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A Menlo Park man who attacked his 83-year-old mother in September 2016 has been found guilty of felonies of elder abuse, making threats and false imprisonment in a jury trial verdict reached June 19.
According to prosecutors, John William Lyle, now 63, lived in an RV in the driveway of his mother’s Menlo Park home. He became enraged toward her on Sept. 22, 2016, when he suspected that his mother had spoken with his doctor.
Prosecutors say he then picked her up, dragged her from the kitchen to the backyard, threw her on the ground and held her down by the neck. He then swung and jabbed a baseball bat at her shoulder and chest. He also used a garbage bag and duct tape and threatened to tape her mouth shut, wrap her head in a plastic bag and burn down the house.
He eventually let her go, but when she tried to leave, he pulled her back into the house. When he left later, the woman barricaded herself in the house with a loaded gun and sent a text message to her daughter in Arkansas.
The daughter called 911, and Lyle was arrested the next day.
The mother, Norma Lyle, suffered from bruising and had a broken thumb, according to prosecutors.
Lyle is the son of the Menlo Park Police Department’s first and only police officer to be killed in the line of duty, a man by the same name who went by Jack. John “Jack” W. Lyle was killed at age 29 in a gunfight in the parking lot of Draeger’s Market on September 22, 1960.
The man who shot Jack W. Lyle, Roy Henry “Hook” Lane Jr., had been driving a stolen vehicle, and he and an accomplice were planning a robbery in Menlo Park, according to a memorial page on the police officers’ association website.
While Lyle blocked his exit and approached to apprehend him in the Draeger’s parking lot, Lane shot him multiple times. Lane was later arrested, convicted of Lyle’s murder and executed in November 1962 at San Quentin prison.
Today, Jack W. Lyle Park, at the corner of Fremont Street and Middle Avenue, bears the deceased officer’s name.
John Lyle’s attack on his mother came 56 years to the day after his father’s death. According to Lyle’s attorney, L. Scott Sherman, the death of Jack Lyle set the family adrift and put them in difficult circumstances, leaving Norma Lyle, John’s mother, a single parent of four at the age of 27, and John fatherless at age 4.
When John was 17, he suffered a traumatic brain injury in a motorcycle accident and had long suffered from physical and mental illnesses, Sherman said, adding that he also had a delusional disorder diagnosis.
A shifting case
John Lyle’s case has wound its way through the county court system, complicated by factors of mental competency, shifts in his representation, and a last-minute request to change his plea.
After Lyle’s arrest, the court assigned Sherman to represent him from the county’s Private Defender Program. On March 14, 2017, Sherman voiced doubt of Lyle’s competency to stand trial, and two doctors were assigned to evaluate him. They found him incompetent to stand trial and he was committed to Napa State Hospital on Aug. 30 the same year.
A little less than a year later, on July 17, 2018, Lyle was issued a certificate that his competency to stand trial had been restored, so the court reinstated criminal proceedings.
On Dec. 11 of that year, a defense expert, Dr. Jeffrey Weiner, testified he believed that Lyle was not competent to stand trial. However, a request for new competency hearings wasn’t granted because “there were no apparent changed circumstances,” according to a report from the District Attorney’s Office.
Then, on Jan. 17 of this year, the court heard a request from Lyle to represent himself, which the judge granted. Sherman stayed on as advisory counsel to provide legal guidance only when requested.
On June 3, just before his trial date, Lyle changed his mind and asked that Sherman represent him again.
Sherman asked for time to prepare for the trial, because he had not worked on the case since January. The court permitted Lyle to switch back to working with Sherman, but gave him only until June 10 – a little under a week – to prepare for the case.
On Friday, June 7, with Sherman’s counsel, Lyle indicated he wanted to change his plea from not guilty to not guilty because of insanity. The court did not permit this and the trial was set to continue on June 10.
The trial included witness statements from the three law enforcement officers who responded to the Lyle home after the assault, and two doctors who evaluated the victim’s injuries. The victim, Norma Lyle, also testified, accompanied by her granddaughter for support, as did another officer who was familiar with the crime scene.
The jury deliberated for more than a day before it reached its verdicts: guilty on three felony counts of elder abuse, threats and false imprisonment of an elderly victim. The jury members did not come to unanimous verdicts on the enhancements of great bodily injury (the jury was split 11-1) and the use of a deadly weapon (a 7-5 split).
Lyle next appears in court on Aug. 9 for a pre-sentence report and sentencing. He remains in custody on no-bail status.
“In San Mateo County, I do believe that we are lagging behind a lot of other counties in more progressive places that deal with mental illness better,” Sherman told The Almanac. “This is a sad case (that involves) the allegation of a son accused of assaulting his mother, and there were obvious signs of mental health distress from the very, very beginning.”
“What should be learned is that court systems are not the right place to deal with mental health problems,” he continued. “John’s mother testified in court that the whole time she was concerned about John and wanted him to get help.”
“The people of San Mateo County have to decide what’s the right way to deal with mental health issues … especially ones as obvious as are in this case,” he added. “I don’t think jail and criminalization is the right way.”
Mental illness is irrelevant. Persons capable of such violence must be permanently incarcerated, no parole ever, for the protection of the rest of society,
Sad case but the son should be in jail or prison hospital for the rest of his life.
Y’all sound like that guy in the 90’s who wanted capital punishment for the Central Park Five, even before the trial.
Read the article. He has been tried and convicted Mat
Mr. Lyle has severe mental illnesses, deserves incarceration at a mental illness facility, not a prison. Prisons do not treat mental illness, nor are they designed to do so, however mental hospitals do incarcerate while treating the illness. That is where Mr. Lyle belongs. The Judge knew Lyle suffers delusional dysfunction illness, yet did not allow the please change after Lyle had an attorney, gave the attorney a week to prepare for the trial and disallowed mental illness evidence entirely. A jury can only decide from the facts presented, not facts omitted. Had that evidence been allowed in court, it may well have delivered an entirely different verdict.
Appears easy for some people to Monday morning Quarterback, based on limited information. Just as a Jury did.
Lyle definitely needs to pay for what he did, but should serve his time in the proper venue, and with a sentence to keep him there far longer in a mental hospital, than the court can sentence him to a statutory prison term.