A man who stabbed an East Village resident dozens of times inside the victim’s apartment has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and is expected to be committed to a state hospital.
Maxwell Thomas Logan, 26, originally pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity for the Aug. 9, 2023, slaying of Andrew Holland.
Prosecutors said Logan, who lived in the same 14th Street apartment building as Holland, entered the victim’s propped-open front door and stabbed him 40 to 50 times. The men were strangers to one another, according to prosecutors. Holland’s body was discovered by his roommate, who called police.
Following Logan’s plea to the murder count Monday, a bench trial was held to determine whether Logan was sane at the time of the killing. A judge ruled there was sufficient evidence that he was legally insane at the time, and Logan is slated to be committed next month to a state hospital for a maximum term of 15 years to life, which is the standard prison term for a second-degree murder conviction.
At a preliminary hearing held last year, San Diego police Detective Christopher Murray testified that Logan admitted to committing the homicide with a switchblade.
When asked why he attacked Holland, Logan “alluded to the voices in his head,” Murray testified.
Upon questioning by defense attorney Jay Temple, Murray also confirmed that Logan said he was suffering from “psychosis” and described several other thoughts he’d been having that indicated his mental health was deteriorating.
Those included beliefs that he was part of a digital simulation and that killing Holland would “break the digital simulation.”
Logan was also charged with attacking his then-girlfriend and locking her inside a bedroom, as well as kicking a woman who was walking her dog near the apartment complex. Both those incidents occurred on the same day as Holland’s killing.
