The gunshots came just minutes after the responding officer had left the house. Four people were inside. They were standing in the living room trying to figure out who had torn the house apart during the night. Then, without warning, bullets ripped through the glass doors. One man ran out through the garage.
Another woman escaped into a neighbor’s house and called 911. The remaining two women locked themselves inside a small closet near the bathroom. By then, the gunman was already inside the house. He kept repeating the same question over and over. Where is he? The moment one of the women shouted her name, a bullet tore straight through the closet door.
Within minutes, it was over. Two young mothers had been fatally shot. The other two people survived by nothing short of a miracle. The woman who managed to escape got a clear look at the shooter. He wasn’t a stranger. She had known him for years. She had once babysat his children. She had seen him many times before and considered him a friend.
That morning, he had returned to the house that had once been his home. But what brought him there had begun long before the first shot was ever fired. Hey guys, let me grab you for just a second. I’m really curious where my audience is watching from. So, I’d love for you to drop a comment and tell me what city you’re in and what time it is for you right now.
Thanks for taking a moment. Go ahead and share that in the comments. And now, let’s keep going. The Kohi family home on South Bellagio Drive in St. Augustine looked like the picture of quiet suburban life. At least until that day, just minutes after an employee from the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office left the peaceful cul de sac.
Emergency calls brought deputies, search teams, and crime scene investigators rushing back to the house. Inside, two young mothers had been brutally murdered. On the morning of August 27th, 2015, a surveillance camera on South Bellagio Drive in St. D. Augustine, Florida, captured friends beginning to arrive at a house at the end of the quiet suburban street.
At 9:10 that morning, 36-year-old Amanda Kohley, a mother of two, returned home in her white SUV. Amanda, who had recently separated from her husband, had spent the night at her boyfriend’s trailer. When she walked inside, she was met with a horrifying scene. Someone had broken into the house and everything had been turned completely upside down.
Trash cans had been dumped onto the floor. Drawers had been emptied. Clothes were scattered throughout the house. And several electronic devices, including televisions, had been smashed. Broken glass was everywhere. Amanda was upset, but she wasn’t surprised. Since 5:00 that morning, she had been ignoring angry phone calls and text messages from her husband, whom she was in the middle of divorcing.
She was convinced he was responsible for the destruction, but she wasn’t sure what to do next. About half an hour later, her boyfriend, Lamar Dubily, arrived. His white pickup made a wide turn at the end of the cul de sac before pulling up to Amanda’s house on the left, partly outside the camera’s view. Just a few minutes after Lamar arrived, a saint, John’s County Public Service Assistant, an employee the sheriff’s office sends to handle non-emergency calls, pulled up to the house.
The officer looked through the home and spoke with Amanda. She decided she wanted to consult with her divorce attorney before filing an official report that morning. At that point, there wasn’t much more the officer could do. At 10:29 that morning, he drove away from Amanda Kohley’s house. What happened over the next 7 to 10 minutes would change countless lives forever.
Not long after, two more of Amanda’s friends arrived to support her. The first was her best friend, 39-year-old Lindy Dobbins, a mother of three. As soon as Lindy heard what had happened, she left work. She was the kind of person who would drop everything to help a friend. Soon afterward, another close friend, Rachel Harris, joined Amanda, Lamar, and Lindy.
After dropping her children off at school, she came to the house to help as well. The four friends stood together in the living room, looking around at the ransacked house while trying to comfort Amanda as she cried. Then, without warning, gunshots rang out. Bullets tore through the room, shattering the glass doors that opened onto the backyard.
Just minutes after the public service assistant had driven away, the surveillance camera captured Lamar sprinting out of the house. He burst from the living room, raced through the laundry room into the garage, ducked beneath the partially open garage door, and ran into the front yard. He kept running between two neighboring houses, and didn’t stop until he reached a landscaping crew several blocks away.
Only then was he finally able to ask for help. Shots were fired from the outside into the house and Do you know who it was? Yeah, I got a great idea who it was. Okay. Are they still there? I don’t know. I don’t know. I left. I had to run. The gunshots didn’t hit anybody. Correct. No, they hit the back and and glass shattered everywhere.
They hit the flying glass window. I think the shots were aimed at me. Just a few minutes after Lamar ran from the house, Rachel Harris came sprinting out as well. She ran to the Dickens family’s home two houses away. Once inside, Rachel hid in a closet and called 911. with her. He went in the house shooting and I ran. I just ran.
