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Farmington • Almost 10 years ago, David Drommond Jr. shot his ex-wife on the steps of his Bountiful townhouse.
In 2008, a jury decided that he should spend the rest of his life in prison for the crime.
Now, Drommond is appealing the jury's decision to the Utah Supreme Court, claiming jurors did not hear crucial facts about medications he was taking, and asking for the opportunity to be paroled from prison.
Drommond, 39, was in a Davis County courtroom Monday, where family members testified about his declining mental state in the months before 28-year-old Janeil Drommond was murdered in August 2005.
"He fluctuated from sadness to depression to anger," brother Cameron Drommond testified in 2nd District Court. "It was unlike Dave to really show emotion for no reason. So for him to sit there and me just having a talk with him and for him to start crying, that's not typical for Dave. That's when he was telling me that a screw was loose in his head and something is wrong with him."
Monday's remand hearing was ordered by the Utah Supreme Court in 2013. Judge Robert Dale has been tasked to decide whether Drommond's use of the antidepressant Effexor had an "adverse effect" on the defendant and whether Drommond's attorneys provided ineffective council by not presenting expert testimony about the effects of Effexor in a patient who has bipolar disorder at his two-day sentencing hearing.
Dr. Pablo Stewart, a psychiatric consultant, testified Monday that it is clear Drommond suffered from bipolar disorder, and that his prescription for Effexor would have made that condition worse.
"It can 'flip' someone who is suffering from bipolar disorder from present state to a manic, irritable state," Stewart testified.
In a written report filed with the court, Stewart said Drommond began using Effexor in late 2004, after he began divorce proceedings with his wife. In the beginning of 2005, Drommond was irritable, angry, tried to commit suicide several times and choked Janeil Drommond in May 2005.
Two of Drommond's siblings and his mother testified Monday about his dramatic mood swings and erratic behavior. They talked about a 2005 family vacation in Hawaii where Drommond was not his usual self: He appeared sedated and zoned out. He refused to put on sunscreen and suffered a blistering sunburn. He "enjoyed" being toppled over and swept up by strong ocean waves.
"It was almost like he enjoyed hurting himself," Cameron Drommond said.
Drommond shot his ex-wife in the torso and head on Aug. 28, 2005, moments after the woman had ushered their two children inside his home for a court-ordered visitation.
Drommond then shot and wounded his former father-in-law, Neil Reed Bradley, 53, when Bradley ran to his daughter's rescue. When Drommond tried to turn the gun on himself, neighbors wrestled it away and held him for police.
After his arrest, his erratic behavior continued, according to his trial attorney Craig Peterson.
"He talked about the murder," Peterson testified Monday. "He told me in detail about it. What he had done and why. He described it to me, he had heard voices that had begun a week before. That he felt his ex-wife needed to be killed because it was in the best interest of his children … He told me he had armies that were at his command that were following him."
Drommond's sister, Maele Shakespear, testified she began researching her brother's medication as he was awaiting trial. She said she found research indicating that Effexor caused "homicidal and suicidal thoughts" in bipolar patients, and forwarded that research to her brother's attorneys.
But Peterson said it wasn't a defense he considered, because his client had told him that he wasn't taking the medication. On the day of the murder, Peterson recalled bringing full pill bottles to the jail for his client that had been prescribed months before.
"I didn't take much [from] it," Peterson said of the Effexor research. "I remember reading through the literature, but David wasn't taking his medications so I didn't look at it much beyond that. We talked about his medications as a whole. He told me he didn't take his medications. He didn't like them."
Stewart wrote in his report that while at the county jail, Drommond was switched from Effexor to Zoloft in 2008. Drommond told Stewart that when he switched medications, "it was like waking up" and that he began to feel more like himself.
The hearing is scheduled to continue into Tuesday. Following the hearing, Dale will likely take the matter under advisement and issue a ruling at a later date.
Drommond pleaded guilty to capital murder in December 2007. His guilty plea removed the death penalty from consideration, but allowed a jury to decide whether to sentence him to life in prison with or without the possibility of parole.