Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Dad Outraged by No Prison Time in Son's 'Cannabis-Induced Psychosis' Stabbing Death

Episode Date: February 9, 2024

Chad O'Melia died in 2018 after Bryn Spejcher stabbed him 108 times at his condo in Sherman Oaks, California. Spejcher, who'd been dating O'Melia for a short time, also stabbed herself. Experts said Spejcher suffered from "Cannabis-Induced Psychosis" when she killed O'Melia. Last month, a judge sentenced Spejcher to two years probation and community service despite the prosecutor asking for a prison sentence. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy talks with O'Melia's father, Sean O'Melia, about the sentence and his son in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show that delves into the biggest stories in crime.HOST:Angenette Levy: twitter.com/Angenette5GUEST:Sean O'MeliaCRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoAudio Editing - Brad MaybeGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@LawandCrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this law and crimes series ad free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It should never have happened. She should have never have been allowed to walk free. She should have done some time. Bryn Spetcher stabbed a man she'd been dating more than 100 times, killing him. She claimed she was suffering from cannabis-induced psychosis. The man she killed was Chad Amelia. His dad is here to tell us more about him and what he thought of Spetcher's trial. I'm Anjanette Levy, and this is Crime Fix.

You've probably seen Brynn Spetcher's photo on the internet, maybe on the news next to a headline about her stabbing her boyfriend 108 times because of cannabis-induced psychosis. At first glance, it sounds like kind of a crazy defense, but the judge presiding over the case believed it was real and apparently so did prosecutors. The charge in the case was reduced from murder to involuntary manslaughter, which is a non-intentional killing. Spetcher had been dating Chad Amelia for just a short time back in 2018 when she claimed she and Amelia smoked pot from a bong at his condo in Sherman Oaks, California. At some point, Spetcher claimed she began to hallucinate and then things went black and she stabbed Chad Amelia with a kitchen knife

more than a hundred times. She also stabbed herself in the neck when paramedics and police arrived, as you can see in this booking photo. Spetcher claimed at trial that she felt pressure to smoke pot by Amelia, a claim prosecutors challenged vigorously at trial. In the end, the jury found her guilty of involuntary manslaughter and prosecutors wanted the toughest, most severe penalty available. So you'd think she might get some jail time, maybe even prison time. But no, the judge, David Worley, sentenced her to two years probation and community service. And that is not sitting well with Chad Amelia's family. Sean Amelia is Chad Amelia's father,

and he is joining me to talk about his son. Sean, first of all, we're so sorry about the loss of your son. How are you doing in light of everything that's happened and the fact that Bryn Spetcher didn't get any prison time for this? It's very difficult for our family to kind of understand how somebody could take another human being's life. And the system just broke down to the point where that individual is really not suffering any consequence for their action. It's difficult. I don't sleep well. That started about five and a half years ago

when I first got the news that Chad's life had been taken. This morning, I was up at three o'clock in the morning. I don't usually sleep past 3 a.m., 2.30 in the morning. But, you know, I'm blessed. I have a lot of really good family around me. I have a lot of good friends, and I have my faith. So I'm leaning on all of that right now. It's very, very difficult to see the pain that Chad's younger brother has gone through. I saw a picture of him in a newspaper the other day, and that picture really expressed just about everything that we're

dealing with. You could see the pain on his face. And, you loved his brother i loved my son um and shane has also lost his mother so this is this has just been um a horrible six years for us and there should be no reason why this took six years to get to where it is. I know that you spent five weeks in a courtroom, plus more than five years waiting for some type of resolution to this case. I mean, this is unfortunately what our society can offer, this awful journey through the court process that is so hard on families who've lost loved ones. I know that you were disappointed. That's putting it lightly by what happened. The fact that she was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and then

got no prison time. I know that the prosecutor was disappointed as well. You know, that had to be just, I can't imagine as a parent sitting in a courtroom and hearing that from a judge yeah it was at some in some points it was kind of surreal to listen to um his explanation to me it was it was absolving her of any culpability and responsibility for what had occurred. And, you know, there are people right now serving prison time that have done much less. So for us as a family, it didn't really make any sense other than, you know, the judge had showed some bias early on in the case. And I called him out on it. I called him out in the sentencing hearing. because he started making excuses for her for her actions and started um almost saying well you know