I think he shot everybody. I’m so scared. I got a bullet. He shot my friend right in front of me. I mean, I’m scared to death for my life. shot and he shot our other friend that was there with us. I’m hiding in her neighborhood. I’m scared to death. Two more calls to 911 were made from inside the house.
One by Amanda and the other by Lindy. On those recordings, all that can be heard are muffled sounds, terrified screams, and gunshots. Inside the home on South Bellagio Drive, investigators found Amanda Kohley. She had been struck by nine bullets. Many of the wounds were to her arms and legs, suggesting she had tried to shield herself from the attacker.
Amanda’s best friend, Lindy, was found at the very back of a small closet next to the bathroom connected to the bedroom. She had been shot three times. Both young mothers died from their injuries. Rachel told investigators she saw the shooter through the glass doors leading to the backyard. Just beyond the fence, there was a walking path that ran behind the homes on South Bellagio Drive.
That was where the gunman had opened fire. Bullet holes in the glass doors along with unfired cartridges found in the grass beside the path confirmed the accounts given by both Rachel and Lamar. Once it was safe to return, Lamar came back to the scene and told investigators that he heard the first gunshots at the exact moment the glass doors exploded.
In the middle of all the chaos, he could hear a man’s voice shouting, “Where is he? Where’s Bizzy?” Lamar realized almost immediately that he was the attacker’s primary target. He shouted for everyone else to run, then bolted out of the house through the garage. The three women ran in the opposite direction toward the bedroom and then into the connected bathroom.
Rachel later told police that she and Lindy hid inside the bathroom closet while Amanda remained on the other side of the door. Rachel said she heard the attacker come into the house through the shattered glass doors before making his way into the bathroom where they were hiding. Over and over again, he kept demanding, “Where is he?” When Amanda told him that only Rachel and Lindy were inside the closet, he ignored her.
Then Lindy shouted, “It’s me. It’s Lindy.” The instant she said that, a bullet tore through the closet door. It grazed Rachel’s arm, forcing her to let go of the door knob she had been gripping tightly to keep the door shut. The same bullet struck Lindy in the foot. Amanda had also been shot, but she was still alive when the attacker’s attention shifted to the closet.
As he pulled the closet door wide open, he unknowingly blocked Rachel behind it. He then moved toward Lindy, who was sitting at the back of the closet, partially hidden behind a dresser. Seizing the opportunity, Rachel ran out of the closet and then out of the house. She never witnessed the final moments of her friend’s life.
But Rachel got a clear look at the attacker. It was a man she had known for years, someone she had seen many times before, whose children she had once babysat, and someone she had once considered a friend. It was Amanda’s husband, James Kohley Jr., the man she was in the middle of divorcing. A massive search for James Kohley began immediately with canine units joining the effort.
The tracking dogs followed his scent along the walking path across an embankment and to a nearby street. During the search, investigators found the cell phone James had thrown away near the road that morning. The vehicle he had driven into the neighborhood earlier that day was already gone. As the hours passed, helicopters searched the area while the entime John’s County Sheriff’s Office launched a largecale manhunt.
Investigators believed James was still armed. And after opening fire on his own family home in broad daylight, no one could predict what he might do next. A few hours later, police in Norton, Virginia, stopped James Kohley Jr. while he was driving his sister’s vehicle. Inside the car, officers found several firearms, including the two handguns used in the murders, a 9mm pistol and a 45 caliber pistol.
Handfuls of ammunition were scattered across the front passenger seat. If there had been any doubt about the shooter’s identity, it disappeared when investigators found fragments of glass from the house embedded on the inside of the driver’s door. As of August 2015, James Kohley Jr., whom many people simply called Junior, and his wife Amanda had been married for 8 years.
Together, they were raising two children. When their marriage finally began to fall apart at the beginning of the summer, the couple separated. James moved in with his sister Rhonda, who lived on Garrison Drive, about 15 mi from the family home on South Bellagio Drive. Over the next several months, they worked through the many issues surrounding their divorce, including shared custody of their two young children.
James had started dating another woman, a co-orker from City Bank named Amy. The two were already making plans for the future once his divorce from Amanda was finalized. Amanda had also started a new chapter in her life. She met Lamar while they were both working for a sports apparel company. Lamar worked in operations while Amanda was part of the customer support team.
