Vista

A Vista man who was judged to be insane when he killed his brother at a North City West construction site was committed Thursday to a state mental hospital.

Joel E. Ayala, 25, was told by San Diego Superior Court Judge Louis Boyle that he could be there for life.

Ayala pleaded no contest May 11 to first-degree murder, and Judge Andrew Wagner found that he was insane at the time of the Aug. 5 shooting of Rene Ayala, 27.

If Ayala ever wants to be released from Patton State Hospital, the burden is on him to prove to officials and a court that he has regained his sanity, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Luis Aragon. The prosecutor said the chance of that is “next to none.” All four psychiatrists who examined Ayala agreed that he was insane.

According to a report prepared for the court, Ayala has been diagnosed as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. Aragon did not oppose the insanity finding, saying Ayala had five years of documented mental illness.

Aragon said witnesses told officials that Ayala approached his brother--who was working on a house as a roofer--with a .22-caliber rifle. Joel Ayala started talking nonsense, according to witnesses, then shot his brother twice. Ayala stood over his fallen brother, felt his pulse, and then fired three more times into his body.