Lake County has had its share of murder defendants pursuing an insanity defense

TAVARES — The experts — lawyers who trudge up the steep, slippery mountain of practicing criminal law — say that the number of clients claiming to be not guilty by reason of insanity is only about 1 percent.

But Lake County has had its share, and Ian Anselmo, whose trial was scheduled to start April 8, is claiming insanity after strangling his stepmother, Sue-Ellen Anselmo, in 2019.

The cases involve the most desperate defendants in the most heinous crimes.

Take, for example, 35-year-old Vigil Hyde III, who shot the mother of his two children, Bobbi Wheeler, 24 times with three weapons while she was doing laundry in their rural home near Groveland in 2016.

A defense expert testified that he suffered from schizophrenia and a rare disorder known as Capgas Delusion, in which people think imposters are impersonating loved ones.

Jurors couldn’t immediately disregard the insanity claim, especially after viewing hours of video of Hyde watching security camera footage and whispering to Wheeler that he was seeing intruders.

“People are entering my property at night with night vision [devices],” Hyde told Lake sheriff’s detectives. “They’re using mind-control devices on me.”

He claimed in a phone call from the jail to his parents that he shot 32-year-old Wheeler in self-defense. “She was poisoning me with my drinks and my cigarettes.”

He also said people were in the attic spraying his cigarettes with formaldehyde when he was asleep.

Prosecutors argued that he was intoxicated, not insane. Evidence technicians found crushed up oxycodone pills in his bedroom that he had been snorting.

He was also under pressure. Wheeler threatened to leave her boyfriend of 12 years unless he agreed to go to drug rehab.

“Intoxication is not a defense to a crime,” then-Assistant State Attorney Dan Mosley said.

Hyde was also freaking out because neighbors had filed a mobile home deed restriction lawsuit against him on his 50-acre property. It pushed him over the edge, his attorneys said.

But Mosley reminded jurors that the couple had been arguing about money before he walked away to retrieve a weapon.

It took jurors just two hours to declare him guilty of second-degree murder, the legal definition of which is murder by a person with a “depraved mind,” which is different than being legally insane.

Explaining the insanity defense

In Florida, people are presumed to be sane. A person who is legally insane is “unable to appreciate the wrongfulness of his actions at the time of the alleged offense and did not know what he was doing or, if he knew what he was doing, did not know that what he was doing was wrong,” according to state law.

The Hyde case didn’t just go away when the verdict was announced. Hyde’s defense team accused one of the jurors of misconduct. The juror’s ex-wife claimed he had received psychiatric treatment. The juror denied it, saying it was a “nasty” divorce.

The trial judge ruled there was no misconduct.

The defense team was counting on jurors whose families had been touched by mental illness. “These jurors could relate to the effects of mental issues on actions as seen through normal eyes,” the defense wrote in a court filing.

Assistant State Attorney Jonathan Olson was careful when he questioned prospective jurors, asking if they or any family member had been touched by mental illness.

“I’m going all the way down to, ‘I have a grandson who has ADHD,” he said. Several raised their hands.

A large number of Americans struggle with mental illness, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Among adults, 1 in 5 experience it each year, with 1 in 20 adults experiencing serious issues.

'Preoccupation with darkness'

Picking a jury can be difficult when insanity is the issue.

Ryan Thornhill went on trial in 2021 for shooting and killing a Mount Dora barber in 2017 for refusing to cut his hair for $2 instead of the regular price of $10.

Attorneys went through a jury pool of 60 and had to summon another batch of 186 because so many had seen or experienced mental health issues, including addiction.

One man cried when he said his wife had a nervous breakdown, that his daughter had been raped and that he had been beaten in a robbery.

A woman said she was bipolar, suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety.

Defense experts said Thornhill had stopped taking Xanax and his doctor quit prescribing an anti-psychosis drug. He added a drug for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, which worsened his illness.

They said Thornhill was bipolar and had schizoaffective disorder with “breaks in reality.”

His sister said in a deposition that he had a “preoccupation with darkness.”

He said was going to hell to attack a dead person who had hurt her as a child. He also said he was putting a circle of protection around her so all the darkness would come to him.

The defense crumbled when witnesses said he reeked of alcohol when he shot Wilfredo Nieves.

He was found guilty of second-degree murder.

Couple murdered in parking lot

Some defendants are sent to a mental hospital.

Jonathan M. Levy stabbed an elderly couple to death in the Target parking lot in Mount Dora in 2009.

First declared incompetent to stand trial, a judge ruled he was not guilty by reason of insanity in 2016 in the slayings of Philip and Sandra Heintzen.

In 2014, a man was found to be insane after being charged with three counts of bringing a fake bomb to a Leesburg hardware store.

The court freed him this year from conditional release restrictions.

The most recent insanity case involved 80-year-old Morris Reynolds.

A jury decided he was legally insane when he shot his wife, Joyce, to death in their home at Pennbrooke Fairways in 2020.

A judge ruled in February that he be turned over to state authorities for treatment.

“That’s the gun I shot her with,” he told deputies. He was hospitalized after shooting himself in the face and stabbing himself in the chest in a failed suicide attempt. He later asked a deputy guarding him if his wife was going to be OK.

Defense psychologist Valerie McClain, Ph.D., said Reynolds suffered from major depressive disorder and PTSD. He witnessed a man being killed in an accident when he was 6 years old.

Reynolds, who had a drinking problem, also had cognitive issues, she said.

‘Break in reality’

Mental health issues don’t just play a role in insanity cases, but in death penalty murder cases, too.

Sometimes the crime is just so stunning and the evidence so clear there’s little choice.

Jeremy Main drowned his17-month-old daughter in 2017 when his wife said she wanted a divorce.

“I think he knew it was wrong but didn’t appreciate the consequences,” said defense psychologist Yenys Castillo.

Experts said he was bipolar and had a schizotypal personality. A terrible childhood played a role, they said.

The jury recommended life without parole.

In general, the number of death sentences are declining. Jury recommendations must be unanimous, and polls show a growing disapproval of death sentences.

Many were stunned, however, when jurors failed to reach a unanimous death recommendation for Nikolas Cruz, who pleaded guilty to killing 17 students and wounding 17 others at Marjory Stoneman High School in Parkland in 2018.

Witnesses testified that his birth mother abused drugs and alcohol and his adoptive parents ignored trouble signs. He claimed to hear demon voices.

'Virgin Mary' drowns her children

In a case that still horrifies Lake County residents, Diane Evers, who claimed to be the Virgin Mary, drowned her three young children in the bathtub of her Leesburg home in 1980.

The twins were 4, her youngest daughter was 2 years old.

She later said she first began hallucinating during childbirth in 1977.

She spent the majority of her life in a state hospital and was in a wheelchair in later years.

A prosecutor told a judge in 2013 that she no longer needed to be confined. Officials then launched a search for a bed in a halfway house but had difficulty finding a place.

Bitter tears

Virgil Hyde’s mother, Wanda, cried when the jury came back with a guilty verdict. So did Bobbi Wheeler’s mom, Dezra.

“There’s been devastation on both sides,” defense attorney Greg Denaro said. “There are no winners here.”

Hyde, whose weight ballooned to morbid obesity levels while awaiting trial, died of pneumonia before he could be sentenced in 2020. He tested negative for Covid, according to the sheriff’s office.

Dezra Wheeler sued Hyde in a wrongful death suit, hoping to find assets that would benefit the children.

Wanda testified during the trial that she didn’t try to get help for her son.

“No one wants to believe there’s something wrong with their child,” she said, weeping.

This article originally appeared on Ocala Star-Banner: Lake County courts: The insanity defense in murder cases