The reason behind Dr. Michael Mammone’s murder may have been the worst one on all.
Because apparently, there was no reason.
The Orange County Register conducted a jailhouse interview with the accused killer of the respected Laguna Beach ER doctor, who was run down from behind in a violent collision as he waited at a PCH red light in Dana Point on February 1st, then repeatedly stabbed by the driver after he exited the car.
The paper talked Friday with Vanroy Evan Smith, who’s being held on $1 million bond after being charged with murder in Mammone’s death.
Smith confessed to the killing in the chilling interview, relating that he apparently picked Mammone at random as he drove around looking for a victim, after buying the machete allegedly used in the attack at a gun shop earlier that day.
Yet he expects to be set free, because he is “entitled to commit murder because he is both God and Jesus Christ.”
Oh. Okay then.
In a rambling, hourlong interview with a Southern California News Group reporter, Vanroy Evan Smith cited end-of-world scriptures from the Bible’s Book of Revelation and said that if the public knew he was the Messiah and the “king of kings,” they would think differently about him and his crime.
“I have killed,” Smith, 39, said during the interview at Orange County’s Intake Release Center in Santa Ana. “If they knew who I was, they would let me walk out of here. They would fulfill all my desires.”
Nope. Nothing crazy there.
Yet Smith, who was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and bipolar disorder following a 2020 episode, denied being mentally ill.
And despite his diagnosis, he was allowed to continue driving a multi-ton vehicle that can be weaponized on a whim, even through he wouldn’t be allowed to purchase or carry a gun.
Smith also denied using racial slurs or uttering comments about white privilege, despite sometimes racist reports that continue to circulate on conservative media sites.
He chose Mammone as his victim, in part, because he would not kill a woman.
According to the paper, Smith awoke that day fully expecting to kill someone before the day was over, “adding that he has long been plagued by troubling ‘communications’ from others and conflict because of his mixed-race heritage.”
After purchasing the knife, Smith recounted that he began driving around and felt compelled to run over Mammone and stab him. “It was my right,” he said, rubbing his hand against his eyes while adding that he feels no remorse for the killing. “He was in the crosswalk and presented himself.”
Smith cited the story of the Last Supper in Gospel of Luke as justification for purchasing the knife.
35 Then Jesus asked them, “When I sent you without purse, bag or sandals, did you lack anything?”“Nothing,” they answered.
36 He said to them, “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.
37 It is written: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors’ ; and I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment.”
He also said he had a BB gun he intended as a distraction, confirming some reports that he had a gun, though not that he used it.
Smith told the Register he had no regrets about the killing.
Smith, meanwhile, said he has found peace after 10 days in jail, placing at bay some of his demons typically exacerbated by heavy drinking, marijuana use and consorting with prostitutes.
He said he hopes to eventually meet with Mammone’s family. “I didn’t want to cause anyone pain,” he said.
No, he just wanted to kill someone. Because in his mind, he was God, and apparently, that’s what gods do.
I can think of nothing more chilling than a driver who decides to deliberately kill another human being, for no more reason than the person was there, exposed and vulnerable.
And he just, you know, felt like it.
Nothing personal.
Photo of ghost bike for Dr. Michael Mammones by Walt Arrrrr.
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Vanroy Smith wasn’t the only one who decided to use his car as a weapon recently.
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It looks like the city is making real progress on the San Fernando Road Bike Path.
Proving, as the following tweets make clear, that advocacy works.
https://twitter.com/Ravener85/status/1624862238749372416
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This is the future I want to see.
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A group of drivers attempted to terrorize Oakland bike riders by deliberately dooring 14 people riding their bikes, hitting eight and seriously injuring two people; at least four separate vehicles were involved over a three-day period.
No bias here. A letter writer in Victoria, British Columbia complains that bike lanes and a car-hating mayor are responsible for all the traffic congestion in the city of 92,000 people.
But sometimes, its the people on two wheels behaving badly.
Advocates for the blind complained about riders on a London bikeway repeatedly ignoring pedestrians in a crosswalk. Even though none of the people crossing appeared to be visually impaired.
Seven years after a woman in the UK was killed by a man riding an illegal bicycle, a British government minister suggested more people would have to die before the country would do anything making the laws tougher.
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Local
West Hollywood’s city council voted 3-2 to convert the existing painted bike lanes on Santa Monica Blvd to protected bike lanes, while extending the lanes east from the current terminus at Kings Road; the city will also consider how to connect them to planned bike lanes on Fountain Ave, and the existing sharrows on Willoughby.
