LAKEPORT — The first-degree murder trial of former Clearlake resident James Wade Roberts, 46, continued before Lake County Superior Court Judge Richard Martin Tuesday morning with opening statements from Lake County District Attorney Jon Hopkins and defense attorney Stephen Carter.
Roberts is accused of murdering his former roommate Ruth Donaldson by strangulation and by stabbing. Donaldson shared a Mullen Avenue house with Roberts, his mother Jill Mancuso and four other people at the time of her Oct. 15, 2006 death. Roberts pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity in March 2007 and is being held at the Lake County Jail on $1 million bail.
“Under California law, the jury is not allowed to know about the NGI (not guilty by reason of insanity) plea until after the guilt phase,” Carter said outside the courtroom. “Insanity issues can be an issue in the guilt phase, but that is different than the NGI phase.”
Hopkins said in January that Roberts entered two pleas, not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity. The prosecution must show beyond a reasonable doubt that Roberts was guilty based on the evidence in the first portion of the trial, the guilt phase, according to Hopkins. If Roberts is found guilty, the next phase is for the same jury to decide whether Roberts was sane or insane at the time of the murder, Hopkins said.
“At some point that afternoon, for unknown reasons, reasons we may never know, Mr. Roberts took a cord and wrapped it around Ruth Donaldson”s neck and applied sufficient enough pressure to cause her death. Then he took a large kitchen knife and stabbed her in her abdomen and moved it in a stabbing motion multiple times,” Hopkins said in his opening statement. Hopkins went on to say that Roberts then asked Mancuso for a sleeping bag to remove Donaldson”s body and admitted to the murder.
Carter told the jury in opening statements, “You”re going to hear evidence of Mr. Roberts acting under an hallucination that God acted through him to cause the death of Ms. Donaldson. You”re going to hear from family and friends and qualified psychological experts that that wasn”t new in his life, that that kind of hallucination and inability to keep track of reality was not new to Mr. Roberts.”
Hopkins called Mancuso ? Roberts” mother ? as his first witness. Mancuso testified that Roberts asked where the sleeping bags were. “I asked him what he wanted them for and he didn”t answer me,” Mancuso said. Mancuso recounted that in the course of conversation with her son, he told her he had “whacked” Donaldson.
At Carter”s request, Mancuso verified that her son had told her, “She (Donaldson) had the eyes. She was evil. She had to be stopped. She was the evil in this house. Don”t you understand?”
Answering a question by Hopkins, Mancuso said Roberts had said he believed that between six and eight visitors to the home “had a demon in them.”
Carter said the jury was instructed that the trial will not last longer than March 21, but called that an “outside estimate” of how long the trial will run.
Contact Tiffany Revelle at trevelle@record-bee.com
