PORT ANGELES — A man with a history of hallucinations testified Wednesday that he saw two people walking on Waterfront Trail the night prosecutors believe a 15-year-old Port Angeles girl disappeared.
Jon Sonnabend, 35, of Port Angeles told jurors on the seventh day of testimony in the first-degree murder trial of Robert Gene Covarrubias that on the night of Dec. 23, 2004, he was sitting on a curb near a trail entrance off North Francis Street, drinking a can of malt liquor.
Sonnabend later identified Covarrubias as the man he saw with an unknown girl.
That was the night Melissa Leigh Carter, 15, was seen abruptly leaving a party at the Chinook Motel on East First Street after a argument with her boyfriend.
Witnesses at the party say that Covarrubias, 25, followed after her and neither returned.
Carter’s naked body was found less than three days later on a brushy slope just east of the Red Lion Hotel in downtown Port Angeles.
An expert has testified that Carter had been sexually assaulted and was strangled at the scene.
Covarrubias has pleaded not guilty.
Sonnabend has been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, a mental illness that he treats with counseling, an anti-depressant and an anti-psychotic medication.
Because of the illness, he sometimes suffers from visual and auditory hallucinations.
Although he had missed a meeting with his case worker at Peninsula Community Mental Health Center days before the alleged sighting, and he was drinking alcohol, Sonnabend testified that he was sure that he was not hallucinating.