The audiologist,108 stab wounds,and a drug that shouldn't be legal

Let me tell you the story of Bryn Spejcher

On the evening of May 28th 2018, in a condo in Thousand Oaks, about 90 minute drive from Los Angeles, Bryn Spejcher - a 27 year-old audiologist from Chicago - brutally killed a man she’d been dating for a month.

She stabbed the 26 year-old, Chad O’Melia, who was soon to be a qualified accountant, 108 times, mostly with a bread knife.

Five years later, at the sentencing hearing - which took place last Tuesday - a judge ruled that the young woman would face no prison time whatsoever. Instead, 100 hours of community service and probation for two years.

Many were outraged. But I cried tears of relief from the back of the courtroom. Having followed this case for three months, I could see this was absolutely the right decision.

To explain the reason for my seemingly bonkers hot take, I’ll rewind to a few hours before the sentencing, when Sean O’Melia, father of the victim, took the stand to read from a card given from his late son to his elderly mother.

‘You came to this country from Ireland with virtually nothing and built a life that gifted opportunities to your sons and grandsons.

‘You’ve truly achieved the American dream.’

I couldn’t help but think of the miserable irony.

The American dream; the land of hope, where the highest of goals and aspirations can be achieved.

It is also the country that I moved to three months a go, and a place where recreational use of marijuana is legal in 24 of its 52 states.

As a result of the latter, neither Chad or his killer knew that the drug can increase the risk of psychosis five-fold. Some studies suggest that around half of all psychotic episodes result in serious violence.

What happened was this: Bryn took two inhalations from Chad’s bong. The first made her feel nothing. The second, taken after Chad had refilled the tube with ‘something stronger’, sent the young woman – a practicing doctor of audiology – into an extreme psychotic episode.

Within an hour, Spejcher had stabbed Chad over 100 times, believing that the attack would ‘bring her body back from the dead’. Her hands were ‘not in her control’, and appeared to be seperate from her body.

After killing Chad, Bryn tuned the bread knife on her own jugular and face, as well as her Alaskan Husky, Aria. When police arrived at the scene, they had to hit her with a baton nine times before she stopped attacking herself. The dog survived, for those wondering.

Other relevant information revealed during the subsequent trial include: Bryn was ultimately convicted of involuntary manslaughter, not murder. She was an inexperienced smoker, whereas Chad smoked daily. The strength of the cannabis Bryn smoked that night was estimated to be somewhere in the realm of 16-30 percent THC (the chemical in cannabis that is responsible for the psychotropic effects). Studies show strengths above 10 percent can significantly increase the risk of psychosis.

Another fact that shouldn’t be relevant but is; both Chad and Bryn were college-educated, professional young people with bright futures ahead of them.

Defintely relevant: The market value of the US’ legal marijuana industry is said to be somewhere in the region of $33 billion.

On Tuesday, I travelled from New York to Ventura (via LA) to attend the sentencing. It was the single most exhilarating, yet harrowing, experience of my career – and one that will stay with me forever.

Before the judge decided the fate of this young woman, six members of each of the two families took the stand to give their closing statements.

Both sides spoke of almost identical themes; a parent’s defense of their child’s honor, bitter regret, the far-reaching tentacles of trauma, the aching pain of lost lives and livelihoods.

And yet, they hate each other. I sat and watched as one pointed literal fingers at the other, tutted and rolled eyes, and threw around accusations of bad-mouthing one another’s children.

When the sentencing decision eventually came, the scale of emotion was similar for both families; exhales of tears, groans and physical shakes – an explosion of the clusterfuck of feelings that have built-up over the past five years.

Both communities will forever be haunted by the events of that night.

I have been very vocal in my support for Bryn Spejcher – who, full disclosure, is the same age as me and with who I identify in many ways. She has also overcome difficulties in her childhood, is lucky enough to have a group of friendly, supportive girlfriends (who I met) and is a strong, bright woman who isn’t afraid to fight for what she believes is right.

Mine has proved an unpopular take.  People appear to find it hard to believe that such an extreme, violent reaction can be attributed to a drug as ‘innocuous’ as marijuana. ‘I smoke everyday and I’ve never picked up a knife and stabbed someone,’ they say. There must be something evil, however subconscious, about the girl. Others say a crime is a crime; regardless of the details, if a jury finds her guilty, she should go to prison. I’ve also heard people say that this case sets a worrying precedent – does it mean you can get away with killing someone, so long as you’re high on drugs?

The above views represent a vast misunderstanding about this case, as well as the extent of the effects of the marijuana most people smoke in states where it is legal.

I am not anti-drugs. Nor do I think people who smoke marijuana should go to prison or face any life-destroying punishment. But the expert testimony in this case – courtesy of some of the US’ most well-respected psychiatrists and psychologists – has not been paid adequate attention. As a health journalist, I am guided by the words of trust-worthy medical experts.

