Just hours before murdering six in a 90mph crash in Los Angeles, a nurse claims she suffered a “mental meltdown” at the wheel of her speeding Mercedes and Facetimed her sister absolutely naked. INicole Linton, 37, is charged with six counts of homicide in connection with a crash on August 4.
In addition, the LA County District Attorney charged her with five counts of vehicular manslaughter. Linton apparently was traveling at over 100 mph when she smashed into traffic.
Six people were killed, including a 23-year-old pregnant woman named Asherey Ryan.
It has been discovered that the ICU nurse who killed six people in a horrible fireball disaster in Los Angeles earlier this month when she ran a red light at 90mph suffered a ‘terrifying’ mental breakdown in the days preceding up to the tragedy.
The disclosure on the murder charges now filed against Nicole Linton, 37, came in the form of a filing by the LA nurse’s defense attorneys, who claim their client experienced a ‘apparent lapse of consciousness’ at the time of the crash.
The document obtained by The Los Angeles Times provides a thorough account of the suspect’s deteriorating mental state in the lead-up to the incident, which resulted in the deaths of a pregnant woman, her unborn child, her one-year-old son, and four others.
Linton, who hails from Texas, is currently detained on six counts of murder relating to five persons and an unborn child.
Due to the prosecution’s assessment that she is a flight risk and a danger to the community, she is being held without bail.
The statement says that Linton has “no recollection of the circumstances leading up to her collision” and portrays a picture of a mentally ill lady who has lost her sanity rapidly over the past four years.
In the document, Linton’s attorneys assert that their client was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2018 and attribute the suspect’s deteriorating mental state to her refusal to take her prescribed medication during the influenza pandemic, after an online therapist told her she only suffered from anxiety.
They stated that her condition would deteriorate to a ‘terrifying’ level on the day of the August 4 collision, when she Facetimed her sister absolutely naked just hours before committing the atrocity.
Nicole L. Linton, 37, has been charged with six counts of murder and five counts of vehicular manslaughter (seen in court).
Here is the twisted wreckage of Linton’s fast Mercedes after the collision.
Her attorneys argued that Linton’s family first learned of her mental health concerns in May 2018, when she was a nursing student at the University of Texas in her hometown of Houston.
In a letter to the court included in the application, her sister Camille Linton stated that the first mental breakdown occurred when she was studying to become a nurse anesthetist.
Camille Linton wrote: ‘The tension was too much for her, and it ‘broke’ her. This marked the beginning of Nicole’s four-year battle with mental illness.
According to Linton’s sister, the breakdown occurred in 2018, when the suspect allegedly fled her apartment while experiencing a panic attack.
Linton was detained for disruptive conduct after climbing onto one of the cops’ service vehicles when police approached her, according to the petition.
The collision drove the line of automobiles careening across the road toward another petrol station, where they stopped just before the pumps.
Attorneys then described how Linton would phone her family from the police station, but instead of expressing concern for her condition, she expressed care for her pet turtle.
A few days after her arrest, Linton contacted her family again to express her concern after claiming she was possessed by her deceased grandma.
Linton was transferred to Ben Taub psychiatric hospital the following day after requiring stitches for a head trauma sustained when she bashed her head against a glass barrier while raving about the police and Supreme Court.
The attorneys said that while receiving treatment, Linton sung Bob Marley songs and became increasingly erratic.
The defense petition states that Linton was then diagnosed with bipolar disorder and provided psychiatric medication, which she continued to take for the next year.
Tabia Johnson, a witness to the collision, took a photograph of the suspect, Nicole L. Linton (center), and remarked that Linton appeared to have suffered only minor injuries in the horrific collision.
Linton is shown here after the collision with blood on her left thigh and left forearm, wearing what look to be hospital scrubs.
Here, a medical emergency worker guides Linton, who is seated with a bloody arm.
The attorneys claimed that more than a year later, Linton was again involuntarily taken to a psych facility, this time because a neighbor alerted her family after seeing Linton running naked through her apartment complex.
Linton’s mental health deteriorated rapidly when she stopped taking her prescription bipolar medication in the early days of the epidemic, according to the complaint.
The lawyers argued that this judgment was based on the fact that Linton’s online therapist, with whom she had been communicating remotely throughout COVID limitations, advised her she was just suffering from anxiety.
