Elgar Killer’s Sanity on Trial

The attorney for the man who has admitted killing two executives at the Elgar Corp. a year ago said Tuesday his client drove to the electronics firm prepared for war because he believed that his former bosses were conspirators involved with the Antichrist and an impending nuclear war.

Alex Loebig Jr. told a nine-woman, three-man San Diego Superior Court jury in Larry T. Hansel’s sanity trial that his client was obsessed by bizarre religious beliefs that had cost him his job and was driving his family away.

“In his mind, he set out to save the world, and he knew he was going to have to be a sacrificial lamb,” Loebig said.

Hansel, 42, pleaded guilty by reason of insanity a month ago to the shotgun murders of John Jones, Elgar’s 48-year-old vice president and general manager, and 46-year-old Michael Krowitz, the firm’s regional sales manager.

Loebig will present evidence over the next week as he attempts to prove that Hansel was and remains insane and therefore was not responsible for his actions.

If the jury finds Hansel insane, he will be sent to a state mental institution until doctors determine that he has regained his mental health. If found responsible for his actions, Hansel will spend the rest of his life in prison.