Union City Man Gets Life Without Parole for Double Murder

A Union City man with mental health issues was sentenced today to life in prison without the possibility of parole for fatally stabbing two men at an auto auction lot in Hayward five years ago. At the end of a non-jury trial on June 24, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Joseph Hurley found 40-year-old Karl Sanft guilty of two counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of Angelito Erasquin, 63, of Hayward, and James Wightman, a 56-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.

Erasquin was stabbed 22 times and Wightman was stabbed 48 times, according to Hayward police. Hurley also ruled that two special circumstance allegations against Sanft were true: that he committed a murder during the course of a robbery and he committed multiple murders. At the end of a separate sanity phase, Hurley ruled on June 30 that Sanft was legally sane when he killed the two men.

Sanft’s lawyer, William Linehan admitted during the guilt phase of the trial 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.

Prosecutor Warren Ko acknowledged that Sanft suffers from mental problems but said he should be held responsible for the choices he made and the crimes he committed because he knew what he was doing and intended to steal the car and kill the two victims. Ko said he thinks Sanft went to the car lot to steal a Chevrolet Trailblazer SUV to get money to support his methamphetamine habit. But 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, who asked for a non-jury trial because he thought a judge would be more dispassionate about the gruesome case than a jury would, said Sanft began using methamphetamine in 2005 after his brother was murdered and his father died after suffering from dementia. The defense attorney said Sanft told police after he was arrested that he heard voices telling him that the FBI wanted him to take the Chevrolet and kill Erasquin. He said he killed Wightman, who had been sleeping in his truck while it was parked at the lot and witnessed the slaying of Erasquin, because God doesn’t like snitches.

In the sanity phase of the trial, the prosecution and defense presented testimony by psychologists about Sanft’s mental state at the time of the crimes. In announcing his ruling that Sanft was legally sane, Hurley said he found the psychologist who testified on behalf of the prosecution and said Sanft was sane to be “very credible.” Linehan has said that he will appeal Hurley’s rulings in the guilt phase and sanity phases of Sanft’s trial and expects the process to be lengthy.

By Bay City News

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