Chula Vista

A psychiatrist testified Monday that a Chula Vista man who killed three people during a 1982 shooting spree was legally insane at the time as a result of taking too many prescription drugs.

Dr. Donald Duff said he examined Alys Edmund McNair, now 62, about nine months after he held off police for more than four hours from his mobile home. He was arrested after authorities tossed tear gas into the home and stormed inside.

Duff said he concluded that McNair was not responsible for his actions after toxicological reports backed up McNair’s claim that he overused several prescribed medications at the time. McNair’s attorney, Thomas Senter, has said McNair was taking 25 to 50 different medicines for a heart ailment and other physical problems.

Duff also told Superior Court Judge Thomas G. Duffy and jurors in McNair’s sanity trial that McNair suffers from organic brain syndrome, which affects a person’s thinking processes.

Duff said he believes McNair suffered from the disorder before he being exposed to the tear gas, contradicting the testimony of other psychiatrists who said that his exposure to the tear gas caused the condition.

McNair was found unconscious on his bed and surrounded by more than 50 spent shell casings and loaded guns, including a Winchester rifle used in the fatal shootings.

McNair pleaded guilty in 1983 to three counts of second-degree murder in the slayings of a neighbor, Gloria Rolon DeCastro, 62; her son, Cesar Escutia, 36, and Monique Gerard, 23, a former resident of an apartment nearby who had returned to pick up some belongings.

He was sentenced to 45 years to life in prison by Superior Court Judge Michael I. Greer, but the 4th District Court of Appeal ruled in May that McNair had not waived his right to a sanity trial when he entered his guilty pleas.

The appellate court ruled McNair was still entitled to that trial and set aside his sentence.