing CPR, her family, other voices, unknown voices.”
California woman convicted of fatally stabbing boyfriend 108 times during ‘cannabis-induced psychosis’ https://t.co/xScz7DN19l pic.twitter.com/aA59iuEXHY
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The disorder, according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, can be “heavily associated with future schizophrenic diagnoses,” with “psychotic outcomes” ranging from “mild to severe” occurring for minutes or even years. (RELATED: Woman Allegedly Stabs Boyfriend In Eye With ‘Rabies Needles’)
A state-appointed forensic psychologist, Kris Mohandie, confirmed Spejcher’s breakdown, stating that she had not only appeared “possessed” from police footage but that she had shown no prior “evidence of animal cruelty tendencies” which underscored “her level of impairment,” Law&Crime reported.
Both prosecutors and the defense agreed that Spejcher was in a severe, drug-induced psychosis which led to the court dismissing original murder charges. However, upon hearing of the reduced charge, O’Melia’s family was shocked, stating it felt “ambushed,” according to Santa Clarita-based radio station KHTS.
“You’re supposed to fight for the victim and his family, and I’m sitting there listening to them, and it was a group of people that were out acting purely from either fear of something,” the victim’s father, Sean O’Melia, told KHTS. “Maybe it’s politics, publicity, I don’t know.”
Spejcher has been out on bail since 2018 and will now face up to four years in prison for the involuntary manslaughter charges, according to Law&Crime. There is potential for her to face a longer sentence due to being accused of killing O’Melia under special circumstances, which is a sentencing enhancement under California law, the outlet reported.