But despite living apart and both moving into new relationships, it seemed James Coley never accepted that the marriage was over. He repeatedly demanded that Amanda admit she was seeing another man. Amanda refused to answer, but James found another way to get the information he wanted.
During the weekend before the shooting, James received a photograph from his former neighbor and close friend, Mike Dickens. The picture showed a shirtless man mowing the lawn in front of the house on South Bellagio Drive. That man was Lamar Dubily. Although James didn’t yet know who he was, he decided the photograph confirmed what he believed was Amanda’s affair.
On the morning of August 27th, the day of the murders, James decided to gather even more proof of the relationship and find out the identity of the man who had been mowing the lawn outside his former home. It appears that shortly after 4:30 that morning, he found exactly what he had been looking for. There is no surveillance footage showing James Coley entering the house on South Bellagio Drive that morning.
Investigators believe he most likely slipped in through the backyard without being seen. the same route he would use again just a few hours later. This time armed with two handguns. While all of this was happening, his children were peacefully asleep at their aunt’s house several miles away. At around 3:00 that morning, James broke into the family home for the first time and discovered Amanda wasn’t there.
Furious that his wife had spent the night somewhere else. He trashed the house, throwing clothes, garbage, and other belongings across the floor and smashing several televisions. At 4:40 that morning, a surveillance camera captured his pickup truck pulling up outside Mike Dickens home at the end of the culdesac. James woke his friend by pounding loudly on the side door.
He wanted to show Mike what he had found inside Amanda’s house. Several newly purchased intimate items. By breaking into the home on South Balagio Drive, James had once again violated the protective order Amanda had obtained against him earlier that month because of domestic violence. Under that order, he was prohibited from going near either Amanda or the house.
Mike told his friend to calm down, gave him one or two bottles of beer, and sent him home to sleep. But James Kohley Jr. had no intention of calming down. After his arrest in Virginia, James was charged with two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of attempted murder, burglary, and aggravated stalking in violation of a protective order.
After pleading not guilty, he was booked into the county jail. Meanwhile, investigators with the St. John’s County Sheriff’s Office began carefully reconstructing every one of James’ movements between 4:45 that morning when he left Mike Dickens house and his return to South Balagio at approximately 10:30. Those hours became the foundation of the prosecution’s case.
Investigators believe the photograph of Lamar mowing the lawn without a shirt, along with the intimate items James found inside Amanda’s home, became the catalyst for the double murder. The anger that had been building inside James after seeing that photograph finally spiraled out of control on the morning of August 27th.
Starting just before 5:00 that morning, immediately after leaving Mike Dickens house, James began calling Amanda over and over again. Between that moment and the start of the shooting, he called her 22 times. Don’t do nothing to me. I won’t do nothing to you. I will bring you up in court about what you really are.
And we both know what you really are. You’re lucky to tell our children about this. Amanda, you’re disgusting. That’s what you are. Please talk to me. Please. talk to me. Maybe I Please, this is the last time we’ll tell her at night. Please. Between those voicemail messages, which swung from anger to desperation, James also sent Amanda a series of text messages.
You should have just told me the truth. If this is what you wanted, I would have left you alone. I’m giving you a chance to just walk away. You should have just told me. I could have moved on. 8 years, two kids. Please call me. I’m coming to find you. The final phone call came at 10:22 that morning, just minutes before bullets tore into the house.
Amanda answered only three of James’ calls. The first two conversations were very brief. The third lasted just under 15 minutes. Prosecutors believed that something said during that final phone call became the last trigger that pushed James Kohley Jr. into an uncontrollable rage. James Kohley’s defense team planned to argue that he was not criminally responsible because of involuntary intoxication.
During the two days leading up to the murders, James had been taking a dangerous combination of substances. He had been prescribed Symbalta for anxiety and hydrocodone for pain. On August 26th, he drank 11 pints of beer, and the following day, he continued drinking alcohol off and on. After returning to his sister’s house following the break-in at Amanda’s home and his visit to Mike Dickens, he took ambient and went to sleep.
A few hours later, James woke up, and according to the defense, he was still under the combined effects of ambient, alcohol, and the other medications. Around the same time Amanda was returning home, James Kohley arrived at the courthouse for a hearing involving a separate violation of the domestic violence protective order.
