Man Declares Acne Made Him Murder His Ex

Appropriately, his name is John Mullarkey.

Appropriately, because his legal defense for killing his 16-year-old ex-girlfriend was "my acne medicine made me do it."

That's right, his whole defense rested on blaming Accutane. Mullarkey supposedly experienced mood swings from this acne medicine that caused him to stab his former girlfriend sixteen times in a totally non-premeditated kind of way, the same girlfriend he had been abusing before they broke up and stalking afterward. Some would say that Mullarkey did not seem to exhibit mood swings. In fact, he seemed to exhibit one steady mood: bad. Mullarkey was a major Stalk-a-holic, sending the victim numerous text messages one of which read like this:

In the most disturbing message, Mullarkey wrote "I stabbed my self at Demi’s I love you." The outgoing message is shown in a police photo on the blood stained screen of Mullarkey’s cell phone.

According to him, he went over to her house to "reconcile" with her. Perhaps he thought bringing a hunting knife along would help the conversation go smoother. Some of her wounds were deeper than the length of the blade. During the trial, his lawyer asked for a mistrial to be declared, because the makers of Accutane pulled it off the shelves. Aha! Said the lawyer. Unfortunately for him, it was pulled because of a pricing dispute, so his request was denied.

It took the jury less than two hours to come back and call shenanigans on Mullarkey.

Maybe he'd be more appropriately named John Bullshit.

The only thing that bugs me about this case is that the people really responsible for John Mullarkey's state of mind go unpunished and unaccounted for. Accutane didn't make him do it. But you can lay good money on the bet that something in his childhood sure as hell did. And you can also bet he was walking around exhibiting all the signs of major problems to people who are supposed to be family, who very clearly did nothing about it. Those people are walking around free to screw up somebody else's life, while Mullarkey is going to jail (as he should). I think they ought to bear some of the blame, too.

-- DV