Mental Health Not to Blame for Switchblade Stabbing of Classmate, Judge Finds

Judge Von Deroian cut the applause short.

“Please stop,” she said during the December 9 hearing. “This is not a situation where anybody wins, a clapping situation. These are people’s lives.”

Deroian had just denied a “mental health diversion” petition from the legal team of Cora Vides, the former Laguna Blanca student who confessed to police a “bad thing” that invaded her thoughts is what drove her to stab her friend in the neck with a switchblade.

Vides is charged with attempted murder and has been out of custody on $1 million bail since the 2021 attack at her family home on the Mesa, which cut through the victim’s windpipe, severed her vocal cords, and left her with four other stab wounds to her body.

Vides’s attorneys sought to convince Judge Deroian their client suffers from such serious mental health disorders that counseling and medication, rather than a likely and lengthy prison term, was a more appropriate consequence of her actions.

They put forth a treatment plan of six months of intensive outpatient psychotherapy (with more if Vides chose to continue), after which the criminal charges against her could be dismissed and the records of the case sealed.

Prosecutors fought the petition. So did the victim’s family and supporters who packed the courtroom that day, many of them from the Laguna Blanca community. 

At the time of the stabbing, both Vides and the victim were seniors at the private Hope Ranch school and close friends. They were members of the art club and intellectual types who never partied or got into trouble. While Vides was a transfer student and more reserved, the victim was especially well-liked among her teachers and classmates.

Before the hearing, the victim’s supporters expressed concern Deroian would side with Vides, citing a new amendment to state law that puts the burden on the prosecution to prove a defendant’s mental health diagnosis was not a significant factor in the commission of their crime. 

So, when the judge finally handed down her decision ― and after three years of delays in the case ― the relief from the gallery spilled over again.

“Folks, I understand that this is an extremely emotional and difficult case,” Judge Deroian said. “But if there are any more issues of interrupting the proceedings, you will be removed.”

The ruling paves the way for Vides to go before a jury. She faces a minimum of 11 years in prison if convicted, depending on the results of the insanity defense her attorneys are expected to mount during trial. They did not respond to requests for comment.

Deroian, in explaining her decision, cited a lack of consensus among the six psychiatrists who have assessed Vides since the attack. Three were hired by the defense, two were retained by the court, and one was chosen by the prosecution.

“Certainly, all the mental health evaluators seem to agree that [Vides] suffered from major depression and anxiety,” said Deroian. “However, that is where the agreement ends.” 

One of the psychiatrists diagnosed Vides with “unspecified dissociative disorder,” the judge noted. Another labeled her with “compulsive personality disorder” and “post-traumatic stress disorder.” And yet another opined she exhibited signs of “persistent motor tic disorder,” “premenstrual dysphoric disorder,” and “gender dysphoria.” Vides herself suggested a new birth control medication had pushed her into a “fog” of depression.

“There seems to be no real understanding of what may have caused this incident, what the triggers were, but most importantly, how to treat the defendant’s condition to either stop or reduce this type of conduct from occurring in the future,” Deroian said. She called Vides’s proposed outpatient treatment plan “insufficient.” 

“And finally,” Deroian said, “the court finds the seriousness of the offense, the brutal nature of the alleged assault, the fact that this was an unprovoked attack, involved the alleged use of a knife, the location of the injury ― which just by luck did not result in the victim dying ― results in Defendant Vides posing a significant risk to the community and an unreasonable risk of danger to public safety.”

The Night Of

February 13, 2021, was like any other Saturday, Vides’s mother, Patti, told police. The family spent a casual afternoon together before the victim arrived at their Mesa home for dinner. “Everything was fine,” she said.

What Patti didn’t know, what no one knew, was that two weeks prior, Vides had been suddenly overwhelmed by a feeling that “something bad was going to happen.” It manifested with “dizziness,” an “inability to focus,” and generally feeling “feeble,” Vides told detectives. 

She believed her discomfort was inextricably linked to the victim and that if she killed her ― an action that was “inevitable” ― she would be released from it.

Around that time, Vides, who had an interest in knives, received a seven-inch switchblade for her 18th birthday from her father, Joshua. Switchblades longer than two inches are illegal in California. 