the loss of her medical license is a very difficult thing for her to have to deal with and i i was confused about how he was relating that to the loss of a human life it didn't make sense to me by the way the judge name judge's name is is David Worley. And I think my understanding is he's getting ready to retire. So I think that's had an impact on some of the decisions that he has made. He doesn't have to run for reelection. It's my understanding that the prosecution's experts agreed with this diagnosis of cannabis-induced psychosis from which she was suffering. Is that right? Or, you know, correct me please if I'm wrong. I think generally speaking, that would be correct. I think each one of them individually

brought some other things to the table that the other didn't cover. So it was good to have the three of them there and the three of them take a look at the video and hear her statement. Dr. Wershing, I believe, was a defense witness, and he brought in his report two things that I thought were extremely important. One was that there had been some, well, there is a history of, um, you know, mental illness on the mother's side. Her sister, I, I, my understanding from understanding from their own words, has been institutionalized most of her life. And the other thing that came out of Dr. Worsheim's report, and I think he wrote this for the benefit of Bryn's feature, he said that, you know, she should never, ever be around anything like this again.

And he kind of, this very intelligent man tried to, you know, convey in his own words to us so we could understand it. But he was saying that once this type of action or reaction has been tripped in a person's mind, it's much easier for it to be re-tripped. I'm not a psychiatrist, so I'm only repeating what the man said. It makes sense, though. Yeah, it does. It does. Was the prosecutor on the case surprised by the fact that the judge judge worley did not give her any jail time prison time what have you oh i would say i would say not only was the prosecution surprised they were extremely disappointed um i i would i would say this i would i'm going to step out here a little

bit but i would say that just about everybody in that ventura ventura county um justice system was surprised and disappointed in what he did i i would say that know, you have a prosecutor that's asking for the maximum penalty. You have a probation officer that in their report recommended prison time. And, you know, you had a jury that convicted her, a unanimous conviction, which represents the people of that community in less than four hours. And the judge went completely against all three of those entities and just said, you're free to go. Sean, I want you to tell me about Chad. I mean, because every headline we see, we see, you know, cannabis induced psychosis. We see the headline about the horrific thing that happened to your son. And we don't really hear about Chad.

We see Bryn Spetcher's photo or we see the headline. Tell me about your son, what you want people to know about him. Well, I think he was the type of person, first thing I would say is he's the type of person that if somebody was bullying somebody else, he'd be the first guy to step up and say, that's got to stop. He did not like injustice. I don't like it either. I don't like somebody picking on somebody that's less capable of defending themselves than somebody else um he loved sports i mean he was a sports fanatic baseball football um motocross you know a lot of

these he participated in a lot of these as well he He wasn't just a spectator. He played football from the time he was eight until the end of his high school years. And, you know, he loved that. But I think what he loved about that is the friendships that he made and the bond that he had with his teammates. And he had some amazing coaches, he really did. You know, he was smart. He had to work hard for, you know, his grades, but he wasn't afraid to ask questions, especially of people that had experience.

When I was young, I grew up with a gentleman. He was a friend of mine for years, and he was in the finance industry, and Chad and him got along very well. Chad spent quite a bit of time with him learning about finance and i think that's what where he kind of found his interest um in accounting and you know i also gave him some books when he was young and we very young probably about nine years old i gave him that book uh rich dad poor dad theflow quadrant. I had him reading those things. So he, and I explained to him, you know, uh, the market, how it worked. Um, and I, I think he, he was really interested in that. I can tell you, we had, we had, uh, I shouldn't say we, the Shane and some of his friends had a vigil for Chad and there was quite a few people there.

A lot of these young people, I knew a lot of them, I didn't know. And they, it was really amazing to see the support these young people were giving to Chad's brother. And I just remember a few people, you know, people would speak. I remember this one, um one um person a young lady stepped forward to speak and she what she said about chad is she knew that when she was somewhere like at a party or wherever for the school or whatever their group was if chad was there she knew she was safe and i didn't know who she was i still to this day don't really know who she was but um that was pretty amazing to hear

about your son i had a lot of parents um that came up to me at the funeral service, you know, you know, one thing that's very big in our family is respect. You have to absolutely respect elders, ladies, and they brought that to me that day. That was an incredible day that an overwhelming amount of support and love for Chad. I think the church, Blessing Catery, holds about 1,300 people. And when I got up to make my remarks, it was a very difficult day for me. But when I got up to make my remarks, the church was full. And the back doors were open and people were still standing outside. And, you know, you can ask other people that you may interview if that's indeed a fact, and they will say it is indeed a fact. And I was grateful for all the support that I got from my

