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A nurse charged with killing six people in Los Angeles after erratically driving 130 miles per hour and slamming into pedestrians has had psychotic episodes and once jumped through a glass window, a doctor said.
Nicole Linton, the 37-year-old traveling nurse from Houston, Texas had a history of seizures in her frontal lobe that causes bizarre behaviors before she was hit with six counts of murder for the Aug. 2022 crash, according to a neurologist hired by her legal team.
Neurologist Dr. David Millett, who specializes in epilepsy and seizures, examined Linton and provided a four-page report that said the nurse sometimes loses consciousness and doesn’t remember her actions.
He pointed to two prior incidents where Linton suffered “episodes” where she fell into a “dream-like state” for hours.
In one of those incidents, Linton was with her ex-boyfriend at her apartment on May 2019 when she ran straight through a glass window.
“She began ‘talking to herself and to other people who were not there… acting paranoid and seeing things and people that were not there… when suddenly she ‘jumped up, sprinted to the window and dove right thru [sic] the glass,'” Millett wrote in the report.
“After landing in the bushes below, she removed her clothes and began walking around the apartment complex naked and bleeding from multiple lacerations, ‘confused, unresponsive, and unaware of what was going on.'”
A year before the window incident, Linton had another bizarre episode when she ran into a busy street and stopped a moving police car.
She then “made facial gestures” at cops before jumping on top of the hood and roof of the police vehicle, the report said.
Millett said those behaviors, including the stresses Linton experienced prior to the August car crash, could have been caused by a frontal lobe seizure.
“Although there were no eyewitnesses to Ms. Linton’s behavior while driving just prior to the accident of August 4, 2022,” Millett wrote.
“Her active acceleration of the vehicle as it approached the intersection, without recognizing the imminent danger to herself, is strongly suggestive of an escape response similar the other major episodes and may represent a form of frontal lobe seizure as described above.”
Millett reiterated that a combination of factors led the traveling nurse to lose consciousness prior to her speeding into the intersection of La Brea and Slauson avenues on Aug. 4. 2022.
Prosecutors said Linton’s car was traveling at 122 to 130 mph when she smashed into multiple cars, killing six, including Asherey Ryan, who was pregnant, alongside her 11-month-old son Allonzo, and her boyfriend, Reynold Lester.
In his report, Millett said Linton was in “a dream-like state” hours prior to the deadly crash.
Linton was “unable to distinguish reality from imagination, with cartoon-like visual hallucinations and intense, overwhelming emotions.”
The neurologist said Linton was anxious before the crash and had severe insomnia over stress from her duties as a nurse.
Millett explained sleep deprivation could cause seizures in patients with epilepsy.
“Ms. Linton has been entirely consistent over time and in the context of different interviews with police and medical staff including myself in reporting that she lost consciousness while driving prior to approaching the accident site, and regained memory after she had exited the car sitting/lying on the sidewalk,” Millett said in the report.
“The most compelling explanation for this abrupt loss of consciousness, including loss of both memory and awareness of her immediate circumstances for a matter of only minutes, is that Ms. Linton experienced a seizure. Dissociative amnesia is a less likely differential diagnosis.”
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However, prosecutors claimed a separate psychiatric evaluation showed no indication that Linton suffered a seizure.
They said the vehicle’s data and surveillance video indicated she had “complete control over steering,” adding “This NASCAR-worthy performance flies in the face of the notion that she was unconscious or incapacitated.”
Linton is being held in Los Angeles County jail under a “no bail” hold.
She is scheduled to appear in a Los Angeles court on Thursday.
She has pleaded not guilty to six counts of murder and five counts of vehicular manslaughter.
Linton’s attorney, Jacqueline Sparagna, told The Post she plans to ask the judge to vacate an order that allowed her client to speak with a psychologist without her knowledge or consent.
Sparagna claims she was not informed that Linton was seen by the prosecution’s expert psychologist Robert Schug.
The defense attorney said Schug’s report isn’t relevant to the case and should be excluded.
“This is trial by ambush,” Sparagna said.
“The District Attorneys’ behavior is an underhanded and unconstitutional dirty trick to gain advantage over Nicole, which the Court should immediately sanction.”
Greg Risling, spokesman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, refuted Sparagna’s claims.
“On April 17, 2023, the judge hearing the matter, Eleanor Hunter, signed an order appointing Dr. Robert Schug to examine the defendant. Any defense objections as to this appointment, and any potential response, will be heard and addressed in court,” Risling said.
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