Her attorneys claimed that Linton’s behavior became “increasingly scary” beginning in early 2020 and continuing into 2022, to the point where she became mysteriously deluded and suspicious of both her family and workplace.
The petition states that Linton, who purportedly continued to work at the West Los Angeles Medical Center as her health deteriorated, began not sleeping and became excessively obsessed with cleaning throughout this period.
According to her attorneys, Linton would often engage in bizarre outbursts against her family members, accusing them of stealing from her.
In the Los Angeles neighborhood of Windsor Hills, Linton’s Mercedes sped past a gas station before crashing into a traffic bottleneck and igniting a fire.
The petition discloses that this activity continued undetected until the days leading up to the August 4 catastrophe, when it became increasingly alarming.
Nicole’s counsel argued that in the days and hours preceding up to the events on August 4, Nicole’s behavior became increasingly scary.
They stated that throughout this time Linton was in communication with her sister Camille and frequently told her that her hospital coworkers were “behaving strangely.”
Attorneys representing Nicole Linton, Halim Dhanidina, and Jacqueline M. Sparagna said in a petition on August 6 that the crash was the climax of a four-year downward spiral in mental health experienced by the suspect, who is bipolar, according to medical records. They claim she stopped taking her medication during the pandemic, aggravating her mental condition.
The court documents further allege that on the day of the collision, Linton drove home from the hospital for lunch and FaceTimed her sister.
However, the call itself was cause for concern, as Linton made the call while naked, which deeply disturbed her sibling, who insisted the behavior was out of character.
Linton would then return to work, but at 1:14 p.m. – just minutes before the crash – she would call her sister to inform her she was leaving work once more.
‘She told her sister she was going out to meet her in Houston the following day so she could do her niece’s hair,’ the affidavit states.
Nathesia Lewis has been identified as one of the six victims of the August 4 fire in Los Angeles. Lewis and Lynette Noble were in the car when it exploded into flames after being struck by ICU nurse Nicole Linton.
Lynette Noble has been identified as one of the six fatalities of the August 4 fire in Los Angeles. Noble and Lewis were jointly driving when ICU nurse Nicole Linton collided with their vehicle.
Asherey Ryan, age 23, together with her one-year-old kid and unborn child, perished in the catastrophic collision. She was almost due when she passed away.
Alonzo, a one-year-old infant, was also killed in the August 4 crash between South La Brea Avenue and Slauson Avenue.
Alonzo, a one-year-old infant, was also killed in the August 4 crash between South La Brea Avenue and Slauson Avenue.
Reynold’s (right) unborn child’s father also perished in the collision. He is present along with Ashery
During the call, Linton stated inexplicably that she was getting married and that her sister should “meet her at the chapel,” according to the attorneys’ report.
Upon examining Linton’s mental state upon her arrival at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center on August 6, two days after the incident, a physician who treated her reported that she had “no recollection of the events leading up to her collision.”
He stated, “The next thing she remembered was lying on the sidewalk and witnessing her car on fire.”
The doctor would subsequently determine that Linton suffers from bipolar disorder and had a “apparent loss of consciousness” at the time of the crash, according to the petition.
The extent of Linton’s injuries from the collision were not detailed in the report, but the aforementioned doctor wrote that she suffered ‘fractures’ as a result of the incident, despite initial reports indicating she only suffered minor injuries after crashing her Black Mercedes-Benz into five victims.
The nurse is wheelchair-bound in prison, according to Linton’s attorneys.
“The medical documents represent an impartial, unbiased portrayal of what transpired here,” Linton’s attorney Jacqueline Sparagna told The Times of the filing’s extensively redacted doctor’s diagnosis.
Despite the troubling behavior described in the record, Linton’s attorneys argued that her mental health problems and ‘seemingly strange’ activities are not sufficient grounds to lock her behind bars.
The request stipulated that Linton be released for testing at the UCLA Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital, and that she be permitted to wear an ankle monitor and be placed under house arrest, or comply with any other conditions imposed by the court.
Attorneys Halim Dhanidina and Jacqueline Sparagna stated, ‘Ms. Linton should be kept in a mental health treatment center where she can be watched and treated for her sickness.’
Aside from that, they acknowledged that Linton should be released on $300,000 bond because it was all he could afford.