Witnesses Say Tuffree Craved Valium

The day before he shot a Simi Valley policeman to death, Daniel Allan Tuffree began pestering his doctor, psychiatrist and insurance company for more Valium, witnesses testified Wednesday at his murder trial.

Every time they refused, witnesses said, Tuffree grew angrier.

And by the next morning--Aug. 4, 1995--they said Tuffree was shouting into the phone at them and they began consulting one another about his case.

Then came a series of phone calls made on Tuffree’s behalf that brought police to check on his welfare at his house, where he admits he shot Officer Michael F. Clark to death in a gunfight.

Tuffree is charged with first-degree murder, armed assault and attempted murder for allegedly shooting at Clark’s partner, Officer Michael Pierce. If convicted, Tuffree could be sentenced to death.

Wednesday marked the first full day of testimony in Tuffree’s trial, as prosecutors brought on witnesses to lay out the chain of events that put Tuffree and Clark at the opposite ends of a shootout.

Tuffree begged to have his Valium prescription refilled when he called the office of his family doctor, Robert Hanson on Aug. 3, testified receptionist Kristin Samprone.

Tuffree complained, Samprone said, that his psychiatrist had turned down his request for more Valium and suggested that he ask Hanson instead.

But Samprone said she demurred, telling Tuffree she would call him back after checking with the doctor.

Tuffree called back 15 minutes later, then repeatedly over the next hour or so, she said.

“Every phone call that was made to our office that I spoke to him, it got progressively worse,” Samprone said. “He got more irrational.”

After the doctor instructed her to call him back and refuse his request, she said, Tuffree “started yelling things on the phone, all these things about doctors and how he needed his Valium.”

Finally, she turned the angry caller over to her office manager, Sherrie Duarte.

Tuffree was “very persistent and very demanding about getting his prescription filled,” Duarte testified. “His voice was raised, yes, and his speech seemed slurred.”

Duarte said she put Tuffree on hold during a subsequent call to summon Elizabeth Adams, another office manager there, but by the time Adams picked up the phone, he had hung up.

Adams, who called Tuffree back the next day, said he complained that he had run out of Valium because he had been taking more of the tranquilizer than prescribed. Adams said she recommended he take up the matter with his psychiatrist, Dr. Uzma Khalid.

Adams said she also urged Tuffree to call Maxicare, his health-insurance company, to seek help through its Mental Health Network, which she had already informed of his case.

But Tuffree “continued to argue, and I hung up,” she said.

Adams said she then called Maxicare’s psychiatric provider and was put on hold for 43 minutes before someone picked up, took her name and had a caseworker call her back.

Adams testified that caseworker Karl Floyd told her about a call he received from Khalid, Tuffree’s psychiatrist.

Floyd said that the psychiatrist told him that Tuffree had abused his Valium to the point where she refused to renew it, that Tuffree had arrived at a therapy session smelling of alcohol, that she told him to go into treatment for overusing the drug and that she had stopped seeing him as a client, Adams said.

Floyd told her that he called Tuffree’s house and got no answer and then a busy signal, Adams said. So she recommended that Floyd call in a psychiatric evaluation team to visit Tuffree--and if he did not answer his door, to call police.

Then Floyd took the stand Wednesday, testifying that Adams had indeed told him of Tuffree’s harassment and of his admission that he was abusing Valium.

Floyd also said that he spoke to Khalid: “Dr. Khalid said that the patient had repeatedly refused to comply with her treatment by not following her recommendation for detox,” Floyd said.

When told that Floyd could not reach Tuffree by phone, he said the psychiatrist replied, “ ‘He could possibly be suffering a grand mal seizure’ . . . and we briefly talked about the exponential effect of using alcohol with Valium, that that could be a lethal effect.”

Floyd said he called a psychiatric caseworker at Simi Valley Hospital to explain everyone’s concern for Tuffree, and was assured that the caseworker would check up on him.

By day’s end, Floyd said, he learned that Tuffree had been accused of fatally shooting a policeman who was sent to check on his health.

In other testimony, a gun range manager said that Tuffree came in about a week before Clark’s slaying, bought a few human silhouette targets and used his own gun for target practice. But Jeffrey Jordan, manager of Shooter’s Paradise in Simi Valley, said he did not know how long Tuffree practiced that day.

Before testimony began Wednesday, Superior Court Judge Allan L. Steele excused an alternate juror for medical reasons after the woman complained of a gall bladder problem that might require surgery.

Testimony is set to continue this morning before 12 jurors and the four remaining alternates.