it s hard to believe. i also have other roommates that have watched me sleepwalk. sleep walk? now reitz made the most remarkable claim. this horrible violence grew out of a completely unconscious sleep walking episode. he told us that he has reoccurring sleep walking episodes and this time he must have been sleep walking when it happened. was this a clever ruse that reitz had cooked up in the minutes after the killing? or was his claim actually legitimate? reitz s parents who by now arrived at the station in catalina also claimed that their son had a history of sleepwalking. they relayed at least one, maybe two incidents that they were aware of that they knew that he had slept-walked in the past. they also told detectives stephen was under treatment for bipolar disorder. he said he forgot his bipolar medicine during the interview and she had given him some kind of a prescription that she had for anxiety or something like this.
the idea that reitz might not be held responsible for eva s death horrified her family. how is that possible? how could he even get off on that type of defense? he did it. he was there. he knows he did it. we know he did it. why is this even going to trial? science took over then, for a while. a world recognized sleep disorder expert from stanford university joined the case. reitz was also sent to a sleep clinic like this one for a battery of tests to see if he really did have a recognized sleeping disorder, something severe enough to produce such violence. he was wired and monitored and recorded. and as he fell asleep, cameras rolled. then the tests revealed not only a propensity to sleepwalk, reitz also suffered a significant night terror that was caught on
history of the disorder and tests confirmed parks had period of awakening from deep sleep and a strong propensity to sleepwalk, where anything could happen. there s no conscious awareness of what happens. so, thus, a mother could kill her child? yes. a husband could kill his wife? yes. there s been cases of mothers throwing their kids out a window and of husbands killing their wives in bed. or perhaps even killing their girlfriends in catalina. diagnosis or no, ken parks was charged with first-degree murder, just like stephen reitz was. parks spent a couple of years in jail before he went on trial here and his defense made the case that he should be found not guilty. because he was completely unconscious of what he had done. their argument was that he committed this crime being completely unaware of what he was doing.
stephen reitz. he had actually gone down to the fire station and said his girlfriend was hurt up in the apartment and he may have killed her. paramedics rushed to the hotel and tried to revive eva weinfurtner. but it was far too late for that. and then a few hours later, detectives tomlin and gallitin arrived. they both had been here before on vacation but this was awful. you walk in and you see devastation. you see a horrific scene. and you re wondering what the heck happened in here. that is the evidence we re going to retain. a police photographer pushed record and wandered through the brutal crime scene. she had a broken jaw three places, a fractured skull, shoulder, elbow, wrist broken.
and would never have done it had he been conscious? would never have done it had he been conscious and aware. after a lengthy and well publicized trial, the case finally went to the jury. and they set him free, they let him go, said he was not guilty. not guilty. kenneth parks was allowed to walk because he was sleepwalking when the incident occurred. so what seemed like a clear case of murder was now ruled an involuntary act. now some 15 years later and 3,000 miles away in california, that verdict in toronto resonated as the trial approached in the case against stephen reitz. so you see something like that, and you go, well, you know, there s a possibility it could happen here again. you know? we re hearing about trials that had gone on and the people were innocent. that s scary. it s very scary. there s no accountability. but the l.a. county district attorney s office was determined to hold reitz accountable and