A deranged maniac who bludgeoned four homeless men to death during a grisly 2019 killing spree in Chinatown was found guilty of murder and other charges Thursday.
The jury needed just four hours to reach a verdict to convict madman Randy Santos, 31, who claimed he heard voices urging him to “kill 40 people” to “save his own life” before the pre-dawn attack on Oct. 5, 2019.
Santos bashed the vagrants’ skulls with a metal bar after he went stopped taking schizophrenia medication and went off the rails, his lawyer, Legal Aid attorney Marnie Zien, said during his trial.
“It was real to Randy,” she said of the voices in her client’s head. “He needed the voices to stop, he needed to save his life and didn’t see another way out because of the schizophrenia.”
But prosecutors maintained he knew what he was doing.
“In the defendant’s own words, he knew what he was doing was, quote, not a good action,” Assistant District Attorney Alfred Peterson said during closing arguments this week.
“He says he’s afraid of a hero,” Peterson said. “People in the community that are going to come and stop him. He recognizes, and this is a key point He knows that what he is doing is against the commonly held beliefs of the community.
“These two statements give powerful insight into what the defendant knew about what he did.”
Peterson was referring to a videotaped interview Santos had with a psychiatrist after his arrest.
“Did you know it was wrong to kill?” the psychiatrist asked.
“Of course. I know what I’m doing, because I don’t want to be killed,” Santos told the psychiatrist.
“Who is going to kill you?” the doctor asked.
“A hero,” Santos answers during the taped interview.
Santos, who has been in and out of psych wards since his arrest, argued at the trial that he did carry out the gruesome murders, but was not responsible due to a “disoriented, diseased mind.”
He showed no emotion as the verdict was read.
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Santos carried out the vicious murders in less than 30 minutes, District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement.
“They were strangers to him, and simply happened to be sleeping on Chinatown sidewalks that horrific night,” Bragg said. “Two additional victims were injured in Santos’s brutal attacks.
“Now, he has been held accountable for his crimes.”
Defense attorney Lou Freeman said he was happy the jury acquitted his client on a lesser obstruction charge and said he planned to appeal the verdict.
Santos faces life in prison when he is sentenced on April 16.
