From: chris@carnival.lbl.gov (Chris Moll)
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.misc
Subject: Driver charged with murder in cyclist's death
Followup-To: rec.bicycles.misc
Date: 22 Jan 1993 19:51:36 GMT
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: carnival.lbl.gov

In a particularly ugly bit of irony, it seems that Linda Scates became
unbalanced after her husband was killed by a drunk driver.

Anyone else find it somewhat odd that this fucking loony (not that I wish
to sound prejudicial) still held a valid driver's licence?

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From the San Francisco Examiner, Wed Jan 20
-Reprinted without permission-


Driver charged with murder in cyclist's death

      'It was clear she intentionally drove into (the riders),' says 
prosecutor

By Don Martinez OF THE EXAMINER STAFF

      MARTINEZ  An Orinda woman was charged Wednesday with murder, assault 
with a deadly weapon and felony hit-and-run in what authorities say was an 
intentional attack with her car on a group of bicyclists near Danville last 
Saturday.
      Linda Ann Scates, who had [previously] been convicted of using her car
as a weapon, allegedly fled the scene after plowing into the eight bicyclists
Saturday afternoon. She surrendered Sunday night.
      A 22-year-old Oakland man was killed at the scene, another rider was 
critically injured and the others were treated for various injuries at local 
hospitals.
      Scates was to be arraigned later Wednesday in Walnut Creek-Danville 
Municipal Court, said Paul Sequeira, a Contra Costa County deputy district 
attorney.
      She had been booked for investigation of vehicular manslaughter and 
seven counts of felony hit-and-run after her surrender.
      "But after a review of all the evidence," Sequeira said Wednesday, "it 
was clear to us that she intentionally drove into the cyclists and that this 
wasn't an act of gross negligence."
      Scates, 39, remained in custody on $100,000 bond in the Contra Costa 
Jail.
      Witnesses said it appeared the car accelerated just before plowing 
into the cyclists on Danville Boulevard. Killed was Vladimir Nikoli Quinn, 22, 
a Syracuse University senior who wanted to become an international bicycle 
racer.
      Another cyclist, Doron Selinger, 21, remains in critical condition at 
John Muir Hospital in Walnut Creek.
    Former neighbors said Scates underwent a personality shift in 1985, when 
her husband was killed by a drunken driver who crashed broadside into his car.
      Since then, court records show, Scates has been treated repeatedly for 
erratic behavior and mental problems.
      Records in both Contra Costa County Superior Court and Delta Municipal 
Court indicate that by the mid-1980s Scates was well known to Antioch police.
      They were called out often to her Cypress Street neighborhood in 
response to disputes between Scates and her neighbors.
      Known as Linda Mutter then, Scates was described Tuesday by a former 
neighbor as "a quiet, attractive woman" who spent lots of time in her yard.
      The neighbor, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Scates was 
married and had a little girl when she lived at 2407 Cypress St. nearly eight 
years ago.
      "She seemed to be doing OK until her husband was killed when a drunk 
driver broadsided his car sometime around 1985," the neighbor said. "It was 
then that her immediate neighbors started having problems with her. They said 
she was always harassing them about something."
      Scates was convicted of misdemeanor assault with a deadly weapon in 
1987 when she allegedly tried to run a neighbor and her two children off the 
road with her car. The neighbor told police that "she recognized (Scates) . . 
. because she had many problems with her," the investigating officer reported, 
according to court records.
      When contacted by police, court records show, Scates denied she ran 
the woman off the road but said she hated her. " ... When you've had a 
breakdown, people take advantage of you," she told police.
      In June 1986, court records show that Scates bought a double barrel 
shotgun at a local K Mart. Store Security officers called police when Scates 
reportedly told the clerk she wanted the gun to "either use it on my neighbor 
or myself."
      She was eventually sent to the Contra Costa County hospital in 
Martinez and to the now defunct Gladman Hospital in Oakland for psychiatric 
evaluation, records show.
      She was released when doctors determined that she was neither suicidal 
nor homicidal but, as a concerned Antioch officer noted in his report, "was 
very dangerous!!"
      A standing directive at the Antioch Police Department cautioned 
officers "to be cautious when and if answering any calls at her residence," 
records show.
      In another incident, a man who lived next door to Scates called police 
after she allegedly confronted him with a pick-ax in the summer of 1986.
      After her arrest on the assault charge, Scates was sent to Patton 
State Hospital to determine if she was mentally competent to stand trial.
      During the competency hearing, a court-appointed psychiatrist 
testified that Scates "harbors a paranoid type of delusional thinking 
pertaining to what is really going on here." The doctor successfully 
recommended that she be sent to the state hospital for treatment.
      She was committed for treatment on May 8,1987, and released that 
October after doctors determined she was able to understand the nature of the 
charges against her and cooperate with her attorney.
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--
Chris Moll                       (510)486-7891
---
A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature
replaces it with.        -- Tenessee Williams
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.misc