COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.—A judge on Thursday ordered a man to stand trial on charges of fatally stabbing his father, a Colorado Springs surgeon, while testimony revealed the man suffered head trauma a couple of weeks before the slaying that caused him to have paranoid and delusional thoughts.
El Paso County District Judge David Gilbert determined there was enough evidence to put Sean Fitzgerald, 36, on trial for first- and second-degree murder in the November death of Dr. Edward Fitzgerald, 63.
Immediately after the ruling, Fitzgerald’s attorney Ed Farry then entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. The judge then ordered Fitzgerald to undergo a mental health evaluation at the state hospital in Pueblo.
Police say Edward Fitzgerald and his wife, Kim, were sleeping on Nov. 20 when Sean Fitzgerald burst into their bedroom and fatally stabbed his father.
Colorado Springs homicide detective Mike Happe testified that Sean Fitzgerald later admitted to the slaying. Happe said Fitzgerald told him, “I was convinced he (Edward Fitzgerald) was Satan. I’ve never had those thoughts before.”
Testimony during the hearing revealed that Sean Fitzgerald was struck by a truck while bicycling in a village in Thailand a couple weeks before the stabbing, and was flown to a Bangkok hospital with head injuries.
His parents later brought him home, and the day before the slaying, they took him to a neurosurgeon and said Sean was having paranoid and suicidal thoughts.
The doctor prescribed Sean Fitzgerald drugs for depression and sleep told the family it could be at least six months before he recovered from his head trauma.
That evening, Sean’s mother gave him his medication, and the family went to sleep, with Sean staying in a spare bedroom.
Kim Fitzgerald told police that shortly after 2 a.m., her son came into their bedroom with a knife, went straight to his sleeping father and stabbed him twice—once in the chest and once in the abdomen—as she pleaded with him and tried to push him away.
After Thursday’s hearing, Sean Fitzgerald’s sister, Alison Andrews, told The Gazette, “My dad went halfway around the world to bring him home and make sure he got well. And we want to make sure that happens.”
A review of Fitzgerald’s mental health evaluation is scheduled for May 12.
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Information from: The Gazette,