He calmly walked into the building and passed through the security checkpoint without any issues. Surveillance cameras showed James walking calmly through the hallways before entering the courtroom. On the video, he appeared completely calm and composed. During the hearing, James listened carefully to the judge and answered his questions, including denying that he was under the influence of any substance that could have impaired him.
He admitted the violation by entering a no contest plea. After leaving the courthouse, James continued calling and texting Amanda. On his way back to his sister’s house, he stopped at a gas station and bought a small amount of gasoline. Investigators believed he either wanted enough fuel to get to work or was preparing to flee the state after the attack.
During the search of his sister’s home on Garrison Drive, investigators found what they believed was additional evidence that the crime had been planned. In the bedroom where James kept his belongings, an empty holster was lying on the floor. A rifle case had been pulled from the closet and left beside piles of ammunition.
Nearby was a dark duffel bag filled with even more rounds. Among that ammunition were 45 zombie cartridges, the same type that, according to the medical examiner, caused Amanda Koh’s fatal injuries. Investigators also recovered a case for a 9mm pistol from underneath the bed. James’ medications were sitting on the nightstand and inside a drawer were the intimate items he had taken from Amanda’s house the night before.
When the trial began, the defense laid out its central argument. They called a clinical pharmarmacologist and a clinical psychologist who were prepared to explain to the jury that the combination of medications James had taken could have impaired his ability to think clearly, exercise sound judgment, and most importantly form the intent to commit murder.
Defense attorney Terry Shoemaker told the jury that on the morning of the murders, while James was at the courthouse, it was obvious that something wasn’t right with him. At the same time, the defense never disputed that James was the shooter on South Bellagio. That was never in question. It’s never been a question who did that.
The question is why did it happen? How could this happen? How could a person that loved his family more than anything in his life do that? How could a person who loves his kids more than anything in his life, coaches football, coaches baseball, takes them to Disney, goes on trips, make them more? How could that happen? He has to ask the same question a number of times.
As he’s looking at him, he realizes, yeah, he seems a little nervous, but there seems to be a little more. Sweating profusely, he’s jittery. Just something didn’t seem real. And how that can cause memory loss, how it can cause sleepwalking, how it can cause accidents, people have no recollection. In other words, at the time of these events, they’re going to tell you that it’s very possible that JR didn’t know what he was doing.
or didn’t know what it was intended to do. The prosecution presented an exceptionally strong and detailed case. The first witness called to the stand was Rachel Hendrik who identified James as the gunman. There was a loud shatter of glass shattering and um a small explosion like a vein. Okay. um coming from the outside and um so I looked out back from obviously the glass was shattered and falling on the floor.
So I looked out back and I saw Mr. Collie standing in the backyard with a handgun shooting into the living room. Mike Dickens testimony supported what prosecutors believed had set the crime in motion. the photograph of Lamar and the intimate items James found inside Amanda’s house which he immediately showed to his friend.
You just want me to come outside and look in this front seat of his truck. Did he tell you why he wanted you to look in the front seat of his truck? Not at the beginning. He just kept telling me to to get out there and look look what I did or look what I found. Okay.
And he was upset about discovering these items. Is that correct? It was. Yes, sir. Did he tell you where he found these toys? He did. Where did he tell you he found him? He told me he had ran inside the house and he found us inside the house. How did you um respond to that? Basically that well there’s her proof, you know, that she’s cheating and we’re big deal. Who cares? Go home.
He was agitated. He was he was upset. Yeah. He was uh antsy, but he was upset. He was crying from what I recall. Experts also presented data recovered from James’ cell phone, including his call history, text messages, and location data tracking his movements. The text messages James sent to Mike revealed his growing anger not only toward Amanda, but also toward her closest friends, Lindy and Rachel.
In particular, he blamed Lindy, believing she was the one who had turned Amanda against him. Throughout July, James sent Mike messages like these. Amanda met up with Lindy and 30 minutes later, she told me she didn’t love me anymore. That’s complete [ __ ] Those two [ __ ] brainwashed her. The jury also listened to the angry voicemail messages James left Amanda on the morning of the murders.
On one of the recordings, in addition to James’ voice, there were sounds of a struggle and other voices in the background. According to investigators, that call was made at the exact time James was at his sister’s house retrieving his firearms. Prosecutors argued that the recording captured James’ father yelling at him and calling him names.
