Abrams trial begins with drugs, delusions

Alex Coolman

SANTA ANA -- The portrait of a man twisted by drug problems and

delusions of “brain wave police” emerged Thursday as opening arguments

were heard in the trial of Steven Allen Abrams, the man accused of

murdering two children at a Costa Mesa day care center.

In an Orange County Superior courtroom where seats were occupied by

some family members of Abrams’ victims, defense and prosecution attorneys

laid the lurid foundation for the testimony to come.

Abrams, 40, is charged with two counts of murder and seven counts of

attempted murder for steering his Cadillac on May 3, 1999, onto the

crowded playground of the Southcoast Early Childhood Learning Center in

Costa Mesa.

The baffling action, which police say was intentional, took the lives

of Sierra Soto, 4, and Brandon Weiner, 3, and left other students and a

teacher’s aide injured.

Abrams has pleaded not guilty to the charges by reason of insanity.

As the morning progressed, Abrams seemed to shrink into his seat.

Dressed in a white shirt and khaki slacks with his long, curly hair

combed back, he stared down at his lap. He seemed to show little emotion

other than a sort of fearful resignation.

Speaking to the jury, Deputy Dist. Atty. Debora Lloyd drew attention

to the degree of care that Abrams devoted to preparing for his actions.

“The defendant premeditated this murder on these children over the

years,” Lloyd said. “He laid in wait.”

The picture she painted of Abrams was that of a habitual user of

cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamines -- a man who dulled his senses

with chemicals, but retained a fundamental moral awareness of the

difference between right and wrong.

“He said, ‘I know I’m gonna pay for what I did,”’ Lloyd said.

But in public defender Leonard Gumlia’s opening statement, Abrams’

character was portrayed in a far less rational light.

“This is the story of a paranoid schizophrenic,” Gumlia began, and

then presented, in elaborate and often bizarre detail, the “world of

paranoia” in which Abrams lived in the years leading up to his actions.

Abrams, Gumlia said, began to slide into intense delusions in the wake

of a failed romantic relationship with a neighbor in 1994. He began to

form conspiracy theories and believed he was being followed by government

agents.

Eventually, Gumlia said, Abrams formulated a vast theory about “brain

wave police,” a group that controlled thoughts, implanted memories and

manipulated the courts and government.

“Mr. Abrams did not understand the mechanism for this control,” Gumlia

said, “but he knew it existed.”

So powerful was Abrams’ delusion about the thought-controlling police,

Gumlia said, that he lacked the ability to distinguish between what was

real and what was imaginary. His sense of moral conviction, though

powerful, was entirely based on the belief that the brain wave police

were controlling his life and that he needed somehow to escape from their

clutches.

“He wasn’t planning to set up an insanity defense because he [didn’t

believe] he was mentally ill,” Gumlia said. “He thought [killing the

children] was the right thing to do.”