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Friends of victim infuriated by California judge's decision to give probation for fatal stabbing
Two friends of a grieving California family say they’re outraged after a 33-year-old woman received no jail time for fatally stabbing a man she was dating in his Los Angeles apartment.
The Ventura County judge presiding over the case ruled audiologist Bryn Spejcher had fallen into a marijuana-fueled psychosis and had no control over her actions when she stabbed 26-year-old Chad O’Melia 108 times.
“We are absolutely outraged and disgusted with the sentencing judge,” said Lu Madison, a friend of Chad’s late mother who died less than two years after her son’s death.
“From the beginning, [he] was biased. He showed preferential treatment until the end. It’s unimaginable what’s happened here. It is setting a precedent, and we just can’t believe it. It’s absolutely unacceptable.”
CALIFORNIA WOMAN WHO GOT HIGH AND STABBED BOYFRIEND 108 TIMES WILL NOT GO TO PRISON, JUDGE RULES
Bryn Spejcher (left) was sentenced to 100 days of community service after stabbing Chad OMelia 108 times in his LA apartment. (Ventura County District Attorneys Office/Fox & Friends First)
Jurors found Spejcher guilty of involuntary manslaughter in December, but the court ultimately sentenced her to two years on probation and 100 hours of community service for the 2018 crime, a sentence that prompted protests and rage from those who say it doesn’t even begin to compare to the crime she committed.
“100 hours of community service isn’t even one hour per stab that she inflicted on Chad, so it’s just unbelievable,” Madison told “Fox & Friends First” on Thursday.
She accused Spejcher of emotionally manipulating the court to gain sympathy and speculated the effort might have influenced the judge’s leniency. Spejcher’s lack of criminal history could have been another factor.
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Robin Bianchi (left) and Lu Madison (right) criticized the lenient sentence on ‘Fox & Friends First.’ (Fox & Friends First/Screengrab)
“Regardless, she committed a vicious crime… Yes, it was [a psychotic break]. That’s not being disputed here. She did have a psychotic break. She didn’t mean to do this, but she did it. She took the hit of marijuana. She asked for it, and she asked for the second hit. This is nothing that was coerced, tricked, forced upon her. She took it. She needs to take responsibility, and we needed the judge to make that ruling that, ‘No, you have to be responsible, and there’s consequences to your actions.’ That’s what he did not do,” she said.
Robin Bianchi shared details about her 50-year friendship with O’Melia’s mother, Michelle. She and Madison watched Chad grow up and described him as a “sweet, funny, athletic [and] kind-hearted” person.
“If he walked in a room and saw that anyone was sitting by themselves or felt uncomfortable, he would go over and make friends with them. He would go and make sure that they felt comfortable,” she told host Carley Shimkus.
“He loved his family. He loved his dog. He would never have hurt anyone. He never would have. He had lifelong dreams to become an accountant. He graduated from college. He was a good man.”
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Bryn Spejcher in her Ventura County booking photo, which shows scars on her neck where prosecutors say she stabbed herself as police tried to arrest her in the stabbing death of her boyfriend, Chad O’Melia. She was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in December and sentenced this week to no prison time. (Ventura County District Attorney)
Chad’s mother, Michelle, tormented by grief, passed away less than two years later.
His father, Sean O’Melia, who advocated for the case to be tried for murder, said the court’s sentence sets a dangerous precedent, according to the New York Post.
“That judge just gave everyone in this state the license to kill,” he said.
Spejcher was smoking marijuana with O’Melia at his Thousand Oaks apartment before she attacked him.
“Both took several hits from a bong loaded with marijuana,” the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement. “Spejcher had an adverse reaction to the marijuana and suffered from what experts call ‘cannabis-induced psychotic disorder.’”
The state’s mental health expert reportedly determined that as a result she was “unconscious” while she stabbed O’Melia dozens of times. She also stabbed her dog and turned the knife on herself when police arrived.
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HONOLULU — The latest lava fountaining episode of an erupting Hawaii volcano reached 1,000 feet high Tuesday, prompting temporary closures at a national park and part of an important highway because of falling glassy volcanic fragments, including ash.
Kilauea, on Hawaii’s Big Island, has been dazzling residents and visitors for more than year with an on-and-off eruption that periodically sends fountains of lava soaring into the sky.
The fountaining that began Tuesday morning marked the eruption’s 43rd episode since it began in December 2024. A livestream showed two fountains of bright-red lava and smoke. It’s unclear how long the fountaining will last. Some episodes have lasted a few days and others a few hours.
Like other times, the molten rock was confined within Kilauea’s summit crater inside Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and hasn’t threatened homes or buildings.
But the lava fountains were creating trouble for neighboring communities and a highway where the volcanic fragments and ash, known as tephra, was falling. The tephra prompted temporary closures at the national park around the summit and a partial closure of Highway 11, an important route around the island, on either side of the park.
Hawaii County officials also opened a shelter at a district gymnasium for residents and tourists impacted by the road closure or falling tephra. There were no people using the shelter soon after it opened, said Tom Callis, a county spokesperson.
The National Weather Service issued an ashfall warning.
Volcanic tephra can irritate eyes, skin and the respiratory system, according to county officials. Tephra also can clog and cause other problems with water catchment collection systems, which are common in some parts of the Big Island, officials said.
Ash fell so heavily during a previous fountaining episode that some communities needed help from county civil defense workers to clean up ash that coated their homes, Callis said.
Kilauea is one of the world’s most active volcanoes.
LAS VEGAS (FOX5) — Smith’s employees are packing 5,000 meal kits for Clark County students through a partnership with Move for Hunger and Communities in Schools of Southern Nevada.
The event took place on March 10 at Decker Elementary School.
About 270 leaders from across seven states are also participating in building the kits. The donation is valued at approximately $50,000.
Feed The Need: Helping Southern Nevadans fight food insecurity
In the past year, Smith’s and its customers provided more than 16 million meals to nonprofit hunger-relief organizations throughout Nevada through donations.
Copyright 2026 KVVU. All rights reserved.
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