They believed it was further evidence that James was deliberately gathering weapons in preparation for the attack. According to the prosecution, his father was trying to stop him from leaving the house armed. A few minutes later, James called his father. By then, he was already driving towards South Bellagio Drive shortly after 10:00 that morning.
A woman walking her dog near James’ father’s house, overheard part of that phone conversation. Um, I was just hearing him say, um, please, please, son, come back and get your truck. Um, don’t do this. Everybody knows what you’ve been through. Um, the person on the other end was doing most of the talking, but it was yelling, so I I couldn’t hear um everything that person said.
The only thing I heard clearly is he said, “I can’t see this anymore.” After the prosecution rested its case, the defense changed its strategy. Surveillance footage from the courthouse, video from the gas station, along with the many phone calls and text messages had largely undermined the defense’s original claim that James had been so intoxicated that morning he wasn’t aware of what he was doing.
As a result, the defense essentially abandoned its involuntary intoxication argument. Instead, the attorneys shifted their focus to challenging the prosecution’s claim that the murders had been planned in advance. To support that argument, they called their key witness. It wasn’t James Kohley himself who chose not to testify, but his sister Rhonda.
At the time of the murders, James was living at her house, although Rhonda wasn’t there because she was on a twoe vacation in Italy. Two weeks after the murders, Rhonda told investigators that she did not believe the shooting had been planned ahead of time. According to her, she knew that because the guns used in the murders had already been inside her vehicle, the same vehicle James was driving that morning.
You locked that vehicle up when you left to go to jail. I was the reason for locking that vehicle. Um, I had two guns in the vehicle and I wasn’t planning on going to be home for several weeks. And what guns did you last in your vehicle? Um, the 9 mill and I think it’s a 45. Did you anticipate that anybody would be driving your vehicle when you went to? No, of course not.
Nobody ever prosecutors viewed Rhonda’s testimony as extremely beneficial to the defense. In their view, her statements supported a version of events that cast doubt on whether James had formed the intent to kill before the shooting. The prosecution also pointed out that Rhonda remained very close to her younger brother.
Because of that relationship, they argued she had a personal motive to give testimony that could help him avoid the harshest possible punishment. At that point, James was facing the possibility of a death sentence because he was on trial for firstdegree premeditated murder in the state of Florida. If he was convicted, the death penalty remained one of the possible sentences.
Prosecutors emphasized that if the defense could create reasonable doubt in the minds of the jurors about whether James had acted with premeditated intent, the legal classification of the crime could change. In that case, the charges could potentially be reduced to seconddegree murder or even manslaughter. According to the prosecution, that was exactly why Ronda’s testimony was so important to the defense because a lesser conviction could save James’ life by eliminating the possibility of a death sentence.
Little brother and you do anything for him with you to buy anything? That’s my question. You would do anything for your brother to After that, both sides turned their attention to Rhonda’s testimony. During cross-examination, she was questioned in detail about the inconsistencies between the different statements she had given throughout the investigation and the trial.
Prosecutors focused in particular on her first interview with detectives, which took place about 2 weeks after the murders. At that time, Rhonda said there had been two handguns locked inside her vehicle, a 45 caliber pistol and a 380 caliber pistol. Later, however, while testifying, her account became less definite.
This time, she said it had been either a 45 caliber pistol or possibly even a 40 caliber pistol, creating a noticeable inconsistency with her earlier statement. It wasn’t until the trial that Rhonda stated without hesitation that the same two handguns she had left inside her vehicle were the ones used to murder Amanda Kohley and Lindy Dobbins.
Those inconsistencies became a major point of discussion in court as both sides sought to determine how consistent and reliable her testimony had remained throughout the investigation. Why are you guys saying this is premeditation when you know that the guns were in my car? Something along those lines, right? You volunteered that.
You’re like, “Hey, it’s not it’s not what you guys think it is because I had the guns in the car.” Right. Right. And he asked you, “What guns did you have in your car?” Right. And isn’t it You said, “I think it might have been a .45.” And you but you said nothing about the N 9 millm, did you? I was on medication, too, as well.
Okay. So, your testimony here today is that your memory about the guns that you left locked in your car when you went on your two week trip to Italy um is clear 3 years after the fact versus 2 weeks after the fact. Is that correct? Again, I’m not sure the I’m remembering more things. And you kept these guns in your car.
