Images shared on social media show Bryn Spejcher (left) around the time she achieved a doctorate in audiology
The ex-boyfriend and childhood friends of a woman who stabbed her new lover to death in a weed-induced frenzy have revealed she was opposed to the drug in high school and only smoked it for the first time in her twenties.
Bryn Spejcher, 33, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter last month and sentenced to just 100 hours of community service for stabbing Chad O’Melia more than 100 times before turning the blade on her dog and her own face and neck.
The two had only been dating for a month when they went back to his apartment in Thousand Oaks, California, and smoked marijuana from a bong.
Yesterday, Ventura County judge David Worley shocked the courtroom by sentencing her to no prison time at all after ruling that she experienced ‘a psychotic break from reality’ caused by the cannabis and ‘had no control over her actions’.
High school friends of Spejcher have told DailyMail.com that she actively avoided the drug as a teenager – splitting from a friendship group of regular users.
And according to Kevin Rasmussen, who she dated from 2014 to 2017, the pair smoked their very first joint while on a camping trip in Washington State, when Spejcher was 25 and agreed that ‘weed wasn’t for us’.
Chad O’Melia, a trainee accountant, was stabbed 108 times by Spejcher after she took two rips of a bong
Police were called to the victim’s apartment on Memorial Day weekend 2018 where they found Spejcher had fatally stabbed O’Melia 108 times.
She had also attacked and seriously injured her dog and when officers arrived she was slashing her face and neck with the blade – only stopping when the authorities hit her repeatedly with a baton.
She was arrested on suspicion of murder and charged with that offense.
But in an extraordinary turn of events last year, a prosecutor’s medical expert agreed with the defense – that Spejcher’s actions were the result of cannabis-induced psychosis and she was not faking her behavior that day.
Shortly after taking a second hit from the victim’s bong, Spejcher began ‘hearing and seeing things that weren’t there’ and believing she was dead, and that she had to stab O’Melia in order to bring herself back to life, according to the district attorney’s office.
The prosecution painted Spejcher to be a party girl who just wanted to get high the night she killed O’Melia.
But Spejcher’s oldest friend and mother described her as a ‘naive’ and ‘sheltered’ – citing her ‘sheltered’ life avoiding daunting situations due to the hearing impairment she’d suffered from birth.
Spejcher’s friends have also claimed that she has never taken an interest in marijuana, and in fact would rather avoid it.
Amy Carewhicz, now 33, met Spejcher in 2007 when they played in high school sports games together.
Friends and family said Bryn was never interested in drugs and only tried weed in her 20s
‘She played basketball and I played softball,’ said Carewhicz. ‘And we bonded because we both liked doing thinks that girls weren’t supposed to like doing, like camping and hiking.’
While the pair were at high school, they began to notice a clear division in friendship groups.
‘It became like, some people were smoking weed and some people weren’t.
‘And this sort of split formed in our friendship group between the ones who were into it and the ones who weren’t. Both Bryn and I were on the ‘don’t’ side.’
Spejcher didn’t try marijuana until she was 25, according to her ex-boyfriend, Kevin Rasmussen, who she dated for three years in her early 20s.
The couple, who met in their shared hometown on Chicago, decided to smoke during a hiking trip in Washington state in 2015.
Bryn Spejcher, as a young girl, when she first dreamed of becoming an audiologist
‘She didn’t necessarily just want to be at some house party and try it,’ Rasmussen, a personal trainer from Chicago and former Marine, told the Every Brain Matters podcast.
‘I knew we were going to be out camping, I thought that be a pretty cool place to try it for the first time.’
‘So we were actually out camping next to a waterfall, you know, pretty cool for a spot to smoke.
‘But Bryn took, I believe only one hit. I took one at first and then took another – only because I have smoked before.
‘Bryn said something like, hey, I’m not I’m not sure if I’m high. I looked over at the bag of chips she was holding, which was a family size bag of chips, and the whole thing was almost gone. So I point out, well, you’ve almost finished that whole bag of chips just by yourself. And we both sat there for a second and then just started laughing. That was so funny.’
The experience was ‘exactly what we expected,’ said Rasmussen. But they agreed; ‘no, it’s not really for us.’
Rasmussen and Spejcher broke up when she moved to California in November 2017, but kept in touch since.
He described Spejcher as a ‘very carefree, charismatic and nice person’.
‘Anytime we would meet people and be out anywhere, right away, we’d become friends because she’s so including, so very easy to talk to.’
Speaking of the moment he learned of the tragic events of May 28th 2018, he said: ‘I do remember it being very hard to read and just being in shock and disbelief. But right away, I thought to myself, something else happened. This isn’t the whole story.’
Police were called to the victim’s apartment on Memorial Day weekend 2018 where they found Spejcher had fatally stabbed O’Melia 108 times
But several O’Melia family members accused Spejcher of showing ‘no remorse’ for her actions throughout the course of the trial.
O’Melia’s father, Sean, said he had initially planned to forgive Spejcher as ‘to heal, I need to forgive’.
However he admitted that feuding between the families over the past few years has ‘removed my mind’s ability to live in forgiveness.’
He followed this statement by pointing his index finger directly at Spejcher, who was sat to the left of him, and declaring: ‘She killed my son. That’s a fact.’
Further contempt for her came from Chad O’Melia’s uncle, who stated: ‘There must be a consequence for the taking of a life.’
He accused Spejcher of adopting a ‘victim blaming defense’ for her previous statements suggesting Chad ‘pressured’ her into smoking from his bong that contained the high potency marijuana that triggered the episode.
Several O’Melia family members accused Spejcher of showing ‘no remorse’ for her actions throughout the course of the trial.
Lu Madison, a life-long friend of the family, said: ‘Not once did she acknowledge her actions…she only cares about herself. What about Chad?
‘The defendant’s use of marijuana was her decision. This is a serious felony and should be punished as such.’
On the night in question, Spejcher also her beloved dog and herself in the neck and face several times (her injuries are shown above)
‘This case is an important example of how marijuana is not just a harmless drug,’ Dr Kris Mohandie, a forensic psychiatrist and expert witness in the trial, told DailyMail.com.
‘These days it is so potent that you can induce an psychotic reaction with one use – and I am seeing these types of cases increase.’
‘Because it’s legal, there is this illusion that it is safe. The truth is, it is a mind-altering drug. And with any mind-altering drug, there is always going to be an element of roulette.
‘I am sure I will see more and more cases like [Bryn Spejcher’s]. More people than ever are using it.
‘And that includes a lot of people who would never have touched it but, because it’s legal, the message is, it won’t harm you. Well, it might.’
Spejcher’s 90 year-old grandmother Patricia spoke tearfully in court of her granddaughter’s ‘remorse to the depth of her soul’ for her actions on the night of Chad’s death.
Spejcher’s grandmother, or ‘Gram’ as she calls her, told the court: ‘I live with Bryn in Illinois…I know what I see, what I hear.
‘I hear her crying at night. We have prayed for their family’s healing forever. Bryn has said to me, ‘Grandma, I was not in that room that night. I don’t know where I was…”
Spejcher, the last to speak, issued a tearful apology to Sean O’Melia. ‘I am so sorry for my actions,’ she said. ‘I do not expect your forgiveness. My actions have ripped your family apart. I’ve listened to accusations that I show no remorse…I do.
‘The hole in your life is not lost on me. I am truly sorry.’
