Toby Stangel said he "did a bunch of drugs — cocaine, heroin, Xanax, weed and beer" — in addition to his prescribed dose of methadone for chronic pain, because he wanted to get high, according to the reports of two mental health experts ordered by a state judge to examine him.
That’s the day he allegedly went on a 17-minute shooting spree, killing one Oahu motorist, injuring two others and firing at four other people, including two Honolulu police officers.
Based on the reports of the two experts and a third, state Circuit Judge Richard Perkins on Monday declared Stangel, 29, mentally fit to stand trial for murder, attempted murder, firearm and drug charges. Perkins scheduled trial for June.
Psychological consultant Olaf K. Gitter and psychiatric consultant Dr. Sharon M. Tisza said in their reports that Stangel is fit to stand trial for the crimes he is charged with and that he was not suffering from a mental illness at the time he is accused of committing the crimes.
The report of the third mental health expert is not available.
Stangel told his examiners he has a long history of drug use and abuse. He said he was prescribed Vicodin for pain relief from a dirt bike accident when he was 14 years old. At 16, he said, he began smoking cigarettes and marijuana and drinking alcohol.
Police said Stangel’s crime spree started just after midnight June 3, when he stepped out of his car at the intersection of Kapahulu and Harding avenues and fired a shot at a motorist waiting for the light to change. He missed.
He then walked up to 54-year-old Tammy Nguyen, sitting behind the wheel of her van, and fatally shot her in the head. Nguyen’s 16-year-old daughter, who was sitting in the passenger seat, was not injured.
Stangel then drove west on H-1 freeway, where he shot and injured a 24-year-woman driving a pickup truck between the Houghtailing and Likelike exits, and shot and injured a 38-year-old man who slowed his sport utility vehicle to see what was going on, police said.
Police said Stangel then fired at two officers conducting a traffic stop on Moanalua Freeway near the Aiea offramp. The officers later found Stangel in his car stopped on the H-1 near the Kaamilo Street overpass.