You didn’t keep ammunition for the guns in your car, did you? No, I had to, you know, ammo and the guns. Okay. You didn’t you didn’t like keep a box of ammunition in the front passenger seat, did you? I did not. Um you didn’t like keep um loose bullets um rolling around in the front passenger seat. Correct.
You didn’t have them anywhere in the car, did you? The defense maintained that James did not drive to Amanda’s house with a premeditated intent to kill anyone. According to the defense, his decision to go there by itself did not prove he had planned a double murder or acted according to a carefully thoughtout scheme.
Instead, the attorneys argued that something happened after James arrived that finally pushed him over the edge. In their view, that was the moment when the situation suddenly escalated and spiraled out of control. The defense, however, could not explain what that triggering event might have been. The attorneys openly acknowledged that they did not know what conversation or incident inside the house could have caused it.
Even so, they argued that if the guns had already been inside the vehicle, then the events that followed could have unfolded in exactly that way. Based on that theory, the defense asked the jury to conclude that James’ decision to use deadly force was not made in advance, but instead was made only after he arrived at Amanda’s house. Now, the state wants you to believe that he drove all the way back to get the guns, but the testimony today is that the guns were already in the car.
I don’t know what happened to Satam. The state doesn’t know what happened to Satan. I have no idea, but I can tell you that he already had the guns and if he was going to go over there to do this, he’d have gone straight from court. I would say that it’s a secondary murder case, one in which a shooter acted with a depraved mind and not without regard for human life.
You can find him guilty of that maybe, but there hasn’t been any proven premeditation based on what the state has said today or what the evidence shows. James’ final phone call with Amanda took place after he left the courthouse. By then, the hearing was over, but the events that would permanently change so many lives were still ahead.
Their conversation lasted 14 minutes. It was the last time they ever spoke to each other before the tragedy. Exactly what was said during that call has never been made public. The contents of the conversation remain unknown, so all that can be established is that the call took place and how long they remained on the phone.
During the trial, prosecutor Jennifer Dunton argued that this conversation became the final trigger that led to the tragedy. In her view, once the call ended, James crossed the line from words to actions. Addressing the jury, Jennifer Dunton emphasized that after hanging up the phone, James had countless opportunities to stop. According to the prosecution, he could have abandoned his plan, driven somewhere else, or simply chosen not to continue down that path.
Instead, she argued, at every step that followed, James consciously made the opposite choice. And those decisions ultimately led to the tragic outcome. I don’t want you to forget about all the choices he made on August 27th. All the time he had to reflect. Don’t forget that he could have left court and got to work. Don’t forget he could have let his issues with Amanda go.
You heard he had a new girlfriend as well. They had plans to go away. Could have let it go, but he couldn’t. Don’t forget that he returned to that house on yours and then obtained those firearms that he drove 15 miles. It’s a long time to think about what you’re about to do. Don’t forget that when he didn’t find Lamar inside the home, that didn’t stop him.
He could have left. He could have run out the front door looking for him. But it didn’t stop him, but he couldn’t find Lamar. He continued to hunt and hunt for him. Decisions. His dad begs him not to do it. People are telling him to stop, but he’s not listening. After closing arguments concluded, the jury left the courtroom to begin deliberations and reach a final decision.
Despite the extensive evidence, testimony, and arguments presented throughout the trial, it took them only 2 hours to reach a unanimous conclusion. When the jurors returned to the courtroom, they delivered their verdict. Their decision was unanimous. James Kohley was found guilty on every count. Not a single juror dissented and the guilty verdict was returned without exception.
We the jury find the defendant James Terry Collie Jr. as follows as to count one of the indictment guilty as charged of both first degree premeditated murder and first degree felony murder contrary to Florida statute. At the conclusion of the trial, the jury found James Kohley guilty on all seven charges brought by the prosecution.
Their verdict was unanimous and covered every count considered during the case. Those convictions included two counts of firstdegree murder, multiple counts related to attempted murder and burglary. After reviewing all of the evidence and hearing the testimony presented throughout the trial, the jurors found no basis to acquit James or reduce his criminal responsibility.
So nothing will bring Amanda and Lindy back, but they are um satisfied with the juries. I love my son no matter what, and the whole story does not go. The same jury that had found James Kohley guilty of two counts of firstdegree murder returned to the courtroom the following week.
