Man says he doesn’t recall fatal chase

Richard A. Atkinson took the witness stand Thursday in his first-degree murder trial and testified without showing emotion that he engaged in a car chase with his estranged wife, ran her off the road and ran over her without intending to kill her – without even remembering much of it.

Atkinson, 33, was temporarily insane when he crushed 29-year-old Andrea Atkinson’s chest with his minivan on April 12 last year, according to one psychologist who testified Thursday. But another psychologist said Atkinson was sane, not temporarily unable to reason because of post traumatic stress disorder in combination with alcohol and methamphetamine.

Testimony in Atkinson’s non-jury trial ended Thursday, and attorneys will give their closing arguments this afternoon. Then Superior Court Judge Robert Austin will decide whether Atkinson is guilty of first-degree murder, and, if so, whether above-standard punishment is possible on grounds that the crime was aggravated because it was an act of domestic violence in the presence of the victim’s children, who are now 4, 6 and almost 9 years old.

Austin also must decide whether Atkinson is guilty of three counts of second-degree assault for ramming their mother’s minivan, in which they were passengers. And Austin must decide whether Atkinson is guilty of reckless endangerment of his daughter from a previous relationship, Winona Atkinson, now 10, who was a passenger in her father’s minivan.

Testimony indicated the girl told police at the time of Andrea Atkinson’s death that her father stalked the victim and had asked his daughter whether she could forgive him if he killed her stepmother. But the girl offered a different account Wednesday that was more favorable to her father and at odds with the testimony of other eyewitnesses.

Richard Atkinson testified Thursday that it was his daughter, Winona, who brought up the subject of killing Andrea Atkinson.

He said the girl, while looking at a family portrait, said, “I’m so mad I could just kill her.” To discourage her from speaking that way, he said he asked how she would feel if he said something like that.

Atkinson said he was traumatized by a father who frequently beat him and his mother while he was growing up in Fresno, Calif., and Los Angeles. He said he suffers nightmares and “flashbacks” from his childhood, including an incident when his father held a knife to his throat.

“I don’t remember any moment that there wasn’t tension in the house of some sort,” he said.

Atkinson said his children – including the three who were with their mother in the van he chased – were “the most important thing” to him. Fear of losing contact with them was his only serious objection to his wife’s pending divorce petition, he said.

“My children define me,” Atkinson testified. “They were my purpose. They made anything I did have worth.”

Deputy Prosecutor Jack Driscoll asked why, then, he would endanger them in a car chase.

“I guess it wasn’t the right thing to do, but I did it,” Atkinson replied.

He said he drank 16 beers and took four “lines” of methamphetamine in the hours before the fatal chase.

Atkinson said he doesn’t know why he initiated the car chase and doesn’t remember running over his wife in a stranger’s front yard when she fled her disabled van. But he did remember getting out and trying to pull her out from under his van and trying to back the van off of her legs. Then, he said, his memory faded out again.