Conner Schierman was having a blast playing video games with his friends and drinking the bottles of Ketel One Vodka that he had brought home from work. Sometime on the night of July 16, 2006 or early the next morning, he blacked out. His last memory as the liquor took control was popping the cork of a champagne bottle.
That morning Schierman awoke on a “strange bed” and wandered out into the hallway feeling very sick. He found the butchered bodies of two children.
Then he wobbled downstairs and saw the body of a woman.
Schierman headed down to the basement, where there were spots of blood on the stairwell, and saw his truck when he looked out the window.
He then remembered where he was: The home of his neighbors Olga Milkin, 28; her sons, ages 5 and 3; and her sister, Lyubov Botvina – who were all stabbed to death.
Andrew Saxon, an addiction psychiatrist at the VA Medical Center in Seattle and Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Washington presented those details as an expert witness asked to take the stand by Schierman’s defense counsel Thursday. Attorneys James Conroy and Peter Connick are trying to bolster their claim to a jury that their client “blacked out” and is not guilty of brutally murdering a Kirkland family. Schierman, who could face the death penalty, made the claim in initial reports to the police in 2006.
During the trial Thursday, Saxon continued his testimony.
After Schierman discovered the bodies, feeling extremely upset and frightened, he took the vodka bottle and sat down on a couch and consumed more.
Schierman picked up the lifeless body he found in the basement and carried it upstairs to the bedroom. He took a shower in the master bath and then changed into a pair of lavender scrubs – the only clothes he could find.
Then after a trip to the local gas station, Schierman lit the house on fire.
Saxon said Schierman could not have even formed the requisite intent to murder the family, according to two interviews he conducted with the defendant when he was in custody in 2006 and 2007.
“They can be moving around, walking and talking and yet still have no memory for those events,” Saxon said. “In a sense this event was the perfect storm to create an alcohol blackout.”
The UW psychiatrist said Schierman could not give a reason as to how the Milkins were killed.
The jury listened as Saxon gave them a power point lecture on the structure and functions of the brain that cause alcohol-induced blackouts.
At the time of the murders, Schierman had a blood-alcohol level of .35, which is enough for him to have blacked-out, said Saxon. A blood-alcohol level above 0.40 percent is potentially lethal. Schierman had approximately three times the amount of the legal limit of liquor in his blood, according to testimony from Barry Logan, a former state toxicologist.
Saxon also reviewed Schierman and his family’s medical history. Schierman was a self-described drug addict and alcoholic and his father and sister both experienced struggles with alcohol.
Police later confiscated three empty 375 milliliter bottles of vodka from Schierman’s bedroom. Schierman drank over a liter of alcohol, according to Logan.
King County Deputy Prosecutor Scott O’Toole asked during cross examination why Saxon did not write a formal written report on Schierman after the interviews. Saxon replied he did not think a report was necessary.
Logan was asked by O’Toole during his testimony whether Schierman was capable of carrying out what he saw as “goal-directed behavior” with such a high blood-alcohol content.
“That is probably beyond the area of my specific expertise,” Logan said.
According to O’Toole, at the time of his arrest, Schierman described none of the symptoms or behaviors with a high BAL that Logan outlined in his testimony.
Throughout the last few weeks, Schierman’s defense council has brought police and forensic experts to the witness stand. Doctor Mark McClung, a private practice psychiatrist and Mark Wooley, from Verizon Wireless, also testified.
The defense rested its case Monday and the state will call rebuttal witnesses.
