Jury Rules Drifter Was Sane When He Killed 9-Year-Old

A Superior Court jury Tuesday found that drifter and drug user Brandon Wilson, 21, was sane when he killed a 9-year-old boy in an oceanfront bathroom in Oceanside last year.

The decision, reached after about five hours of deliberation, means that the same jury now will decide whether Wilson should be sentenced to death for the murder of Matthew Cecchi in November.

“It’s an answer to our prayers, we’re so relieved,” Matthew’s aunt, Roberta Gerhard, said after the verdict. “Everybody has to be accountable for their actions, otherwise your society will be chaos.”

Defense psychiatrists had testified that Wilson, who said God told him to begin a killing spree, was insane at the time of the murder.

But court-appointed psychiatrists testified that the drifter from Wisconsin, while delusional, was sane because he knew the difference between right and wrong. That view was bolstered by a videotape of Wilson’s confession in which he said he knew that murder was considered wrong.

The prosecution had portrayed Wilson as intelligent, angry at the world, and capable of faking mental illness to avoid the death penalty.

Wilson testified that he was taking LSD and listening to music by shock-rocker Marilyn Manson in the hours before the slaying. Quizzed by his attorney and the chief prosecutor, Wilson expressed no remorse.

“The defect in Mr. Wilson is not in his mind, the defect in Mr. Wilson is in his heart,” Deputy Dist. Atty. David Rubin told jurors.

The jury must decide between death and life in prison without the possibility of parole. If it chooses the death penalty, Superior Court Judge John Einhorn can either accept the verdict or reduce it to the lesser penalty.

Matthew, who lived with his parents in Oroville in Northern California, was attending a family gathering on a public beach when Wilson stalked him and sliced his throat with a 4-inch knife. The dying child was found by his aunt.

“Nothing could have prepared me for what I found in that bathroom,” a tearful Gerhard testified. Wilson fled to Hollywood and was arrested two days later after stabbing a woman during a purse snatching.

Wilson showed no emotion as the verdict was read. Earlier he had managed a small smile while talking to his attorney. A female juror wept openly and her voice was nearly inaudible when the judge polled jurors.

Wilson’s divorced parents, who live in Wisconsin, attended most of the two-week trial. Wilson has never denied killing Matthew, but a plea of insanity was entered on his behalf.

During the trial, evidence showed that Wilson got good grades in high school and had been accepted at the University of Wisconsin. Instead, he decided to roam the country, using a $17,000 payment he received after he was injured in an automobile accident. Wilson was high on methamphetamine when the accident occurred, prosecutors said.

Along with finding that Wilson was sane, the jury found that he had committed the murder from ambush--one of the circumstances that California law says justifies, although does not mandate, the death penalty.