This time they faced another critical decision. Whether his crimes warranted the harshest punishment allowed under the law, the death penalty. During this phase of the trial, the defense shifted its strategy once again and called the witnesses it had originally planned to use in support of its involuntary intoxication defense. The attorneys argued that James’ mental state at the time of the murders had been severely impaired by the side effects of the sleep medication ambient.
Forensic psychiatrist doctor Mark Mills testified that James was suffering from a significant mental disturbance caused by ambient at the time of the killings. According to Dr. Mills, James was experiencing a condition known as parisomnia. He explained to the jury that parasomnia is a sleep disorder in which a person can appear to act logically, purposefully, and with full awareness.
While later having little or no memory of what they did during the episode, a clinical pharmacologist offered similar testimony, supporting Dr. Mills’s conclusions and agreeing that in theory, ambient could produce that type of mental state as a rare side effect. To challenge those claims, the prosecution called two witnesses of its own.
Forensic psychiatrist doctor Jeffrey Danzinger and Judge Charles Tinland, who had presided over James’ protective order violation hearing on the morning of the murders. Dr. Danzinger explained that people experiencing parasomnia can sometimes perform surprisingly complex actions. In some cases, he said they may sleepwalk or even drive a vehicle without being aware of what they are doing.
However, he emphasized that such episodes are typically accompanied by poor coordination and the person usually appears confused, disoriented, and obviously impaired. According to Dr. Danzinger, those are the behaviors normally associated with parasomnia. In this case, investigators had surveillance video showing James Kohley’s behavior during the exact period when the defense claimed he was experiencing that condition.
Those recordings became some of the most important evidence for evaluating his actual mental state. Judge Charles Tinland also testified. He told the jury that during the hearing that morning, he had seen no indication whatsoever that James was mentally impaired or under the influence of medication or any other substance.
According to the judge, James behaved completely normally. Nothing about his demeanor raised any concerns, and he appeared to be fully aware of his surroundings and completely in control of his actions. After all of the witnesses had testified, all of the evidence had been presented, and both sides had completed their arguments, the jury began its deliberations.
In the end, the jurors unanimously recommended that James Kohley be sentenced to death for each of the two first-degree murder convictions, having unanimously found that at least one aggravating factor has been established beyond a reasonable doubt, and that the aggradating factors are sufficient to warrant a sentence of death.
After that came what is known as a Spencer hearing, the final and most important stage before the court imposed its sentence. During this hearing, the defense had one last opportunity to present mitigating circumstances that might influence the judge’s decision and persuade the court not to sentence James to death. The atmosphere in the courtroom remained tense.
For the families of the victims, it was another painful day, forcing them to once again relive the details of the case that had changed their lives forever. At the same time, the defense was making its final attempt to change the outcome. It was during this hearing that James addressed the court in his own words for the first time.
Until then, he had said very little publicly, so everyone in the courtroom waited closely to hear what he would say. His statement was brief. Without offering a lengthy explanation or detailed remarks, he spoke only a few sentences. During his statement, James described the killings as a terrible accident.
That was how he characterized the events that took the lives of two people and ultimately brought him before the court. Prior to the court deciding appropriate sentences in this case, do you desire to say anything to the court’s complaint? This was a horrible, terrible back then. And I wish it was different, but it’s not.
And I’m sorry for all parties involved. After the sentence was imposed, James Kohley made multiple attempts to avoid the death penalty, but none of them were successful. His appeals did not change the outcome and the sentence remained in place. The Florida Supreme Court later upheld his convictions for first-degree murder.
After conducting a thorough review of the case, the court affirmed the lower court’s ruling and left James Kohley’s death sentence in effect. For the families and friends of Amanda Kohley and Lindy Dobbins, however, no court ruling could ever fill the void left by this tragedy. Even though the year’s long legal process eventually came to an end, the pain it caused never truly did.
For them, this was never just another criminal case that ended with a verdict. It was an unimaginable loss they will carry with them for the rest of their lives. Even though he’s convicted, I don’t know that it’s, you know, it’s it’s not good enough because you can’t get Lindy back. You know, it’s like a nightmare. And it’s still a nightmare.
It’ll always be a nightmare.
Disclaimer : This content may be created by AI for entertainment purposes. Any resemblance to real persons, events, or places is coincidental.
