Killer’s insanity plea is rejected

After about an hour of deliberations, an Orange County jury on Monday found that Stanwood Elkus, a retired barber, was sane in 2013 when he fatally shot a 52-year-old urologist inside the doctor’s Newport Beach office.

Dr. Ronald Gilbert’s family, seated at the center of the courtroom, held hands and breathed a collective sigh of relief when the verdict was read.

“I’m just glad it’s over,” Glenn Gilbert, Ronald’s older brother, said as he filed out of the courtroom.

The same jury found Elkus, 79, guilty last week of first-degree murder for making an appointment with Gilbert, using a fake name and shooting the physician 10 times when he walked into the exam room.

Because Elkus had pleaded not guilty to the murder charge by reason of insanity, jurors were asked to determine whether he was legally insane at the time of the killing or whether he was sane and understood the weight and consequences of his actions.

Elkus is facing a possible sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Had jurors determined he was insane during the shooting, he probably would have been sent to a mental health facility.

Elkus told O.C. Superior Court Judge Patrick Donahue on Monday that he wanted to fire his attorney, Colleen O’Hara, and have the court appoint a new lawyer so he can file a motion for a new trial. He changed his mind when Donahue explained that the process would take months.

He is expected to be sentenced Sept. 15.

Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. Matt Murphy told jurors at the onset of the trial that Elkus was seething over a surgery performed in 1992 when he drove 55 miles to Gilbert’s office and shot him on Jan. 28, 2013.

Elkus blamed what he called a “botched” surgery for his incontinence, erectile dysfunction and, ultimately, the loss of his longtime girlfriend.

In 1992, Gilbert worked with a team of doctors to diagnose Elkus with a urethral stricture — a narrowing of the urethra — at the veterans hospital in Long Beach, Murphy said.

Two other Veterans Affairs doctors performed a surgery — without Gilbert — but Elkus continued to hold a grudge against Gilbert, Murphy said.

hannah.fry@latimes.com Fry writes for Times Community News.