Insanity Plea Entered in Kimberly Wong Murder Case

Scott Fisher was supposed to face a jury this week for the November 2023 murder of his girlfriend, 27-year-old product designer Kimberly Wong. Instead, he entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity on Monday, halting proceedings and pushing any trial date back by several months.

The late-stage maneuver surprised many court observers. Fisher’s defense team had spent the preliminary hearing phase pursuing what appeared to be an entirely different legal strategy, making the sudden pivot to an insanity defense just days before jury selection was set to begin difficult to explain from the outside.

Wong was found fatally stabbed with a kitchen knife in the Presidio Heights apartment she shared with Fisher at 3295 Clay Street. Police discovered her body during a welfare check on the morning of November 30, 2023, after friends who had been trying to reach her grew alarmed by her silence. Ring camera footage from the building became central to the case against Fisher. It showed both Wong and Fisher arriving at the apartment together at 10:49 am. Fisher left alone at 11:17 am. A delivery driver in the area had already reported hearing a woman screaming for help around that time. Fisher returned to the building within the hour, and shortly after his second departure, his father reportedly checked him into a psychiatric facility in Walnut Creek.

Fisher was arrested one week after Wong’s death.

The couple’s friends had noticed something was wrong with Fisher in the weeks before the killing. By their accounts, he had grown increasingly paranoid and had become consumed by conversations about artificial intelligence. He had even renamed a group chat the friends shared from “SF buddies” to “International AI-assisted buddies.” Wong had confided in friends that his behavior was frightening her, including an incident where he allegedly lunged at her in the shower and another where he shook her awake in the early morning hours on November 29.

After that shaking incident, Wong drove Fisher to his father’s home in Oakland so they could spend a night apart. She told friends he seemed more stable by the next morning. She picked him up, and the two drove back to Clay Street together. Less than half an hour later, the delivery driver heard the screaming.

The insanity plea sets in motion a process that will require psychiatric experts to evaluate Fisher before the case can move forward. Prosecutors and defense attorneys are scheduled to return to court in May to discuss a new trial date. Under California law, the proceedings will now unfold in two separate phases. The first trial will address guilt or innocence. If found guilty, a second proceeding will determine whether Fisher was legally insane at the time of the killing, and whether he remains mentally ill today.

The distinction matters enormously. A finding of not guilty by reason of insanity does not mean a defendant walks free. It typically results in commitment to a state psychiatric hospital, with release contingent on a court’s determination that the person no longer poses a danger to others. But it does mean Fisher would not serve time in state prison.

Inside the courtroom Monday, the Chronicle reported seeing Fisher wave to a single man seated in the gallery, who appeared to be his father. The rest of the seats were filled with Wong’s family and friends.

Wong had been working as a product designer in San Francisco, part of the city’s large community of young technology and design professionals. She was 27 years old. Her case drew significant attention in 2024 when details from the preliminary hearing revealed just how alarmed her friends had been about Fisher’s mental state in the weeks before her death, and how much she had confided in them about her fear.

The delay will extend what is already a painful wait for the people who knew her. The earliest a trial could now begin is sometime in the second half of this year, more than two and a half years after her death.