Jury In Loukaitis Case Begins Deliberations Closing Arguments Focus On Whether Insanity Defense Was Demonstrated

Jurors began deliberating Thursday in the trial of Barry Loukaitis, who is pleading innocent by reason of insanity in a 1996 deer-rifle attack that left three people dead at a Moses Lake junior high.

In closing arguments, defense lawyer Mike Frost said Loukaitis’ insanity had been proven “by every standard of evidence.”

But the bottom line is common sense, he said.

“You really don’t need mental-health professionals to tell you … that what happened on Feb. 2, 1996, was insane,” Frost said.

Why else would a 14-year-old boy, an honor student with no history of violent behavior, commit such a crime, he asked.

Grant County Prosecutor John Knodell vehemently disagreed.

Loukaitis is an “angry, hateful person” who was infatuated with the idea of killing and “the notoriety that comes with being a killer,” Knodell said.

The boy suffers from mental illness, but he was not insane when he carefully planned and executed his attack at Frontier Junior High, the prosecutor said.

Loukaitis killed three people - Manuel Vela and Arnold Fritz, both 14, and teacher Leona Caires. Student Natalie Hintz, then 13, survived but still has not recovered fully from her wounds.

Loukaitis, now 16, is being tried as an adult on three counts of aggravated first-degree murder, one count each of attempted murder and second-degree assault, and 16 counts of kidnapping. He could face life imprisonment if convicted.

The case went to the jury at midday, after both sides presented their summations.

The defense contends Loukaitis was operating under a delusion - a fixed, wrong belief - that Vela embodied everything evil, that he was involved in gang activity.

Vela was “everything the defendant was not,” Knodell said, describing the slain boy as gregarious and popular.

Loukaitis has not disclosed his intentions toward the others, but given that he took three guns, more than 70 rounds of ammunition and earplugs to the classroom, the prosecutor argued that Loukaitis did not intend to stop at one victim.

“He had bigger plans. … He didn’t need all this equipment to kill Manuel Vela,” Knodell said.

The prosecutor also commented on Loukaitis’ all-black cowboy outfit.

Recalling the term “dressed for success,” he said: “That’s what the defendant was doing - dressing to accomplish his purpose.” The black cowboy duster Loukaitis wore concealed the .30-30 rifle he used against his classmates, Knodell said.

And the outfit projected “the image he wanted to project … to inspire fear and terror in his victims,” the prosecutor said.

Frost said the costume illustrates the depth of Loukaitis’ delusion.

“This wasn’t something designed to hide the situation. He stuck out like a sore thumb,” the defense lawyer said.

There was no point in “dressing up like Clint Eastwood” unless it’s “part of a delusional system,” Frost said.

“This is not dressing for success,” he said. “This is sick. And this shows the level of his sickness.”

Frost said some of the best evidence for the boy’s deteriorating mental state came from prosecution witnesses. Several of the 16 students who survived the shooting said they had noticed Loukaitis becoming more withdrawn and hostile in the months before the attack.

“There were clear signs that could have been noticed and probably should have,” he said.

Prosecutors don’t deny the teen was a suffering from depressive illness at the time of the shootings - but that does not meet the legal standard for insanity, Knodell said.

Neither do emotions such as anger, jealousy and rage - nor even a finding that Loukaitis was delusional and psychotic, as psychiatrists testifying for the defense contend.

And “it’s not enough to find that he didn’t have a good reason,” Knodell said.

The legal standard calls for a mental disease or defect that prevented the defendant from perceiving the nature and quality of his acts, or from knowing right from wrong.

“It’s his actions that speak to … his awareness that what he did was wrong,” Knodell told jurors.

About 70 pages of instructions were given Wednesday to jurors. In addition to aggravated first-degree murder, they may also consider first- or second-degree murder in the three deaths.

Knodell noted in closing that the panel need only find premeditation in one of the three killings to reach a verdict of aggravated first-degree murder. The multiple deaths provide an aggravating circumstance under the law.

Deliberations will be limited to regular courtroom hours. If jurors have not reached a verdict by this afternoon, they will not meet again until Monday.

The case is being heard here due to concerns about pretrial publicity in Grant County.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: INSANITY DEFENSE The legal standard calls for a mental disease or defect that prevented the defendant from perceiving the nature and quality of his acts, or from knowing right from wrong.