The nurse facing murder charges for allegedly throwing her Mercedes-Benz into traffic this month in Windsor Hills was in the midst of a “terrifying” mental health crisis in the days, hours and minutes before the accident, new court records show. filed by their attorneys. .
The revelations came in a comprehensive file from defense attorneys for Nicole Linton that offers the most detailed account yet of the events leading up to the horrific accident that killed five people and an unborn child.
The motion and attachments, obtained by The Times, detail the nurse’s four-year struggle with bipolar disorder and include a determination by doctors immediately after the deadly incident that Linton suffered an “apparent lapse of consciousness” in the moment of the accident. .
Linton is accused of speeding her sedan down La Brea Avenue toward the busy intersection at Slauson Avenue shortly after 1:30 pm on August 4. Authorities say she was going about 90 mph when he went through a traffic light that had been red for nine seconds and crashed into passing traffic.
The ferocious crash killed five, including one pregnant woman and a baby. The Los Angeles district attorney charged Linton with six counts of murder, including that of the pregnant woman’s unborn child.
Linton has been confined in jail since the accident, and prosecutors allege that she is a flight risk and a danger to the community. They said in a presentation that Linton suffered from deterioration of mental health problems before the accident.
“She has no recollection of the events leading up to her collision,” Dr. William Winter wrote on August 6. Winter treated Linton at UCLA Ronald Reagan Medical Center.
“The next thing he remembered was lying on the pavement and seeing his car on fire,” he wrote.
Winter wrote that Linton has bipolar disorder and suffered from an “apparent lapse of consciousness” at the time of the accident, according to heavily redacted medical records.
Linton’s family became aware of his mental health issues in May 2018 when she was a nursing student at the University of Texas at Houstontheir lawyers wrote. Her sister Camille Linton said in a letter to the court that Nicole’s studies to be a nurse anesthetist caused her first mental health problem.
“The stress was too much for her and it ‘broke her,'” wrote Camille Linton. “Thus beginning the journey of Nicole’s 4-year struggle with mental illness.”
She ran out of her apartment in May 2018 during a panic attack, and when police approached her, she jumped into a squad car and was arrested for disorderly conduct, her attorneys wrote.
Linton called her family from the police station and was concerned about the well-being of her pet tortoise, according to her attorneys.
A few days after that arrest, Linton told her family that she believed she was possessed by her dead grandmother.
The next day, at Ben Taub psychiatric hospital, Linton needed stitches to his forehead after hitting his head on a glass partition while ranting about the police and the Supreme Court, the lawyers wrote. He sang Bob Marley while medical personnel treated his injury, records say.
It was at Ben Taub that he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and prescribed psychiatric medication, the defense motion says.
More than a year later, Linton was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric ward after a neighbor called her family after seeing Linton running around her apartment complex naked, attorneys said.
Linton’s mental health deteriorated further after he stopped taking his psychiatric medication during the pandemic. Her lawyers said an online therapist told her she was simply suffering from anxiety.
Linton began to act strangely, not sleeping and becoming obsessed with cleanliness. She railed against her family members and accused them of stealing from her, her lawyers said.
“In the days and hours leading up to the events of August 4, Nicole’s behavior became increasingly frightening,” her attorneys wrote.
Linton was in contact with his sister Camille, telling her that co-workers at West Los Angeles Medical Center were “acting strangely,” their attorneys said.
On the day of the accident, Linton drove home from the hospital for lunch and FaceTimed his sister completely naked, according to court documents.
She then went back to work and called her sister again at 1:24 pm and told her that she would be leaving work again, just a few minutes before the accident.
“He told his sister he was flying out to meet her in Houston the next day so he could do his niece’s hair. He also said that he would be married and that her sister should meet her at the altar,” the attorneys wrote. .
While the extent of Linton’s injuries from the crash were not included in the report, Winter mentioned “fractures” and Linton’s attorneys said the traveling nurse uses a wheelchair to get around the jail.
“The medical records are an objective and unbiased account of what happened here,” Linton’s attorney, Jacqueline Sparagna, told the Times.
But Linton’s attorneys argued that Linton’s mental health issues and “seemingly bizarre” actions are no reason to keep her locked up and that Linton should be released for examination at UCLA Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital. They said she would wear an ankle monitor or submit to any other court-imposed conditions.
“Ms. Linton would more appropriately be housed in a mental health treatment facility where she can be monitored and treated for her illness,” attorneys Halim Dhanidina and Jacqueline Sparagna wrote in Monday’s filing.
Otherwise, Linton would have to be released on bail of no more than $300,000, the attorneys said, adding that that was all Linton could afford.
“The safety and well-being of Los Angeles residents are our primary concern,” Dist. Attorney George Gascón told The Times. “Under my policy, pretrial detention may be requested on a case-by-case basis to protect public safety and reasonably ensure the defendant’s return to court.”
The district attorney charges Linton with reckless disregard for life in connection with the multi-vehicle accident. She faces five counts of involuntary manslaughter in addition to the six counts of murder.
“In an instant, Mrs. Linton’s behavior claimed the lives of six people and injured many others”, Gascón said at a press conference days after the accident.
the accident caused deaths 23 years old asherey ryan; she almost 1 year old, Alonso Quintero; his boyfriend, Reynold Lester; and his unborn child. Ryan was eight and a half months pregnant when she was killed. Her friends Nathesia Lewis, 43, and Lynette Noble, 38, were also killed.
“I already cried. I cried. I didn’t sleep a bit. I’m crying,” said Sha’seana Kerr, Ryan’s sister, the day after the accident. “We have to bury four people.”
Linton’s attorneys noted that blood tests showed their client had no narcotics or alcohol in his system, except for the fentanyl he was administered after the accident.
They also disputed prosecutors’ arguments that Linton has a dangerous driving story.
“A thorough search of insurance records in fifty states reveals that Ms. Linton has no such history,” Linton’s attorneys wrote. “In fact, Ms. Linton was found to be at fault in only three prior collisions, the most recent of which occurred in 2014.”
They got support in the letter from a friend of Linton’s family, a former federal prosecutor in Washington DC.
prosecutors said in your presentation that Linton’s history of mental illness included “jumping on police cars to jumping out of apartment windows.” But defense attorneys countered that the prosecutor’s office unfairly pluralized “one-time events.”
And the apartment window Linton jumped out of during a “manic episode” was on the first floor, according to Linton’s sister, who filed a statement along with the defense’s bail argument.
The defense included in its documents character letters from Linton’s family and friends,
Beverly Harrison, Linton’s mother, said her daughter came to the United States from Jamaica when she was 10 years old and grew up without her father. For the past two years, her daughter spent her birthday in Jamaica at her mother’s remote home in the highlands of Jamaica and took care of her.
“She is a godly person who put her trust in him,” Harrison wrote to the court. “She’s a person that if she says or does something she regrets, she comes back to say she’s sorry and asks for your forgiveness. My sweet baby, I love her, but God loves her more.”
One of Linton’s five other siblings, Kimberly, said her sister became a traveling nurse during the pandemic and wanted to start medical school next year to become a doctor.
“Nicole is all about saving lives and always has empathy and sympathy for any lives lost and for the family, no matter how many times one might see that kind of thing in that field,” Kimberly Linton wrote.
His brother, Donovan Dallas, deputy superintendent of police at Saint Andrew North in Jamaica, believes his sister did not intentionally cause the accident. He asked to be left in the care of her family.
This story originally appeared on Los Angeles Times.
