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Judge orders release of man who killed 2 people in Santa Margarita

August 29, 2021

Andrew Downs

By KAREN VELIE

A San Luis Obispo County Superior Court judge on Tuesday ordered the supervised release of a schizophrenic man who was found legally insane when he shot and killed two sisters in Santa Margarita.

On Christmas night 2010, then 20-year-old Andrew Downs shot and killed sisters Kathy Yeager and Beverly Reilly at a ranch in Santa Margarita. During a ten hour period, he also stole three vehicles, entered a second home in Santa Margarita and beat a man with a crescent wrench.

During his arrest, Downs told officers he needed to go to a mental hospital to get his medicine, which he had run out of three days earlier. Doctors testified in 2012 that at the time of the murders Downs believed there was a government takeover in progress that involved the police and aliens.

Because of the 2012 insanity ruling, Downs was sent to a state mental health facility for an indeterminate amount of time.

On Aug. 24, Superior Court Judge Jesse Marino ordered the release of Downs from Sylmar Health and Rehabilitation Center, a long-term psychiatric facility, to a supervised outpatient program. Downs is headed to a board and care facility where he will be supervised by Department of State Hospitals staff.


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Don’t worry, thanks to our politicians’ inability to pass any effective gun laws, this fine upstanding citizen will have plenty of opportunities to rearm himself while avoiding background checks and waiting periods (you know, those pesky things that apparently exist only to inconvenience law-abiding citizens) Let’s hope that this time he decides to be that mythical “good guy with a gun” and not the reverse.


-19

opportunities to rearm himself while avoiding background checks and waiting periods


There is no way to avoid a background check and 10-day waiting period in California.


Your ‘hot take’ could be valid in many other states, but not CA or NY.


4

Key words in your statement: “in California“. The last I checked, there were no mandatory vehicle inspection checkpoints for firearms along California’s border with Arizona (which has no law requiring a background check on the purchaser of a firearm when the seller is not a licensed dealer.)


In any case, one of the many pithy NRA talking points says:

Criminals, by definition, do not obey the law. Gun control laws only affect law-abiding people who go through legal avenues to obtain firearms. Criminals overwhelmingly obtain their firearms through illegal channels and will never be deterred by state and federal laws. That’s why background checks have virtually no impact on criminals.


Also, per the prior article about this individual, he was a diagnosed schizophrenic with a well-documented history of mental illness for years prior to his committing murder, yet somehow he was able to obtain or hold on to a firearm and use it to kill people. Do you really believe he won’t be able to do it again?


1

Your comment literally has no merit,


California has the nation’s strictest gun laws. Here are the other strictest and loosest states. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/12/04/california-has-the-nations-strictest-gun-laws-here-are-the-other-strictest-and-loosest-states/


7

Number 3 on your “loosest list” is Arizona which shares a border with California. That proximity bears “no merit” to a recently freed murderer one state away?


-3

He was insane when he killed? As I’ve always said – think about that statement. Doh!


7

Provide him with a high paying job in Afghanistan, he certainly will be in line with the other Americans waiting for their air lift home.


0

I fear there are many more individuals sadly with similar issues wandering around. Was at the grocery store yesterday and a young man was struggling with reality. He came right up to my car, was talking and yelling (raging is more like it) at no one in particular and from my perspective posed a danger to not only himself walking aimlessly among the traffic but to others as well. He doesn’t belong on the streets…he belongs in a hospital. I felt bad in a way for him but also for the kids and people. Its a mess… Our completely out of touch legislators should have a mandatory over night field trip to the Salinas river bed


38

Off of his medication for just three days huh? How does that medication interact with marijuana and other street level drugs? I’m not sure his release will benefit the community.


48

I feel so much better knowing he’ll be supervised by state employees.

Sleep well!


62

One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest 1975 Best scene


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBHN7aJGogY


-3

Your sarcastic remark is very demeaning to the scores of State Employees who tirelessly work with the mentally ill. I work side by side everyday with competent, compassionate, professionals who work tirelessly in a difficult and dangerous environment in order to treatment individuals who have severe mental illnesses that you and all 63 of you who liked his comment should thank God everyday that you do not have. We make our community safer for you and your family. Please think twice before you make flippant, insulting, judgemental remarks regarding people and patients you know nothing about.


-2

Well, he did promise he wouldn’t do it again…


48

So if he kills again…the judge should serve his time…imo….common sense isn’t so common anymore…especially in our so called justice system….


40

Seriously? He’s “fixed” now? Hmmm. Perhaps some of the others who think there is a “government takeover” should be taking him in. There have been quite a few of them coming out of the woodwork since the pandemic started…..


-32

May I suggest you take him in.


36

Huh…?


Quite a leap there.


8

This guy and the “Q Shaman” are definitely operating on a similar frequency.


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