Ex-wife of Calif. man who allegedly plowed into doctor then stabbed him to death ‘feared for her safety’

The ex-wife of a California accountant reportedly feared for her own life before the unhinged suspect allegedly mowed down an ER doctor on his bike with his white Lexus and then stabbed him to death while yelling racial, anti-white slurs.

(Video Credit: FOX 11 Los Angeles)

Vanroy Evan Smith, 39, has been identified and arrested as the suspect in the brutal murder of Dr. Michael Mammone, a 58-year-old emergency room doctor at Providence Mission Hospital in Laguna Beach. He was cycling along the Pacific Coast Highway near the hospital when he was killed.

Smith’s ex-wife and his friends claim that he was acting strangely before the fatal incident took place. Marla Annette Hart claims her ex-husband threatened her shortly before he attacked Mammone.

“ABC7 spoke with a neighbor who declined to be interviewed on camera. She said her family heard what sounded like a ‘gunshot’ before the attack. When they ran outside, she said, they heard the suspect uttering racial slurs about ‘white privilege,’” KABC reported concerning the attack.

The suspect is an accountant from Long Beach. He appeared in court on Friday and was officially charged with Mammone’s murder.

Prosecutors claim that Smith blasted through a red light around 3 pm and plowed into Mammone. Then he got out of his car, walked over to the father of two, took out a knife, and viciously stabbed him to death. The two evidently had no connection.

Hart, who is the mother of Smith’s two twin girls, was so frightened by his bizarre and threatening behavior prior to the murder that she called the police, her father told the New York Post in an interview.

“She was concerned for her own safety, before this,” Stanley Hart told the media outlet.

He went on to state that the police had been called to their home for a wellness check for “something involving Mr. Smith.”

The couple has been separated for about a decade. According to Hart’s father, his former son-in-law was well-mannered, but had “issues.” They are in the midst of a custody battle for the girls.

“It wasn’t like I didn’t believe it, but I never could’ve imagined this,” Hart told the New York Post. “He has some issues, that’s all I can say. If the authorities do their due diligence, they will probably determine pretty quickly what those issues are.”

Smith abruptly closed his accountancy firm and his colleagues and friends also said he had problems. But many of them insisted he was a good guy and were shocked at what he had reportedly done.

Reports are coming out that Smith was holding a BB gun as he approached Mammone, a married father-of-two, after mowing him over. He was said to be screaming racial slurs about “white privilege.” Passersby restrained him after he stabbed and killed the doctor until the police arrived and arrested him.

“An innocent man is dead because he took a bike ride to enjoy a beautiful California day along the beach and he was hit with a car and stabbed to death by someone he apparently never met,” Todd Spitzer, district attorney for Orange County, charged. “The murder of a complete stranger in broad daylight for what appears to be absolutely no reason is the stuff of nightmares.”

According to the Daily Mail, Smith wrote on Facebook about being of mixed race, posting lengthy rants on ethnicity and religion.

“I was born of black and white, then had the lucky chance of growing the first 12 years with my black family, and the following 6 with white,” he posted. “I am mixed, and I find races petty.”

He railed about “grudges, malice, separation, hate” that he felt was aimed at people over race, stating, “It really holds you back.” And noted that “we all whither and die.”

He meandered in his musings but specifically addressed white and black issues and how it affects people’s attitudes.

“By appearance and established standards, I am called a black man,” he commented. “Does that mean I deny and reject half of my ancestry? How do we tell someone to filter things like that from their blood? All in all, we really need to change our way of thinking.”

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