DENNIS ODA / doda@staradvertiser.com
Claudia Warner-Gonzales, left, appeared in court Monday with her attorney Sam King Jr. Gonzales was declared not guilty of killing her mother by reason of insanity.
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A state judge declared a 62-year-old woman with a long history of mental illness not guilty by reason of insanity Monday in the fatal stabbing last year of her 88-year-old mother.
However, Claudia Warner-Gonzalez will remain in custody at the Hawaii State Hospital for at least three more months until the judge determines whether she is a danger to herself or others. A hearing is scheduled for September.
Circuit Judge Richard Perkins handed down the verdict after presiding over a brief nonjury trial.
Warner-Gonzalez’s brother Sam Warner testified he heard his mother scream for help March 22 last year in the family’s Nuuanu home and found his sister standing over her. He said his mother, Dorothy Y.K. Stribling, had a kitchen knife lodged in her shoulder and had stab wounds to her chest. She bled to death.
Warner said his sister told him, "I don’t know why I did it, Sam. I don’t know why I did it."
Warner-Gonzalez’s husband of 34 years, Franklin Gonzalez, testified last week that his wife has been suffering from mental illness since 1990. He said he dropped off his wife at his in-laws before going to work because she had been acting strangely earlier in the morning.
Gonzalez said his wife’s doctor instructed him to quadruple the dosage of her medication. She was to start taking the higher dosage at 9 a.m.
Warner-Gonzalez stabbed her mother around 8:30 a.m.
A paramedic testified Monday that when she arrived at the home, Warner-Gonzalez opened the front door and told the paramedic she had stabbed her mother.
Warner-Gonzalez’s lawyer, Sam King Jr., said the staff at the State Hospital has been able to control his client’s mental illness with medication, but whether Warner-Gonzalez can keep her condition under control on her own outside the hospital is something the judge will need to consider.
