Caffeine Insanity? Ky. Man Killed Wife, Will Claim Caffeine Overdose

NEWPORT, Ky. (AP) Can too much caffeine turn someone into a killer?

It's a provocative premise the attorney for accused murderer Woody Will Smith plans to put to the test, in Smith's murder trial for the 2009 strangulation death of his wife. Opening arguments were expected Monday in a Newport, Ky. court, and defense lawyer Shannon Sexton has filed notice he'll argue his client consumed so much caffeine in the days before killing his wife, that it rendered him temporarily insane.

The 33-year-old Smith claims that he feared his wife, Amanda Hornsby-Smit,h would leave in the middle of the night with their two children because of a suspected affair, and that his resulting paranoia caused him to consume energy drinks and take diet pills containing ephedra to stay up all night and get through work the next day.

The legal strategy invoking caffeine intoxication is extremely unusual - but it has succeeded at least once before, in a case involving a man who was cleared in 2009 of charges of running down and injuring two people with a car in Washington State.

While Kentucky prosecutor Michelle Snodgrass would not comment publicly about the defense strategy, she did argue in previous hearings that the state's experts will testify that Smith tested negative for amphetamine-type substances in the hours after the killing, according to the Kentucky Enquirer.

Snodgrass also noted that the autopsy report on Hornsby-Smith tested positive for those substances.

"For all we know, the diet pills could have been hers," Snodgrass said in court.

Police say Smith used an extension cord to strangle his wife on May 4, 2009, then used the same cord to bind her feet together. Smith then allegedly used another cord to tie his wife's hands

Smith told Dr. Robert Noelker, a psychologist hired by the defendant, that he remembers taking his children to school that morning but remembers little else about the ensuing hours.

After picking up the children later that day, Smith said he went to his mother and stepfather's house. He described feeling "out of control," weeping to the point of being unable to communicate. Smith eventually confided in his stepfather, Noelker wrote, saying "I think my wife is dead."

Jury selection began Monday morning, with opening statements expected to begin in the afternoon.