Joseph Sandoval II is not the same man he was on Oct. 20, 2022, when he stabbed to death two men just hours after arriving at a St. Paul sober-living home, his attorney said in court Friday.
Sandoval was under a civil commitment for being mentally ill and chemically dependent, but was provisionally discharged into the community. His mental health impairment had reached “to the extreme, where it deprived him of control over his actions” and he acted on voices from a TV telling him to kill or be killed, Baylea Kannmacher, assistant public defender, said at his sentencing hearing.
It took many months for the “heavy-hitting” antipsychotic medications to allow for Sandoval to attain competency while jailed so he could comprehend the court proceedings, she said.
Sandoval was ruled competent to stand trial in June 2023 and in May he entered a Norgaard plea to two counts of second-degree intentional murder in the deaths of Jason Timothy Murphy, a 40-year-old handyman, and 56-year-old Jon Ross Wentz, a resident of the sober home in the city’s Payne-Phalen neighborhood.
Ramsey County District Judge Joy Bartscher gave the 34-year-old consecutive sentences on Friday that total just over 38 years in prison. He will receive credit for 638 days he’s already served in custody.
After handing down 23 years and a month on count one, Bartscher granted Kannmacher’s request for downward departure from sentencing guidelines and gave 15 years on the second count. She cited Sandoval’s “extreme” mental illness at the time of the murders that deprived him control over his actions.
“This case should have never, ever happened,” she added.
Sandoval’s case exposes the gap that exists in “our systemic response to those found to be incompetent to stand trial but do not receive adequate mental health treatment or supervision,” Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said in a Friday statement.
Sandoval had five felony charges pending in Hennepin County in connection with three violent Minneapolis cases, all filed in March 2021, according to court documents. He was conditionally released from jail on the charges and found to be mentally incompetent to stand trial in June 2021.
About a month later, a Hennepin County Judge civilly committed Sandoval to the Commissioner of Human Services, sending him to the Anoka Metro Regional Treatment Center under supervision by the State of Minnesota. Five months later, in December 2021, “for reasons that do not make sense and should not justify,” his attorney said Friday, he was provisionally discharged to an Evergreen Treatment Recovery Center sober home in St. Paul.
Joseph Francis Sandoval II (Courtesy of Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)
Within a month or two, Sandoval was out of medications, his attorney said. His medications were refilled and changed and he was testing positive repeatedly for different substances. His civil commitment was extended, but he remained in the community, struggling with his mental illnesses and self-medicating.
“The people tasked with keeping Mr. Sandoval safe and secure weren’t doing their jobs,” she said.
Nearly a year later, on the afternoon of Oct. 20, 2022, Evergreen transferred Sandoval to its East Side sober home in the 1100 block of Lawson Avenue. Evergreen’s housing specialist drove him there, helped bring his belongings to the living room and handed him a TV remote, according to prosecutors.
‘They’re going to kill me’
Officers responded to the house around 4:30 p.m. on a report of a man screaming that a person killed someone inside the home.
Officers saw a man, later identified as Sandoval, leaving the house and walking toward an alley. He had blood on his clothes, cuts to his face and hands and appeared to be under the influence of an unknown substance. He told officers he had ingested fentanyl.
Sandoval said he had just moved into the house and did not know anybody living there. He said “two big guys” caused his injuries, but could not describe them. He then said somebody tried to kill him and that the person “got those other guys, too,” according to the charges.
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Sandoval said when he got to the sober house, he sat down on the couch. He said, “I was hearing noises. The TV kept saying ‘take your opportunity,’ so I took my opportunity,” the charges say. When an investigator asked Sandoval what he meant, he said, “The TV said they’re going to kill me. When I was watching ‘Dragon Ball Z’ (a Japanese anime television series).”
Officers saw drops of blood in the kitchen and on stairs leading to the basement, where Murphy was found dead. Wentz was dead in an upstairs bedroom, a bloody knife and bloody hammer next to him. Both men had multiple cuts and stab wounds, many to the neck and head. Autopsies would later find they died of blood loss.
After hospital staff released Sandoval, police transported him to the Ramsey County jail. There, Sandoval told an officer, “When you can’t protect someone you care about most in the world, it eats at you, it eats at you, it eats at you until it boils over,” the charges say. He added, “I just wanted a quiet room.”
A ‘broken’ system
Murphy’s mother, Marsha Murphy, told the court Friday that she and her husband, Bob, were on a cruise celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary when their son was killed. They learned of the murder when they arrived home three days afterward, when an officer met them at their front door.
Jason Timothy Murphy, right, with his parents Bob and Marsha Murphy, and daughter Madisyn Murphy. (Courtesy of Madisyn Murphy)
“I can’t begin to imagine or understand what my son had to endure, what his thoughts could have been, if he even was aware of what was happening,” she said. “We will never know in our lifetime. But my hope and prayer as a mother is that it went quickly.”
Murphy, who was adopted by the couple nine days after birth, was good at sports as a kid and loved woodworking. As he grew up, he had “some struggles in life,” then met a girl, fell in love and “gave us our best gift ever, our beautiful granddaughter, Madisyn,” his only child, his mother said. “He loved Madisyn so much.”
The day he was killed, Murphy was helping out the man who ran the sober house. “Jason often helped him. Jason was a handyman working in the basement, doing what he loved to do … helping others out,” his mother said.
Madisyn Murphy, his 17-year-old daughter, said the thought of never seeing her father again or hearing his voice or feeling his embrace “is a pain that words cannot adequately describe. The pain is constant and overwhelming.”
Daniel Blask, Wentz’ brother-in-law, said he was a grandfather of three boys. Despite facing his own demons, he was a man of “incredible kindness and unwavering love for his family.”
Jon Ross Wentz shown in 2022 photo (Courtesy of Angela McGowan)
“Jon deserved a chance to live,” he said, “to overcome his battles and to continue being the light in our family. Instead, he was robbed of his future.”
Wentz had the right to be kept safe in a state licensed group home, said his mother, Sandy Wentz.
“I believe Jon’s murder was partially a result of many system failures,” she said in her statement read by Assistant Ramsey County Attorney Daniel Rait. “The mental health system needs more funding and accountability. Hopefully Jon’s death can be the beginning of change.”
Judge Bartscher asked Sandoval if he wanted to address the court. “No, ma’am,” he said, as his mother and two other family members looked on from the courtroom gallery.
Sandoval had entered a Norgaard plea to the charges, which means a defendant says they are unable to remember what happened due to drug use or mental health impairment at the time, but acknowledges there is enough evidence for a jury to convict beyond a reasonable doubt.
Sandoval is responsible for what happened and will be held accountable for what he did, Bartscher said before imposing the sentence.
“But we also have to figure out a way as a society to hold ourselves accountable for the decisions that we make. And for whatever reason, the way that our system works is … it’s broken,” Bartscher said. “Mr. Sandoval should not have been out in the community.”
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