Pawlyk Murder Trial A Study In Apparent Dual Personality

As a nuclear-submarine officer, William Pawlyk never lost his cool.

But as a lover, William Pawlyk became irrational and slashed to death both the woman he loved and the man he believed was romantically involved with her.

Pawlyk earned a master's degree from the prestigious Wharton School of Business and became a Richland businessman, civic leader, Naval Reserve officer, super-achiever and gentleman.

But the same man sneered as he watched the woman he knifed repeatedly call for help.

The defense and prosecution painted different pictures of Pawlyk, 50, who is charged with aggravated first-degree murder in the slayings of Debra Sweiger and local TV personality Larry Sturholm.

Defense attorney Miriam Schwartz yesterday described to jurors in King County Superior Court how Pawlyk had gone from model citizen to mentally unstable murderer.

Pawlyk's mind snapped in the summer of 1989 when he was convinced he was losing Sweiger, Schwartz told jurors before Judge Jim Bates.

During the days before July 31, when Pawlyk murdered Sweiger and Sturholm, formerly of the KIRO-TV staff, a startling transformation began that would lead Pawlyk away from reality, the defense attorney said.

"He started thinking about suicide," Schwartz said. "He also was thinking about killing Debby. . . His mind began to . . . degenerate and to become irrational."

Pawlyk "was suffering from a psychotic state of mind, psychotic depression," Schwartz said in her opening statements, adding that her client couldn't tell right from wrong.

Pawlyk admits the fatal knifings in Sweiger's home near Issaquah. But he denies the crime of aggravated first-degree murder. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges by reason of insanity.

The defense team will have a Detroit psychiatrist, an expert on suicide and "why people kill other people," testify that Pawlyk was insane when he ambushed the two after strapping hunting knives to his ankles, Schwartz said.

Deputy Prosecutor Lee Yates said Sweiger, as she lay mortally wounded, had told a concerned friend who had telephoned, "I need an ambulance. I need an ambulance."

In the background, the friend heard a voice, who prosecutors say was Pawlyk's, say derisively, "Yeah, go ahead. Get help."

Sweiger was an emergency-room nurse who operated Cascade Nursing, an employment business that found emergency-room nurses for hospitals. She was planning to expand nationally and was to fly with Sturholm to the Grand Cayman Islands.

Yates said Pawlyk's jealousy and possessiveness put a wedge between him and Sweiger.

"If he couldn't have her," Yates said, "nobody was going to have her - the oldest motive in the world." He called the insanity claim "a total sham."

"He knew exactly what he was doing," the prosecutor said. "This was a last-ditch attempt to avoid the consequences of his murderous behavior."

One of the first witnesses was Sweiger's best friend since childhood, Janelle Mertins of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Mertins, after saying Sweiger cared deeply about Pawlyk, testified that her friend worried Pawlyk was not following through on plans to divorce his wife.

Mertins recalled Sweiger as saying she felt trapped and wished Pawlyk would go back to his "take-charge self." Mertins said Pawlyk once phoned her, giving the impression he was checking up on Sweiger.

Mertins said Sweiger never expressed to her any romantic attraction to Sturholm. They were planning to stop in Fort Lauderdale on business before going on to the islands, she said.

Sweiger's estranged husband, Dr. David Sweiger, a physician, is one of the subpoened witnesses in the case.