colleagues at UCLA. They came and I really am grateful for for them but Chad was just a caring loving person that you know if if you needed somebody to talk to he would take the time to talk to you he'd listen about you what's going on in your life and he would help you in any way that he could yeah he's he's missed by a lot of people and people and I really loved him and really miss my son. I really do. Has Bryn Spetcher ever reached out to you and apologized or offered anything? No, she did say something in her final remarks, um, that, you know, was something

about, she can't understand the pain that we're going through and how horrible the pain must be, but she never said that she's sorry for what happened. You know, her father was up there and giving his remarks. And I respect the man for doing this. I do. He looked at me and I looked in his eye and I could tell that that man, I would just say, he has been through hell. And I found no joy in that, but he apologized to me for the loss of my son. And if he ever hears this, I want him to know that I respect him for that. Unfortunately, immediately after, you know, he did that and he showed some class um his attorneys immediately got up and started talking

to the judge and started the victim victim blaming defense all over again in his closing statement it was it was those two attorneys they they've they've misrepresented the facts to the media in their travels. And I would just make the point, you know, they know the evidence. They saw the evidence. And you've got Michael Goldstein, who's saying that this was a high-strength marijuana, high-potency marijuana. There is absolutely zero evidence of that fact. There is evidence to the fact of the contrary. Okay? The lab tested the marijuana. Michael Goldstein was not there on 5-28-2018.

Okay? He does not know what went in that bong. The lab does. And the container that was there had no warning on the label. He saw that as well. Look, if you take Chad Amelia out of this equation, And the container that was there had no warning on the label. He saw that as well. Look, if you take Chad Amelia out of this equation, what happened here is another human being,

human being, any human being you could look at, they were stabbed 108 times. That's how his life was taken. That is no way for a human being to die. And I can't even imagine the amount of pain that he was in because he was still alive for a while while she was still stabbing him. And he must have been thinking, why is she doing this to me? I mean, that's all that could have been going through his head. I'm sorry, but I just, you know, I think that at this point, I've never received an apology from her. I don't think she's capable of giving an apology. I'm really not interested in sitting down with somebody that's not willing to take responsibility for their own actions. I'm not.

She killed my son. I'm tired of these attorneys, you know, going to the media and saying that, well, she didn't know what she was getting into. She knew what she was getting into. She knew she knew she was smoking marijuana. Did she know it was going to have that reaction? Probably not. But neither did Chad. So that doesn't make it Chad's fault. Sean Omelia feels like the system failed his son, at least in part, by the sentence that Judge Worley gave to Brynn Specher. The DA, they did their job.

They're, when you look at, when you look at what is it, what is up against the prosecution, it's like there's almost two sets of rules for the prosecution and the defense. The prosecution has to show everything that they have. If they come up with something, they got to share it. The defense has a much easier road here. The jury, they did their job as well. I mean, those people spent just about four weeks of their lives. They gave four weeks of their lives to hear this evidence, listen to all the victim blaming, the attacks on the witnesses by the defense counsel, the attack on the evidence by the defense counsel, which none of it changed

after they attacked these people on the stand. And they did their job. They found her guilty. They stuck to the facts and so did the DA's office. The parole officer, at the parole department, probation department, they did their job as well. They recommended felony jail time. So we get to this day and one man, David Worley, has this whole thing sitting in his hands. We go through an exercise of giving victim impact statements only to discover that he has made up his mind before we even got there that day. And he starts reading off a piece of paper and he lets her go free. It was disgusting. It is evidence of how broken our criminal justice system is and it's not broken because criminals are being held accountable for things that they're not doing it's broken because the innocent taxpayers are not being defended they are not being they're not getting what they're paying

for out of their tax dollar or protection against this type of thing it should never have happened she should have never have been allowed to walk free she should have done some time she should have been treated just equally just like any other individual that has taken another human being's life whether that was murder or manslaughter it doesn't matter there are a lot of people in prison right now for manslaughter and uh they probably did a lot less than what she did. Thank you. Sean, Amelia, again, we're so sorry for your loss. And thank you so much for joining us to talk with us about your son. We really appreciate it. Okay. Thank you guys very much. And that's it for this edition of Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with us.

We'll see you back here on Monday. Until then, have a great night. You can download Crime Fix on Apple, Spotify, Google, and wherever else you get your favorite podcasts and new episodes post each weeknight at 6 Eastern time on Law & Crime's YouTube channel. Daniel Camacho does our video editing. Our head of social media is Bobby Zoki.

Our senior director of social media is Vanessa Vine. Savannah Williamson is one of our producers. Diane Kay and Alyssa Fisher book our guests. And Brad Mabey is our audio editor.