Kolodziej Was Sane at Time of Killing, Judge Declares : Courts: The defense fails to show that the drifter was unable to tell right from wrong when he stabbed Velasta Johnson.

Kevin Kolodziej was sane when he fatally stabbed a 90-year-old Ventura woman in January, a Ventura County judge ruled Friday.

Although Kolodziej has a history of mental illness, Superior Court Judge James M. McNally said his attorneys had failed to satisfy the law’s stringent requirements for an insanity defense. Specifically, the judge said, they had not shown that Kolodziej was incapable of telling right from wrong when he killed Velasta Johnson.

“The court does determine that Mr. Kolodziej was sane at the time of the offense,” McNally said.

As a result, the 25-year-old Kolodziej (pronounced Kuh-LOH-jee) faces a sentence of 16 years to life in prison for his second-degree murder conviction. If he had been judged insane, he would have been sent to a mental institution until he was deemed to have regained his sanity.

Kolodziej, wearing a purple corduroy shirt, raised his hand to his mouth as he heard the judge’s decision, then turned and whispered to Deputy Public Defender Steve P. Lipson.

“He asked, ‘What does that mean?’ ” Lipson said outside court. “I said it means we lost. He said, ‘Oh. That’s too bad.’

“He’s disappointed,” Lipson said. “He wanted to go to a hospital.”

The victim’s daughter, Jackie Thetford, was delighted with the ruling.

“I’m so happy,” she said. “This is what we wanted.”

Thetford said the ruling made up for some of the disappointment she felt when McNally--who heard the case without a jury--ruled Aug. 12 that the slaying was second-degree murder. A first-degree murder conviction would have meant a life term without parole.

Friday’s sanity ruling also pleased Clyde Johnson, whose wife of 64 years was killed.

“Does that mean he’ll go to prison?” he asked as he walked from the courtroom with a cane. When someone answered yes, Johnson said: “Good. That’s where he belongs.”

Advocates for the mentally ill, some of whom attended every day of the trial since it began July 7, were bitterly disappointed by McNally’s decision.

“Utterly outrageous,” said Patricia Sandwall, a former president of the Ventura County Alliance for the Mentally Ill, as she left court. “I can’t believe it.”

Another alliance member, Lou Matthews, said the case shows that society is not properly caring for people with grave mental illnesses.

“They aren’t treated for the serious conditions they develop, and they don’t get a fair shake in the criminal justice system,” Matthews said. “They’re the lepers and the outcasts.”

According to testimony at the seven-week trial, Kolodziej has shown signs of mental illness for several years as he drifted around the country. Last year, he was hospitalized for schizophrenia at mental institutions in his native Virginia and in Hawaii.

Eleven days before the slaying, Kolodziej was found outside a Ventura motel with 13 self-inflicted stab wounds in his throat and abdomen. At Ventura County Medical Center, he pulled oxygen and intravenous tubes from his body and two psychiatrists diagnosed his condition as schizophrenia, according to trial testimony.

On Jan. 17, Kolodziej escaped from his bed restraints and wandered the streets around the hospital, asking residents where he could take a shower. He entered the Johnson house through the unlocked back door and picked up a kitchen knife from atop a partly eaten pie.

When Velasta Johnson rounded a corner and confronted him, Kolodziej stabbed her in the heart. Then he hid the knife in a bedroom closet, walked a few doors down to a neighbor’s house and curled up on a wicker couch on the back porch, where police found him.

In the sanity phase of the trial, the defense had the burden of proving, by a preponderance of evidence, that Kolodziej was insane when he committed the crime. Deputy Public Defender Neil B. Quinn presented a half-dozen experts who interviewed Kolodziej before or after the crime, and all said they believed he had schizophrenia.

But under the law, mental illness alone is not enough. The defense must also show that the mental disorder prevented the defendant from knowing that his action was wrong.

One defense expert testified that Kolodziej did not know what he was doing; a prosecution expert testified that there was nothing to prevent him from realizing that stabbing the elderly woman was wrong.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Peter D. Kossoris argued that several of Kolodziej’s actions--such as hiding the knife and denying responsibility for the stabbing after his arrest--suggest that he knew it was wrong.

Both Kossoris and Lipson said the judge had given them a fair trial. But Kolodziej’s mother, Gloria Kolodziej, was bitter toward the criminal justice system.

“Nobody there has ever been interested in the truth, because it looks bad on the county,” she said. “All the county agencies made too many mistakes.

She was referring to a series of apparent slip-ups before the murder. First, Kolodziej was able to walk away from the medical center unchallenged. In addition, county mental health officials had neglected to put a “hold order” on Kolodziej, so when Ventura police found him wandering the neighborhood, they had no authority to pick him up.

A few minutes after they released him, Velasta Johnson was stabbed.

Thetford has filed $1-million claims against both the city of Ventura and Ventura County. Such claims are typically the prelude to a lawsuit.

Gloria Kolodziej, who lives in Virginia Beach, Va., said the sanity ruling was “a total shock.”

“To have this happen when Kevin needs to be in a hospital so desperately, it’s inhumane,” she said. “Who is an insanity verdict for, if not for Kevin?”

McNally scheduled sentencing for Sept. 21.