A Pacific Beach man who angrily left a hot tub and returned with a handgun at Campland on the Bay should be convicted of murder, a prosecutor told a jury on Feb. 20.

But the attorney for Michael Lawrence Callahan, 39, who is accused of killing Ryan Abbott, 49, told the jury “This was not murder.”

Attorney Samantha Greene said her client was secretly given chocolate with hallucinogenic mushrooms without knowing what they were before the shooting. She noted Callahan surrendered the firearm to a janitor, saying “It was in self-defense.”

“He hated the effects,” said Greene, adding it caused Callahan to experience an “altered perception of reality.”

The shooting took place on May 16, 2023, at 10:08 p.m. where Callahan lived in his motorhome. Abbott was also from Pacific Beach. Callahan has pleaded not guilty.

“All parties involved were intoxicated,” said Deputy District Attorney Jessica Sutterley about the people at the hot tub that night.

Sutterley said one intoxicated woman had been flirting with Callahan that night, but someone who was concerned about her being “way too drunk” arranged for someone to take her home at 9:15 p.m.

Callahan was not at the hot tub when the intoxicated woman left, and he was angry when he discovered she was gone, according to the prosecutor. He got into a shouting argument with one woman, and declared he “would (obscenity) whoever he wanted to.”

At 9:55 p.m., a woman yelled at Callahan to “get out,” and Abbott got into an argument with him too, said Sutterley. Callahan left, smoking a vaping device, got his loaded handgun from his trailer, and returned.

The nine-man, three-woman jury with four alternates gazed at a series of park videos from surveillance cameras that showed Abbott and Callahan talking and then Callahan angrily leaving.

One video had audio and recorded the three shots fired. The first shot occurred at a fence and was 50 feet from the hot tub. That got Abbott to get out and walk toward Callahan.

Callahan then shot Abbott in the chest from 15 feet away, said Sutterley. “He goes back to his trailer and hides.”

“He might have been drunk. He might have been high, but he knew what was going on,” said the prosecutor. “On May 16, Mr. Callahan made a choice to murder Mr. Abbott.”

Greene gave another interpretation, in which she said Callahan “was chased by Ryan Abbott for 31 seconds… when he no longer felt he was safe.”

Callahan then saw a Campland maintenance worker and handed her his firearm and said this, according to Greene: “I just shot someone. I didn’t mean to. It was in self-defense.”

Greene said the janitor took the firearm and placed it in a washing machine in the laundry room where a detective retrieved it later.

Sutterley said Callahan’s blood/alcohol level was .12 six hours after the shooting and Abbott’s blood/alcohol level was .14 at death. Felony drunk driving occurs when a motorist is at .08 level.

The trial will last a week. Callahan remains in the George Bailey Detention Facility without bail.