The mental health of Concord resident John Lee Cowell was the main issue when attorneys presented their opening statements Wednesday in his trial on special circumstances murder charges for the fatal stabbing of 18-year-old Nia Wilson at an Oakland BART station in 2018.
Alameda County prosecutor Butch Ford admitted that Cowell, a 29-year-old man, has been diagnosed with schizophrenia but told jurors, “This was not a factor in the murder of Nia Wilson.”
Ford said Cowell followed Wilson and her two sisters when they got on a San Francisco-bound station in Concord the night of July 22, 2018, and stabbed Nia and her sister Letifah Wilson when they got off the train at the MacArthur station at about 9:35 p.m. that night.
Ford alleged that Cowell’s attack on Nia, who was killed, and Letifah, who was injured, was premeditated and deliberated.
However, Ford didn’t say what Cowell’s motive was and why he thinks the stabbing was premeditated.
But defense attorney Christina Moore said Cowell “had no motive to kill other than he suffers from psychosis and delusion.”
Moore said the fatal stabbing of Nia Wilson was tragic but said it occurred because Cowell “is genuinely, severely and tragically impaired.”
Moore told jurors, “This is not a case of whodunit or who did it.
This was a killing that was sadly predictable because of his severe mental illness.”
Moore said, “This wasn’t planned, it wasn’t deliberate, it was an act of rash impulse.”
Cowell is charged with murder for Nia Wilson’s death and premeditated attempted murder for allegedly stabbing Letifah Wilson.
He also is charged with a special circumstance allegation that he killed Wilson while lying in wait, a charge that would result in him being sentenced to life in prison without parole if he’s convicted.
Prosecutors aren’t seeking the death penalty.
The reason doesn’t matter to me. What he did is horrific and there is a price to be paid. No excuses.
Meth is a mind-altering substance
People should understand that the mental health plea won’t prevent this guy from being incarcerated. After Daniel DeWitt killed Peter Cukor in Berkeley, he was put into a mental health facility, where he shall remain.
Similarly with the John Lee Cowell case, the mental health argument isn’t about avoiding punishment. It’s a plea that the best place for him to serve his sentence is in a secure mental health facility.
It is so easy and ignorant to be arm-chair judges/jury.
It is a given that opiate-type drugs is dangerous but I have encounter such individuals but unless they get triggered by a comment or “look” (which blacks tend to have an unusually high reactive sensitivity!), these dull minded individual cannot respond. Did anyone bother to investigate what the two sisters may have done prior to Mr. Cowell’s attack??
Well, he wasn’t acting in self defense. It doesn’t matter what they said or did when his reaction is to commit murder.
I disagree. It does matter what they may have said to him. One has to think before making any kind of comment to a stranger these days, particularly with so many of the mentally ill moving among us without treatment and medication. It’s better to bite your to tongue than make a careless retort to someone who might, in their deranged state of mind, find it cause to harm you.
This is real easy. He changed his cloths. He misdirected the police. He is a plain old psychopath and the sooner they put him away the better. His mental state for being tried should not even be in question.