Denise Gragg

Defense attorneys concede that postal worker Mark Hilbun is responsible for a crime spree that left two people dead and terrorized Orange County. But they contend that he was mentally incompetent at the time and plan to put Hilbun's sanity on trial when the case goes before a jury in early 1995. "At the time the acts took place--and long before--Mark Hilbun was a mentally disturbed individual," said Deputy Public Defender Denise Gragg. "The evidence points to it."

A father and daughter each shed tears in a courtroom Wednesday, he as he sat accused of killing two women and she as she testified against him. Douglas Stanley, 58, blotted his eyes with tissue as his 23-year-old daughter, Lisa, told jurors her father told her he had compiled a list of people he wanted to kill, including her and the two women her father allegedly gunned down in July, 1993.

A former letter carrier accused of killing his mother and a former co-worker during a two-day rampage last year faces a possible death sentence, his attorney said Thursday. Orange County prosecutors decided to seek the death penalty for Mark Richard Hilbun, 40, despite defense concerns about Hilbun's history of mental problems, including depression and manic-depressive behavior, said Deputy Public Defender Denise Gragg. Gragg said the defense will focus on Hilbun's mental state.

A 22-year-old San Clemente man pleaded not guilty Tuesday at his arraignment on charges of assaulting a man during what authorities claim was a gay bashing. Christopher Michael Cribbins was charged with assault with a deadly weapon and committing a hate crime in the Jan. 9 beating of Loc Minh Truong, 55, of Costa Mesa. Truong was beaten and left on a rocky stretch of Laguna Beach near three gay bars. If convicted, Cribbins faces a maximum sentence of seven years in prison. Deputy Dist. Atty.

The murder trial of John J. Famalaro, which already has been postponed for more than two years, could be delayed again because of a lengthy battle being waged by defense attorneys to suppress evidence collected in the high-profile case. Famalaro is accused of killing a Newport Beach woman and storing her body in a freezer for years. Jury selection in the case is scheduled to begin on Feb. 10 before Superior Court Judge John J. Ryan, who has ordered more than 900 potential jurors.

A judge ruled Thursday that one of four teen-agers to be tried in the killing of a Foothill High School honor student poses no serious flight risk and set bail for him at $750,000. Kirn Young Kim, 16, will have no problem posting property worth at least twice the amount of his bail by next week, his attorney, Allan Stokke, said after the ruling by Orange County Superior Court Judge Kathleen O'Leary.

Attorneys will ask a judge to separate the trials of four teen-agers accused in the brutal New Year's Eve slaying of honor student Stuart A. Tay because the youths' statements to police implicate one another. Marshall Schulman, the lawyer representing Robert Chien-Nan Chan, 18, filed a sealed motion July 30 to sever the trials.

Setting the stage for a possible death sentence, an Orange County jury on Monday concluded that Steven Allen Abrams was sane when he drove his car through a Costa Mesa playground in 1999, killing two toddlers and injuring five others. The question of Abrams' sanity was the most contentious aspect of the trial, because his attorneys conceded early on that their client intentionally drove his car through the crowded playground.

An Orange County judge on Monday ordered the release of search warrants and other documents believed to outline the evidence against a Lake Elsinore man accused of kidnapping, sexually assaulting and murdering 5-year-old Samantha Runnion. But Judge William R. Froeberg said that some of the material -- including the position in which Samantha's body was discovered, the accused killer's statements to police, and names and addresses of witnesses -- is too incendiary to be made public.

A hit man who pleaded guilty to killing a married couple in a love triangle gone awry was sentenced Friday to life in prison without the possibility of parole. But former Anaheim handyman Dennis Earl Godley, 34, also said -- through his lawyer -- publicly for the first time that he gunned down only one of the victims. The slayings stemmed from a murder-for-hire plot devised by Huntington Beach anesthesiologist Kenneth Stahl and his longtime mistress, medical secretary Adriana Vasco.