PORT ANGELES — Jurors from Island County who sat through 10 days of testimony in Thomas Martin Roberts’ murder trial say they didn’t believe Roberts’ insanity defense.
“There was no question in my mind (he was not insane),” juror Mari Muehlhausen of Oak Harbor said Thursday after the jury delivered its guilty verdict.
“If he had some kind of schizophrenia or something, that’s questionable,” she said. “But whether he was insane, the legal definition that we were given, there’s no question in my mind.”
Twelve jurors deliberated for three hours Thursday morning in Clallam County Superior Court before concluding Roberts shot Deputy Wally Davis in premeditation on Aug. 5, 2000, at Roberts’ Ennis Creek Road home.
Defense attorneys in the three-week trial argued Roberts, 56, suffered from a long-standing mental illness that explained his bizarre behavior and drove him to kill Davis without realizing the error of his act.
But the prosecution showed Roberts had a history of drug and alcohol abuse and that he was under a methamphetamine-induced psychosis when he shot the deputy.
“There wasn’t enough evidence that showed mental problems disassociated from meth use,” said juror Dan White of Camano Island, who read the jury’s verdict Thursday afternoon.
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