A California man is guilty of murder in a bizarre case wherein the suspect claimed he was a werewolf who killed a vampire.
Atascadero man Mark Andrews, 51, went to his neighbor's home and fatally shot her in the doorway with a rifle, a jury determined Friday.
Andrews pleaded insanity in the 2013 killing of 52-year-old Colleen Barga-Milbury, KSBY reports.
"I'm disappointed," defense attorney Ilan Funke-Bilu told the station. "Mark is a very sick man and when I told the jury I believed he wasn't a murderer I believe that."
Carolyn Murphy, a forensic psychologist who interviewed Andrews, said in court last Tuesday that Andrews has schizophrenia, the San Luis Obispo Tribune reports. He also believes he is a werewolf, who was sent on a mission by God to kill what he believed to be a vampire, Murphy said in testimony.
He believes he "transforms into a werewolf" because he "holds the spirit of the wolf," Murphy said.
This is not the first time Andrews became suspicious of his neighbors.
More from the Tribune:
In 2009, according to court records, Andrews believed a different neighbor was a vampire. Andrews left mounds of dirt and flour on that neighbor’s door and once pounded on the neighbor’s door, calling her a “bitch,” though she didn’t answer.
At his home, according to police reports, police found two lists of names, several marked “hate with death.”
Murphy testified that she asked Andrews why he didn’t kill the neighbor from 2009.
“God didn’t tell him to kill her,” she said.
Though mentally ill, Murphy said Andrews is "not a psychopath."
A day after the murder of Barga-Milbury, KCOY spoke to Andrews, who claimed to have no knowledge of the killing, even saying that only an "animalistic person" would commit such a horror.
"She was married once and he passed away also, and that's another reason why this is more sad," Andrews told the station at the time. "I'm just at a loss of words right now, I don't know what to say."
Andrews initially admitted to the killing after his arrest, but a judge ruled his Miranda rights had been violated during questioning, so the confession was thrown out, according to Cal Coast News.
In a conversation with his mother recorded in 2013, Andrews said he wanted "to be executed and die," according to the Tribune.
"I think we have a long way to go as a society to understand how sick some people are -- that they can kill and yet at the same time not be held responsible," Funke-Bilu told KSBY. "That's something for a lot of people a very difficult concept to grasp."
Barga-Milbury was a former State Hospital employee, and lived alone with her 15-year-old son.
Next week, the trial will continue to determine if Andrews was insane at the time of the killing.
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