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Jury deliberates Wayman’s fate for Shady Cove homicide By Nick Morgan Updated: Oct 31, 2022 02:59 PM A A Shane Ryan Michael Wayman testifies during his homicide trial in Jackson County Circuit Court on Friday. [Jamie Lusch / Mail Tribune] With neither side denying the suspect killed his 20-year-old roommate with a baseball bat, the outcome of a trial surrounding a 2019 Shady Cove homicide instead will boil down to a jury’s interpretation of a rarely used law focused on the suspect’s mindset at the time of the crime. A 12-person jury heard closing arguments Monday in Jackson County Circuit Court in the case of Shane Ryan Michael Wayman, 24, who is charged in the violent death of Destiny Anne Finch Nov. 11, 2019. Wayman’s defense lawyer, Michael Bertholf, told the jury the reason he and two forensic psychologists spent so much time outlining his client’s childhood traumas and mental health diagnoses was in no way an attempt to garner sympathy. Instead, he said he was trying to meet the terms of a legal defense surrounding his client’s mental state at the time of the crime. “This case is entirely about whether we have proved extreme emotional disturbance,” Bertholf said, adding they’ve never contested that Finch’s death was an intentional homicide. If the 12 jurors unanimously convict Wayman on the charge of second-degree murder in Finch’s homicide and at least 10 of them determine Wayman was acting under the influence of extreme emotional disturbance at the time — “to the extent that he lost the capacity to control himself and forgo the homicide” — Wayman will be convicted of the lesser charge of first-degree manslaughter. “It’s not a decision most juries get to make in Oregon,” Bertholf said. Bertholf called it a “difficult defense.” A jury must determine three things: Wayman was having an emotional disturbance at the time, another person with a similar background in the same situation would have similarly lost their capacity for self-control and forgo the homicide and, finally, there was a “reasonable explanation” for the extreme emotional disturbance. Deputy District Attorney Lucy Durst disputed each of the three components of the defense. She started by highlighting evidence showing Wayman had self-control during and immediately after Finch’s homicide. Splatter evidence showed the three bat strikes Finch sustained to the head using an aluminum T-ball bat were “efficient, lethal and effective — not frenzied.” “He did not lose volitional control,” Durst told the jury. “In fact, he got gas while she was still in his trunk.” Durst further disputed the second component of the defense and argued that another person who experienced childhood traumas and had ensuing behavioral health problems linked to it would not have committed such a crime. “How many other people have that background? Sadly, too many,” Durst said. Durst unraveled the final component of the defense by noting Wayman had a role in his emotional state when he left his depression and other mental health problems unmedicated for years. “Don’t let Mr. Wayman make an excuse,” Durst instructed the jury Monday morning. The jury was still deliberating as of Monday afternoon. Reach web editor Nick Morgan at 541-776-4471. Follow him on Twitter @MTwebeditor.