Judge: Tri-City Man Was Sane When He Murdered Two Men in Hayward Lot

A judge ruled today that a Union City man who has mental health issues was legally sane when he murdered two men at an auto auction lot in Hayward five years ago. Alameda County Superior Court Judge Joseph Hurley’s ruling means that 39-year-old Karl Sanft could face life in prison without the possibility of parole when he is sentenced on Sept. 4. Sanft was convicted last week for fatally stabbing Angelito Erasquin, 63, of Hayward, and James White, a 63-year-old trucker from Central Point, Oregon, at about 3 a.m. on Feb. 2, 2010, at the Manheim San Francisco Bay lot at 1901 Addison Way in Hayward.

Hurley’s ruling today also means that Sanft will serve his sentence at a state prison instead of a secure mental institution, which was the outcome that was sought by his defense attorney William Linehan. Erasquin was stabbed 22 times and Wightman was stabbed 48 times, according to Hayward police. At the end of the guilt phase of Sanft’s non-jury trial last Tuesday, Hurley found Sanft guilty of two counts of first-degree murder and also ruled that two special circumstance allegations against him are true: that he committed a murder during the course of a robbery and he committed multiple murders.

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• Union City Man Convicted of Murdering Two People at Hayward Auto Lot

Linehan admitted that Sanft killed Erasquin and Wightman but said he should only be convicted of two counts of second-degree murder because he heard voices telling him to kill the victims on behalf of the FBI and God. But prosecutor Warren Ko said he believes Sanft knew what he was doing and that he thinks Sanft went to the car lot to steal a Chevrolet Trailblazer SUV to get money to support his methamphetamine habit.

Linehan said Sanft was suffering from methamphetamine-induced psychosis so he wasn’t mentally capable of premeditating and deliberating stealing a car from the auto lot and then killing the two victims. Linehan said Sanft began using methamphetamine in 2005 after his brother was murdered and his father died after suffering from dementia.

After Hurley found Sanft guilty, he held a separate sanity phase in which the prosecution and defense presented testimony by psychologists about Sanft’s mental state at the time of the crimes. In announcing his ruling today, Hurley said he found the psychologist who testified on behalf of the prosecution and said Sanft was sane to be “very credible.”

But Hurley said he didn’t agree with a psychologist who testified on behalf of the defense and said Sanft was insane at the time of the crimes, was temporarily brought to sanity because of “the bloody aftermath” of the fatal stabbings, and then became insane again.

Hurley said, “That opinion is not something a person could be good at without supernatural abilities.” Hurley concluded, “I find that he (Sanft) was sane at the time” of the crimes. After the ruling, Linehan said he hopes that Hurley sentences Sanft to life in prison with the possibility of parole, not life without the possibility of parole. Linehan said that in any event, he will appeal Hurley’s guilt phase and sanity phase rulings.

“This is just round one” in a long process, Linehan said. The defense attorney had said at the beginning of the case that he waived Sanft’s right to a jury trial because he wanted a judge to “dispassionately” review the evidence in the case.

By Bay City News

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