Dr Kris Mohandie, interestingly brought in by the prosecution, has been a forensic psychologist for more than 30 years, supplying evidence for hundreds of local, state and federal law enforcement as well as the FBI.

After extensive psychiatric testing on Bryn, Dr Mohandie concluded that the psychosis she suffered was ‘100 percent’ caused by the cannabis she smoked. She had no control of her actions, nor could she have predicted her reaction, based on her level of use.

I called him for further clarification. I was struck by his assertion that such violent behavior in reaction to cannabis as potent as the kind Bryn smoked was ‘not rare’.

‘What people need to understand, and what needs to be talked about, is that there is variability in people’s reactions,’ he said. ‘You can have a person use cannabis one time and experience a psychotic reaction.

‘And I have had a number of cases where marijuana was part of a reality distortion that led to self- or other-directed violence or both.’

The Spejcher case, he said, is ‘illuminating’. ‘It is an example of how cannabis can be dangerous for some people.’ He adds that legalization has presented ‘problems’, the most pressing being the creation of the ‘illusion that the drug is always safe’.

Mohandie is not the only medical professional to say this. Over the years I’ve heard from at least 10, at the top of their field, who’ve warned of much the same.

One detail that I’ve been reluctant to draw attention to is the nature of Chad O’Melia’s relationship with weed. This line of interest has been labelled ‘victim blaming’, which I can absolutely see, and this is, of course, not my intention. According to testimony from Chad’s friends, he was a daily weed smoker who showed recognized signs of addiction to the drug. Some say this is irrelevant to the outcome of the verdict, and the sentence. But if he wasn’t a long-term, regular user of cannabis, perhaps two things wouldn’t have happened. First, his stash mightn’t have been as potent.

Second, perhaps he’d have been more sensitive to the effects of the drug on inexperienced users. By this, I do not mean that he is in any way to blame for his own death, or that his habit was a flaw in his character.

My point is this – plainly, it is ludicrous and misguided not to place the blame of this tragedy at the hands of a culture that normalizes the regular use of potent, psychoactive drugs. Maybe it’s not the most popular thing to say, and I’m bound to lose cool points or whatever the word is. But the risks to public health of the lax attitude to marijuana in this county are now undeniable.

In California, hospital admissions for cannabis-related complications have risen almost 10-fold, to around 16,000, since around the time it was legalized. Also, in states where the drug is legal, addiction cases are nearly 40 percent higher than states where it’s still banned, according to research by Columbia University.

Legalized states are also more likely to have higher numbers of car accidents involving cannabis, and emergency hospital admissions. Not to mention the growing evidence that high-strength strains are increasing rates of depression, anxiety and other mental illnesses in young people.

Disturbingly, a number of cases of child abuse in the US have also been linked to the psychiatric effects of cannabis.

There’s the Illinois mother who smoked a joint that sent her into a psychotic breakdown, during which she suffocated her four-year-old daughter while shouting, ‘I’m sending her to Jesus’.

Or, the 20 year-old from Pennsylvania who rolled over her two-month-old baby on the couch after weed sent her to sleep.

Siide-note, I couldn’t help but notice the nature of language used be the prosecution to describe Bryn Spejcher.

She was a ‘narcissistic girl’ who was ‘spoiled’, had ‘shown no remorse’ and was ‘lacking in empathy’. The tropes were, to my mind, gendered, and echoed the patriarchal construct of the ‘difficult woman’.

I like to think I’m a good judge of character. And the woman I saw that day, faced with the family of the boy she killed, was a woman I’ve seen many times before. It’s a woman I’ve seen in myself. She is broken down and bruised, handed a set of cards that she never chose, which have ended in the worst possible outcome. Every day, she is forced to get up and fight for her very existence. And the only way to be strong is to pretend – and pretend good. Of course she is remorseful – her bellowing sobs at Chad’s grandmother’s ‘I forgive her’ speech attested to this.

Her own grandmother, aged 90, a former mental health nurse who lived with the family during the trial, told me she often heard Bryn’s cries in the nighttime, and knew that she was ‘putting on a brave face’ to protect her mother – who had suffered mental health problems because of the ordeal.

Bryn was the final member of her family to give a closing statement before the sentence was revealed.

‘I’ve listened to accounts that I show no remorse…but I do,’ she said, weeping. ‘I am broken and aching inside. ‘The hole in your life is not lost on me,’ she said, addressing Sean O’Melia.

‘I am truly sorry. It is important to tell you I never meant to hurt or harm Chad. I don’t recognize the psychotic person I saw that night. That is not who I am.’

She went on to say that, if she were to be granted freedom, she’d go on to do everything in her power to make a positive impact on society.’

Thank goodness Judge David Worley did just that, rather than sacrificing two lives to a stupid, ill-thought-out law, instead of one.