Man Convicted of Stomping His Aunt to Death : Crime: Paul Robert Runnion is found guilty of first-degree murder. His sanity is at issue in penalty phase.

VAN NUYS — For three or four years, Paul Robert Runnion thought about killing his aunt, Marietta Donnelly, he told police.

On Oct. 21, 1993, he finally did, shouting, “Leave, leave my world!” as he stomped on the 80-year-old San Fernando woman’s chest, according to Runnion’s tape-recorded confession to police.

Asked why he did it, Runnion explained: “Guys lose their heads sometimes.”

A tape of Runnion’s chilling confession, played to a San Fernando Superior Court jury, led them to convict Runnion, 38, of first-degree murder Wednesday.

Runnion, an unemployed truck driver, shared a house in the 2000 block of Phillippi Street with Donnelly, a frail, nearly blind former nurse who had taken care of Runnion for most of his life.

“He took everything from her,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Edwin F. Greene said in an interview, summarizing what he told the jury. “All his life, he took food from her. He took shelter from her. He took care from her. Finally, he took it all from her: He took her life.”

According to testimony by mental health experts, Runnion had come to view Donnelly as his tormentor. He told psychiatrists who evaluated him that she was a witch and that she molested children. He said she treated him like a prisoner, and he feared she was going to kill him, the doctors testified.

The jury returns to Judge Candace J. Beason’s courtroom today to determine whether Runnion was legally insane at the time of the murder. Deputy Public Defender Rose Fe Reglos asserts that her client was psychotic and therefore not criminally responsible for his actions.

If the jury finds Runnion legally sane--that he knew killing Donnelly was wrong and understood what he was doing--he faces 25 years to life in prison. If the jury finds he was insane, he would be sent to a state mental hospital until he was adjudged sane.

But prosecutor Greene said Runnion’s confession, given the morning he killed his aunt, shows he was calm and rational just two hours after the slaying.

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Runnion told San Fernando Police Detective Michael Langston that he was glad his aunt was dead, and that he’d resorted to violence when subtler methods failed to kill her.

“I wanted to try to kill her with my mind, but it didn’t work,” he said. “I was just trying to stare into her eyes and get her so upset she would have a heart attack, but it just wouldn’t work. She wouldn’t go down.”

So finally the 5-foot-11, 195-pound Runnion said he “just went berserk,” confronting the 5-foot-8, 110-pound Donnelly, knocking her down and bouncing on her chest with his knees as she gasped, “Help me, help me.”

“She was gasping . . . and I kept telling her to leave, leave my world, you know.”

He added that he then tore the curtains from the windows.

“I was tired of the darkness. I just wanted to let the sunlight in,” he told police.

A few minutes later, Runnion said, he returned to the dining room and stomped Donnelly again until he heard bones crack because “I wanted to make sure she was dead.”

Runnion was drinking coffee with a neighbor when police found him and notified him that his aunt had died. Runnion feigned surprise, Greene said.

Runnion finally admitted killing his aunt after officers confronted him with inconsistencies in his story about his activities that morning, Greene said.

The taped statement ended with a chilling exchange between Langston and Runnion.

Langston: “Are you glad that Marietta is dead?”

Runnion: “Yeah.”

Q: “If you had all to do again, would you do it again?”

A: “Yup.”

Q: “OK, do you want to add anything else, Paul? Do you want to say anything else?”

A: “No, I think I’ve said about enough, haven’t I?”