DeHoyos’ Attorney Says Mental Illness to Blame in His Killing of Girl, 9

An attorney for Richard Lucio DeHoyos told jurors Tuesday that his client is responsible for the death of a 9-year-old Santa Ana girl in a motel room but asked them to acquit DeHoyos of the most serious charges that could send him to the gas chamber.

Defense attorney Milton C. Grimes said DeHoyos, a 34-year-old drifter, is mentally ill and incapable of forming the intent to murder.

But Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert C. Gannon Jr. told jurors during closing arguments in Orange County Superior Court that there is overwhelming evidence that DeHoyos kidnaped, raped and murdered Nadia Puente in Santa Ana and then dumped her body in Griffith Park in Los Angeles in March, 1989.

A jury in 1991 convicted DeHoyos and recommended that he be sentenced to death, but the case was overturned because of jury misconduct.

Grimes said Tuesday that DeHoyos’ mental condition causes irrational, violent outbreaks. Such an outbreak led to Nadia’s death, but his condition also should exempt him from the death penalty, Grimes said.

“It appears to be a rash impulse, the same rash impulse that has been with him all of his life,” said Grimes, who said DeHoyos has a history of bizarre outbursts and suffered an abusive upbringing.

During his first trial, DeHoyos once rampaged around the courtroom and frequently growled and barked like a dog. DeHoyos, who has once again shaven his head, sat motionless throughout the closing statements presented by both attorneys.

Jurors are likely to begin deliberating today. DeHoyos has pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity. If convicted of the crimes, jurors must then decide whether DeHoyos was insane at the time the crimes were committed.

Grimes has asked them to consider lesser convictions, such as second-degree murder or even involuntary manslaughter.

During the trial, Gannon presented evidence that DeHoyos led Nadia to his car by posing as a teacher who needed help carrying books. DeHoyos took the girl to a motel and later panicked when she began screaming that she wanted to leave, Gannon said.

DeHoyos plunged the girl’s head underwater in the bathtub to silence her, but Nadia died not from drowning but asphyxiation due to the pressure upon her chest as DeHoyos forcibly bent her over the side of the tub, attorneys say.

Gannon said the evidence also proves that Nadia was raped and molested while still alive. If jurors agree, and if they find him sane, DeHoyos would be eligible for the death penalty.

But Grimes said DeHoyos tried to have sex with the girl after her death, a crime not punishable by the death penalty, and did so to determine whether she was faking death.

Grimes told jurors he realized that explanation made no sense.

“But that’s the mind of a man with a mental illness,” he said.