Current conditions unavailable
A judge on Wednesday found a 28-year-old man guilty except for insanity for fatally stabbing a man who was urinating on a retaining wall in front of the Portland Art Museum in 2023.
Multnomah County Circuit Judge Kelly Skye ruled that evidence clearly showed Jonathan Grall was suffering from schizophrenia when he killed Jonathan D. Bennett, 34.
Grall’s “paranoia and persecutorial delusions interfered with his ability to appreciate the criminality” of his actions, Skye said.
She based that finding on Grall’s call to 911 shortly after the attack on Jan. 31, 2023, his videotaped statements to a Portland homicide detective hours later and thousands of pages of records documenting his history of mental illness.
“He acted in what he believed to be self-defense,” Skye said.
Bennett had been facing the art museum when Grall approached and stabbed him once. He was found lying on his back in a pool of blood outside the museum, according to testimony during a weeklong trial. A knife with a three- to four-inch blade and a green handle was found near his body.
Bennett died at the scene from a single stab wound to the neck, an autopsy found.
The judge said she found the testimony and analysis offered by defense expert Michelle Guyton, president-elect of the American Academy of Forensic Psychology, credible.
Guyton testified that she believed Grall was unable to conform his actions to the law at the time of the stabbing based on her evaluation of him and review of the evidence.
Guyton noted that Grall called 911 right away and that he described Bennett as “the assailant” even though Bennett had been attacked from behind and was unarmed.
Guyton said Grall suggested the stranger might still be after him as Bennett lay dying.
She said Grall also asked a bizarre question – “Am I free to go?” – during his interview at police headquarters after the homicide detective told him Bennett had died.
The judge found that Grall felt he was threatened and had an outsized concern about public urination and public indecency.
“His description and explanation of his actions made clear that he viewed the stabbing as a rational reaction,” Skye said.
Prosecutor Kristen Kyle-Castelli had argued that the killing represented an act of “vigilante justice” because Grall was repulsed by Bennett’s public urination, pointing to Grall’s statements in his interview with the detective.
“He took a personal affront to it happening in an area where art existed. He wanted his neighborhood safe,” Kyle-Castelli said. “It’s not reasonable. Most murders are not.”
She argued that Grall was calm and cooperative, responsive to officers’ questions and not agitated or spouting conspiracy theories.
Defense lawyers Benjamin Kim and Rian Peck countered that Grall wasn’t medicated and that he exhibited psychotic behavior that night, including during his 911 call, appearing to respond to internal voices while in a holding cell after the stabbing, as well as his unusual statements and the sudden swivel of his head toward a wall during his interview with detectives.
“His actions were not the result of rational thinking,” Peck said. “They were the result of paranoid delusions.”
Skye found Grall guilty except for insanity of second-degree murder, first-degree assault and unlawful use of a weapon.
She committed him to the Oregon State Hospital for life under the jurisdiction of the Psychiatric Security Review Board.
Before deputies led Grall away, members of Bennett’s family addressed the court.
David Bennett called the killing “heinous, cruel and unforgivable” and said Grall deserved prison.
Dawn Heiydt, Bennett’s mother, described her son as loving, kind and adventurous. Appearing by video from outside Oregon, she said his killing had “broken” her and she called Grall a coward who stabbed her son from behind and left him to die in the street.
Jared Morton, Bennett’s brother, said in a statement read by the prosecutor that the stabbing “was senseless, violent and cruel.”
Antonio Castaneda called John Bennett his best friend, and described him as a “sweet soul,” who was passionate about people and “laughed like no one else.”
Grall’s mother, Kelly Grall, apologized to the Bennett family.
“I offer my sincere condolences and my sincere sorrow for all of this, for you having to be here today,” she said.
Jonathan Grall, who sat beside his lawyers in a white dress shirt and khaki pants, read from a prepared statement.
“Please allow me to say I’m sorry. I’m unable to exemplify how sorry I am,” he said. “I seek psychiatric help to better represent the person I wish to be. I promise I will never hurt someone this way again.”
©2025 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit oregonlive.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
