Multiple Killer Declared Sane, Hits Attorney

A jury in the fourth sanity trial of an El Cajon man, convicted in 1988 of murdering five family members, found the defendant was sane during the 1985 slayings.

After 5 1/2 hours of deliberation, the finding Thursday by the San Diego Superior Court jury set the stage for the penalty phase next week, in which the same jury will recommend whether Toufic Naddi, 49, should be executed or sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Naddi reacted to the verdict by striking one of his attorneys, Beverly Barrett, with his fist, in front of the jury. He was subdued by four deputy marshals, handcuffed and taken out of the courtroom, also in front of the shocked jury.

Barrett was shaken, but did not require medical attention.

Afterward, his other attorney, Hodge Crabtree, said the violence was unfortunate and that he believes, as he argued, that Naddi was mentally ill at the time of the shootings.

On June 1, 1985, Naddi shot his wife, Aida, 26; her father, Habib Sabbagh, 73; her mother, Lillian Sabbagh, 58; her brother, Michael Sabbagh, 38; and her cousin, Osama Mashini, 38. All were shot repeatedly in the head in the parents’ El Cajon home.

At his first trial in 1988, Naddi was convicted of five counts of first-degree murder. The jury also found him to be guilty of the special circumstance that multiple victims were slain. They deadlocked 11-1 on whether he was sane at the time.

In 1989, at the second sanity trial, a mistrial was declared during closing arguments when the prosecutor likened the thinking process of Naddi--who was born in Lebanon--to terrorists who had just killed an American hostage in Beirut.

A third mistrial was declared in February after jurors read newspaper accounts of Naddi’s marriage while in jail to a woman helping him with his case.