LAist looks at LA’s renegade Crosswalk Collective, whose outlaw DIY crosswalks are forcing the city to improve its pedestrian infrastructure.
Streets For All is calling for everyone to complete Metro’s survey to support a heavy rail line through the Sepulveda Pass, with a station on the UCLA campus.
State
No bias here, either. Opinion was evenly split for and against a planned Carlsbad roundabout at a recent public meeting, but the San Diego Union-Tribune makes it sound like residents are against the “drastic change.”
An op-ed from the leaders of San Diego’s BikeSD says the city can end its over-reliance on cars with bike, mass transit and pedestrian infrastructure.
Sad news from San Luis Obispo, where a 23-year old man riding a bicycle was killed when he was struck by a hit-and-run driver, then hit by a second motorist as he lay in the street; police arrested the 19-year old driver on charged of felony hit-and-run and vehicular manslaughter.
A San Jose op-ed asks whether America’s 10th largest and “most forgettable” city is building a national model for the metropolis of the future.
Sad news from Half Moon Bay, too, where a 75-year old man was killed when he was struck by an 18-year old driver while riding his bicycle.
National
Retailers says bloated inventories and a dip in demand will make this a year of bike bargains.
A man riding a bicycle was killed in my platinum-level Bicycle Friendly Colorado hometown, after allegedly running a stop sign, just two days after the city’s Winter Bike to Work Day. Although the location where he was struck didn’t even exist when I lived there.
The growing population of San Antonio, Texas is making the streets more dangerous for people on bicycles.
A nonprofit group has donated a mobility trike to an eight-year old boy paralyzed in last year’s mass shooting at a 4th of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois.
An Arkansas youth center worker uses his mountain bike to deliver much-needed supplies to homeless people in his community.
Jurors will consider whether convicted Manhattan bike path terrorist Sayfullo Saipo will receive the death penalty for killing eight people as they walked or rode their bikes.
Life is cheap in Pennsylvania, where a hit-and-run driver got just under one to two years for killing a local homeless advocate as he rode his bike in 2020.
The Idaho Stop, allowing bike riders to treat stops as yields, could come to Virginia before it does California, where it has been vetoed twice. Or was it three times?
Once again, a bike rider was a hero, as someone riding by on a bicycle managed to wrestle a gun away from a would-be robber, who was sticking up a couple on New Orleans’ Bourbon Street.
Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen is one of us, as she takes her kids on a Tom Brady-less bike ride through the streets of Miami.
International
Momentum Magazine says Valentines Day is the perfect excuse to get a tandem.
A London commuter copes with the rail strike by trying a bikeshare ebike, totally transforming his commute.
Cycling Tips considers why pioneering London bike shop Look Mum No Hands! was more than just a café and workshop.
Having apparently learned his lesson about electric motorbikes, America’s Got Talent judge Simon Cowell rides his ebike through the streets of Manchester, England, in his $1,500 Armani cargo pants.
A kindhearted seven-year old Scottish boy raised the equivalent of over $880 for charity by riding his bike a total of 20 miles this month, and plans to keep it going for the rest of the month.
I want to be like him when I grow up. A 90-year old man in the Netherlands rides his bike ten and a half miles a day to see his wife of 63 years, who now lives in a hospice facility. Except for that part about the dying wife, of course.
Berlin plans to ban all parking in the city’s Gräfekiez neighborhood for three months this summer, as a test for plans to make the city center carfree within a few years.
The Tehran Times recommends the ten best bike rides for your next visit to the Islamic Republic.
Tragic news, as two members of the Qatar Cycling Federation were killed when they were run down by a texting driver.
Hundreds of bicycle and e-scooter riders turned out to protest plans to remove protected bike lanes in a Philippine city, which bizarrely concluded that the need for the lanes would decrease as commuters increased.
Competitive Cycling
Tragic news from Spain, where rising 19-year old cyclist Estela Dominguez was killed by a hit-and-run driver as she was on the verge of her professional career, while on a training ride in Salamanca.
VeloNews says the rigors of junior cycling set reigning world and Vuelta champ Remco Evenepoel on the path to stardom.
Los Angeles-based L39ION of Los Angeles says its a hard pass on participating in the National Cycling League’s new four-race crit series.
Six people were injured when 15 bicyclists competing in a monthly bike race collided in Sydney, Australia.
Finally…
When you’re carrying a couple meth-filled baggies on your bike, stop for the damn stop sign, already. Don’t ride your bike through an intermediate school without permission.
And a comedian celebrates the need to drive.
Not.
Thanks to GlennC1 for the link.
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin, too.
