Abrams’ fate in hands of jurors

Deepa Bharath

SANTA ANA -- Jurors could decide today if Steven Allen Abrams deserves

to die for killing two children on a crowded Costa Mesa preschool

playground in 1999.

Prosecution and defense attorneys presented their closing arguments

Tuesday in the final phase of Abrams’ trial, which will determine the

severity of his punishment.

On Aug. 24, members of the jury found Abrams guilty of two counts of

murder and five counts of attempted murder. Last week, they found him to

be legally sane when he drove his Cadillac into the playground at the

Southcoast Early Childhood Learning Center, killing 4-year-old Sierra

Soto and 3-year-old Brandon Wiener on May 3, 1999.

Today, the same jury will begin deliberations to decide if Abrams

should receive the death penalty or spend the rest of his life in prison

without the possibility of parole.

During her closing argument, Deputy Dist. Atty. Debora Lloyd said

Abrams had committed the “ultimate crime by murdering innocent children”

and therefore deserves “the ultimate punishment.”

She pointed out that Abrams had a family that supported him --

brothers, sisters and a daughter.

“He was blessed with all those experiences that he denied the Sotos

and Wieners,” she said. “He had all those opportunities to lead a good

life, but he chose not to.”

Public Defender Leonard Gumlia argued that Abrams is mentally ill,

whether it is caused by drug abuse or paranoid schizophrenia. He

maintained that the crimes were caused by Abrams’ psychotic world of

delusion, where he was the protagonist battling against “brain wave

people” who, he believed, were trying to manipulate and vilify him.

The victims’ and Abrams’ families were present for the closing

arguments Tuesday.

Abrams showed no emotion, but his sister, Janice Abrams, cried as

Lloyd argued. Cindy Soto and Pamela Wiener, the mothers of Sierra and

Brandon, wept uncontrollably as Lloyd described the lost lives of their

children.

Gumlia said Abrams’ motive was not direct revenge.

“His motive was not to cause pain to the Sotos and Wieners,” he said.

Abrams’ goal was to expose the conspiracy of the brain wave people by

“killing the innocent.”

Gumlia appealed to the jury to carefully consider Abrams’ mental

illness before sentencing him to death.

“Are you confident enough that his psychosis was caused only by drug

use?” he asked.

Gumlia argued that even the psychiatrists who were brought to the

stand could not tell if there was a “schizophrenic brain or a [drug]

brain” in Abrams’ head.