One year ago, Congress defunded public media. Now that we're 100% community funded, please become a sustaining member or increase your existing membership today.
This is an archival story that predates current editorial management.
This archival content was written, edited, and published prior to LAist's acquisition by its current owner, Southern California Public Radio ("SCPR"). Content, such as language choice and subject matter, in archival articles therefore may not align with SCPR's current editorial standards. To learn more about those standards and why we make this distinction, please click here.
Attorney Says Schizophrenic Woman Was Unmedicated When She Pushed 84-Year-Old Woman Onto Gold Line Tracks
Little Tokyo Gold Line (Photo by Chris via the LAist Featured Photos pool)
The defense attorney for a woman who shoved an elderly woman to her death on the Gold Line tracks nearly three years ago says that her client is a schizophrenic woman who had just been released from a hospital three days earlier and had not been taking her medicine.
Jackkqueline Pogue is now on trial a second time for the murder of 84-year-old Betty Sugiyama in 2010. Sugiyama had been chatting with her sister on the platform at the Little Tokyo Station when Pogue shoved her onto the tracks below. She suffered from head injuries she never recovered from. The first jury deadlocked on the issue of whether Pogue acted deliberately and was aware of the consequences of her actions.
Her defense attorney Laurice Cheung told this jury that they should find her not guilty by reason of insanity, according to the Associated Press.
Pogue had previously been arrested for creating a disturbance at a Social Security office, and then she was hospitalized and released three days before the incident in November 2010. She had not been taking her medicine the day she pushed Sugiyama.
However, Deputy District Attorney Louis Avila says she should be found guilty of murder because witnesses heard her say she meant to kill the woman, according to the AP. Sheriff's Deputy Virginia Salazar testified that she remembered Pogue yelling, "I killed her. I meant to kill her. I wanted to do that. Now take me back to CRC." (The CRC is a county home for the mentally ill.)
Related:
Elderly Woman Pushed Off Gold Line Platform Dies
Mistrial Declared In Case of Elderly Woman Pushed to Her Death Off Gold Line Platform
One year ago, Congress voted to defund public media, eliminating a critical $1.7 million from our budget every year going forward. But they couldn’t silence us, and we’re not going anywhere. LAist is now 100% community funded and that means we’re taking our future into our own hands and turning to you to keep local reporting strong.
You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
If this story helped you, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
If this story helped you, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
Senior Vice President News, Editor in Chief
