Defendant in stabbing claims demon made him do it
Defense says mental illness fueled slaying
A Memphis man on trial for the 2008 death of his former girlfriend told police “the demon took possession” just before he dragged her behind her Whitehaven apartment and began stabbing her with a steak knife.
Curtis Stanton admits killing Regina Tidwell, but his attorneys told Criminal Court jurors this week that there was no premeditation or planning because he has a limiting mental illness.
The defense stops short of an insanity claim, but suggests he should be found guilty of something less than first- degree premeditated murder which would carry life in prison.
In his statement read to the jury Wednesday, Stanton said he went to see Tidwell at Club Lucille on South Third on Sept. 13, 2008, and that she had “an attitude” when she refused to dance with him.
“That’s when I first started hearing voices in my head, telling me to kill her,” Stanton told police. “I guess it just stuck with me.”
He said he followed her out of the club shortly after 1 a.m., followed her home and, after tucking a knife in the front of his pants, confronted her outside her Whitehaven apartment at 171 Wesley Oaks Circle.
“I asked her to talk to me and she said she had to go use the restroom,” Stanton continued. “Then the demon took possession. so I grabbed her with both hands and drug her around behind the apartment. She was asking me why was I doing this and that’s when I just threw her on the ground and straddled her and started stabbing her. I think I stabbed her in the throat first . . . I stabbed her in the face, chest and stomach.”
Stanton said he drove to an area of North Memphis where he threw the knife, her purse and other items in the Wolf River.
He later called Tidwell’s teenage sons, asking them if their 34-year- old mother had made home yet.
Stanton, 42, turned himself in to police later that day.
Dr. Joseph Angelillo, a Germantown psychologist who testified for the defense, told jurors that Stanton suffered from anxiety, delusional thinking and has a low IQ, but that he could tell right from wrong.
The doctor added, however, that Stanton was incapable of premeditation.
The trial before Judge Chris Craft is expected to go to the jury today.
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