Family testifies to Johns’ erratic acts

On Aug. 17, 2006, Janene Johns stood in her kitchen with a huge knife in her hand.

She told her daughter, Lauren, that she was going to kill herself and that the police would blame her. Unable to call the police because Janene, in a fit of paranoia, had unplugged the phones earlier, Lauren turned to her siblings. She reached her brother’s girlfriend and had her call police, who came to the house and eventually resolved the situation.

Tears in her eyes, voice cracking, Lauren Johns testified Wednesday in her mother’s vehicular manslaughter trial that the kitchen incident was a part of increasingly bizarre behavior her mother exhibited in the weeks following her husband’s memorial. Janene Johns’ husband, Andy, died July 10, 2006, after an 18-month battle with cancer.

Lauren’s testimony aimed to confirm earlier defense testimony that Johns was suffering from acute stress disorder after her husband’s memorial in early August 2006.

The testimony is key for the defense as Johns’ attorneys try to convince jurors that stress, depression and paranoia caused Johns to be unconscious, in mind but not body, when she fatally struck a Costa Mesa teacher with her 2006 Lexus on Aug. 23, 2006.

Prosecutors contend Johns took the cough-suppressant Mucinex, the anti-anxiety medication Xanax and Ambien sleeping pills the day of the crash.

She is charged with vehicular manslaughter while under the influence of prescription medications. Eastbluff Elementary School teacher Candace Tift was riding her bike down West Coast Highway when she was hit. She succumbed to her injuries the next day.

In the three weeks between her husband’s memorial and the accident, Johns’ family and neighbors testified she behaved more and more erratically.

Anxious that a devastating earthquake would kill her family, Johns’ son, Andrew, testified one day she came home with more than a dozen one-gallon jugs of water and placed them next to doors and walkways.

Another time, he came home to find $50,000 in cash spread out on a table, he testified.

Andrew Johns said his mother had taken all the money out of her checking account so they could leave the state when a disaster hit.

Twice, family members found Johns sleeping in her car in the parking lot of the local Jewish Community Center with remembrances of her husband.

Johns’ behavior at the time fit the profile of someone suffering from acute stress disorder, psychiatrist Ted Greenzang told jurors Wednesday. He testified the fact Johns could not remember the car accident means she was likely unconscious. Legal precedents absolve someone who is unconscious from committing a crime, attorneys said.

In cross-examination Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert Mestman aimed to discredit Greenzang’s testimony.

In Greenzang’s 14-page report diagnosing Johns, nowhere in there were the words “acute stress disorder” or “unconsciousness,” Mestman pointed out.

Greenzang had actually diagnosed Johns with major depression.

About a week after he wrote the report, Greenzang testified he met with defense attorney Gary Pohlson to discuss the findings. Through his cross examination, Mestman tried to suggest that Greenzang changed his testimony for Johns’ benefit. Greenzang testified Pohlson just asked him to focus his testimony on symptoms applicable to the defense.

During cross examination, Greenzang offered a similar explanation when prosecutors confronted him about looking up legal code about unconsciousness and prosecution outside the courtroom before testifying.

Pohlson is expected to bring in a second psychiatrist to coincide with Greenzang’s testimony Wednesday. He said he will also show jurors a toxicology report with different toxicology results taken from the same blood sampled by Orange County Sheriff’s Department forensic scientists.

JOSEPH SERNA may be reached at (714) 966-4619 or at joseph.serna@latimes.com.