Defendant in Millcreek slaying wants marijuana tested

This article was originally published on GoErie.com by Madeleine O’Neill on January 25, 2019

A homicide defendant accused of fatally stabbing his girlfriend in August thinks that contaminated marijuana might have caused him to have a psychotic episode in the hours before the killing, according to a new court filing.

The defendant, James M. Gilbert, 24, wants a judge to order testing on the drugs that Millcreek Township police confiscated from the residence Gilbert shared with his girlfriend, 20-year-old Marinda Matasowski.

Gilbert’s court-appointed lawyer, Thomas Brasco, wrote in the filing that Gilbert claims to have experienced unusual symptoms after smoking marijuana he bought from a seller he was not familiar with. Gilbert smoked the marijuana three hours before the killing, according to the filing.

“Close in time after ingesting the marijuana, defendant was overcome with paranoia, anxiety, thoughts of somebody following him, and generally unfamiliar feelings, different from that which he was used to feeling, as he was a somewhat experienced marijuana user,” Brasco wrote.

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