Teen says he heard voices
Testimony ends in Jeffco slaying trial
Sue Lindsay, Rocky Mountain News
Published August 25, 2007 at midnight
Michael Fitzgerald said he has been hearing voices since he was in 7th grade. One is the voice of his best friend who died in a car accident, and the other the father he admitted he helped murder.
"They tell me to hurt myself," Fitzgerald said.
Fitzgerald concluded his testimony Friday in the Jefferson County District Court trial of his friend, Michael Tate, who is charged with first-degree murder in the bludgeoning death of Fitzgerald's father, Steven Fitzgerald, 41.
Tate, then 16, and Michael Fitzgerald, 17, were runaways from social services when they broke into the Fitzgerald family's Westminster home on Nov. 8, 2004. Michael Fitzgerald is serving a 62-year prison sentence as a result of a plea bargain in which he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and agreed to testify against Tate.
On the stand Friday, Fitzgerald said his parents confronted him during a counseling session after they found a baggie of his ground- up anti-psychotic drugs in his room. He told them he planned to kill them, but "the truth is, I was gonna kill myself," he said.
Fitzgerald said he told his parents that because he was angry about being in a social services residential facility.
Tate's defense attorney, Guss Guarino, tried to show during cross-examination that Michael Fitzgerald hated his father and had threatened to kill him previously. Guarino also tried to show that Fitzgerald had made conflicting statements and lied to police.
Fitzgerald testified that Tate was the instigator of the murder, not him.
Tate's defense team contends he should be found not guilty by reason of insanity.
Although both boys have a history of mental illness, court-appointed doctors found them sane at the time of the killing.
lindsays@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5181
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