Joshua, a former chief financial officer for Microsoft Business Solutions, told police his daughter had always been a “mild-mannered” girl who was “calm and kind.” He denied any history of mental illness. 

In reality, Vides had seen a therapist in recent years, though only briefly, and reported bouts of self-mutilation by cutting on her thighs. 

By 10 p.m. the night of the stabbing, Vides and the victim retreated to her bedroom to watch the movie Chocolat and play Nintendo. They had a long heart-to-heart, said Vides, who moved from Washington state to Santa Barbara two years earlier and was still struggling to adjust. 

The victim empathized with her and suggested resources for support. Vides said throughout the conversation she felt “intense dread” over the “bad thing” that was about to happen. As they talked, she fidgeted with the switchblade, opening and closing it and finally placing it on her bed.

At around 2 a.m., Vides asked the victim if she wanted to meditate. She agreed and lay on the floor. Vides covered her face with a sweater and told her to relax. She then silently took hold of the knife and thrust down, stabbing her friend directly in the center of her neckline. 

The victim grabbed the knife and pulled it from her throat. Vides tried to pin her down and a violent struggle ensued, with Vides stabbing her behind the ear, in her arm and leg, and on her back. 

“She really wanted to live,” Vides told police, explaining the victim wasn’t able to speak but tried to make noise to alert the household by knocking over a lamp and throwing her shoes against the wall. “She did everything someone should do when someone is trying to hurt them,” Vides said.

The victim was eventually able to speak and told Vides: “Go get your parents. I need to go to the hospital. I will forgive you, and I will still be your friend.” Those words were enough to release Vides from the “bad thing” ― “like coming out of a dream,” she explained to police.

Joshua and Patti drove the victim and Vides to Cottage Hospital. The victim had again lost her voice. A nurse asked her who hurt her. She wrote in a Sharpie on the nurse’s arm: “Cora Vi―e…” before her handwriting trailed off. Hospital staff alerted the police, who contacted Vides and her parents in the parking lot. 

Detectives spoke to Vides for more than three hours. She grew cold from the blood that saturated her clothing, and they offered her a blanket. “We had a comfortable conversation, I would say,” one of the detectives testified. “She told me multiple times, ‘It’s okay, you’re just doing your job.’”

The victim was stabilized with emergency surgery and transported to UCLA, where doctors performed a complex laryngeal reconstruction. She is now attending college with the aid of a service dog.

Right from Wrong

As the criminal charges against Vides slowly wound their way through the justice system, the victim’s parents sued Vides’s family for negligence. 

They argued Vides’s parents knew of their daughter’s mental health issues when they gave her an illegal switchblade for her birthday, and attorneys cited “prior incidents where Cora Vides had threatened and actually used sharp objects on herself and others.” 

The lawsuit ― which described the “severe, gruesome, and permanent” injuries sustained by the victim, both physical and emotional ― recently settled out of court for an undisclosed sum, though it was described in legal filings as “substantial.”

Shortly after her arrest, Vides spoke to a psychiatrist from jail. The psychiatrist said Vides displayed “no indicators of delusional thought content,” “no indicators of a behavior disturbance,” and “no indication of previous or current hallucinations.” 

“Cora was oriented in all spheres,” the report says. “Her concentration was intact. Her memory was good. … Her judgment was normal.”

The psychiatrist asked Vides if a person or power could make her do something she did not want to do. Vides said no. They asked her if someone or something was to blame for her arrest and incarceration. Again, she responded no.

“Several times, Cora stated, ‘I did something bad,’” the report says. “When asked, ‘How did you know it was bad?’ she stated, ‘I know right from wrong.’”

In a separate interview out of custody, Vides ― who is currently only being treated for depression, prosecutors emphasized ― was asked to connect the intrusive thoughts of the “bad thing” with what she did to the victim.

“I don’t know how to answer that,” Vides responded. “It’s all too strange to make any sense. … I’ve never felt so disconnected before. … Things were unfolding in front of me rather than feeling in control and consciously making decisions.”

Throughout the interview, Vides said the victim was her “friend” and that her friend “hadn’t done anything wrong.” She stated, “It’s not fair what happened to her. … I just want to tell her how sorry I am.”

Vides will appear back in court on February 23 to set a trial date.