LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) - A 20-year-old northeastern Kansas woman was convicted Friday of killing her roommate and former employer by nearly decapitating him, with jurors rejecting the defense’s push for her acquittal on mental-health claims.
Jurors in Douglas County deliberated nearly five hours before finding Sarah Gonzales McLinn of Lawrence guilty of first-degree murder in the January 2014 death of 52-year-old pizza shop owner Harold Sasko.
McLinn’s attorneys had acknowledged that their client killed Sasko, but they sought an acquittal on claims that she had mental disease or defect at the time of the slaying. Defense witnesses also testified that McLinn had multiple personalities.
But jurors concluded McLinn was able to form intent in killing Sasko, contrary to what her attorneys argued.
Prosecutors are seeking a 50-year sentence that doesn’t carry the prospect of parole. Jurors will begin hearing that portion of the trial Monday.
During the trial, jurors watched a videotaped statement by McLinn in which she told investigators that she drugged Sasko with sleeping pills, then bound his wrists and ankles with plastic ties before feeling for his neck artery and plunging the knife into his throat.
McLinn attorney Carl Cornwell, in pressing that his client be found not guilty by reason of mental disease and defect, during closing arguments cited testimony that McLinn had been molested as a toddler and raped at age 16.
“We all know that she is broken,” Cornwell told jurors. “We all know that she needs to be safeguarded and we all know that she needs to be treated.”
But Charles Branson, the county’s district attorney, countered that jurors should ignore the defense’s “smoke and mirrors.”
“(Cornwell) spent a lot of time talking about other things. Don’t get confused,” Branson argued. “The evidence suggests overwhelmingly that these were intentional acts.”
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