Early Drug Use Affected Killer, Medical Expert Tells Jury

Early drug use doomed convicted murderer Michael Schultz to a life of drug addiction and abuse, producing a situation where he may have been powerless to control his actions, a medical expert testified Tuesday.

“Intoxicated people don’t exercise free will,” Dr. Alex Stalcup told jurors at a penalty hearing in Ventura County Superior Court. “The drug controls them. The drug tells them what to do.”

Jurors are to recommend either execution or life in prison without parole for Schultz, formerly of Ventura, who was convicted Jan. 31 of raping and strangling Cynthia Burger, 44, in her Port Hueneme condominium a decade ago.

In an effort to keep Schultz, 33, off death row, his attorneys have presented evidence of his troubled upbringing, suggesting he was shaped and hardened by a childhood plagued with violence, mental illness and drug abuse.

Deputy Public Defender Steve Lipson asked Stalcup how early drug use -- Schultz was said to be snorting methamphetamine by the age of 10 -- might affect his client later in life.

“It would be disastrous,” said Stalcup, medical director of the New Leaf Treatment Center in Lafayette, Calif. “It’s a very powerful drug, and it’s being used in an immature brain, a developing brain. The effect on that brain would be much more harmful than it would be 10 years later.”

Under questioning by Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard Simon, Stalcup acknowledged that he did not know whether Schultz was under the influence of drugs when he raped and killed Burger.

Simon also suggested that a defendant such as Schultz, one who is waiting for punishment to be meted out, could exaggerate the extent of his childhood problems to gain sympathy and avoid a harsher sentence.

Jurors found that Schultz attacked Burger after breaking into her home in August 1993. In an attempt to destroy DNA evidence, he filled a downstairs bathtub with water, added bleach and other household chemicals and dumped her body face-down into the tub.

He also disabled the condo’s smoke detectors and set the home on fire by placing a candle under Burger’s bed.

Firefighters called to the burning condominium on Outlook Cove discovered her body in the tub and thought she died of smoke inhalation. An autopsy revealed that she had been sexually assaulted and strangled.

The case went unsolved for six years before investigators received an anonymous tip that led them to Schultz. Investigators obtained a search warrant that compelled Schultz to provide a blood sample. His DNA was matched to genetic material extracted from semen found in Burger’s body.

Testimony is scheduled to resume Thursday.