American Who Suffered Head Injury In Thailand Accused Of Murdering Father

[sriracha john]

The victim, 64-year-old Dr. Edward Fitzgerald, and his son, the accused Sean Fitzgerald.

Judge orders trial for man accused in stabbing death of his father

A 4th Judicial District judge Thursday found there is enough evidence to try a 36-year-old man for first- and second-degree murder in the stabbing death of his father, a Colorado Springs surgeon, on Nov. 20, 2008.

Immediately after the ruling, attorney Ed Farry entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity for his client, Sean Fitzgerald.

Judge David Gilbert then ordered a sanity evaluation of Fitzgerald by doctors at the state hospital in Pueblo.

Dr. Edward Fitzgerald, 63, was found dead in the bedroom of his home on Lindenrose Grove at about 2:20 a.m. The El Paso County coroner determined he died from one of two stab wounds.

Colorado Springs homicide detective Mike Happe testified that Sean Fitzgerald told him after the stabbing, "There's no point, I did it. I killed my own father in front of my mother."

Happe said Fitzgerald later said, "I was convinced he was Satan. I've never had those thoughts before."

Testimony during the hearing revealed Sean Fitzgerald had been struck by a truck while bicycling in a village in Thailand a couple weeks before the killing and had been flown to a hospital in Bangkok suffering from head injuries. Just days before the killing, his mother, Kim, and father traveled to Thailand to bring their son back.

Sean's wife, Allison, told family members her husband "was in his own world" after the accident.

The day before the killing, the Fitzgeralds took their son to a local neurosurgeon and said Sean was having both paranoid and suicidal thoughts. The doctor told the family it could be at least six months before Sean recovered from his head trauma. He then prescribed drugs for depression and sleep.

That day, Edward Fitzgerald tried to convince his son his thoughts that the government was out to get him were just delusions, and Sean didn't argue, according to testimony by detectives.

That evening, Sean's mother gave him one tablet of Ambien for sleep and one tablet of Lexapro for depression. The family then went to sleep, with Sean staying in a spare bedroom near his parents' master bedroom.

Kim Fitzgerald told police that shortly after 2 a.m., her son came quickly into their bedroom with a knife raised in his hand. He went straight to his sleeping father, straddled him with his knees and stabbed him twice, once in the chest and once in the abdomen, even as she pleaded for him to stop and tried to push him away.

Later in the morning, as tests were being done on Sean Fitzgerald at Memorial Hospital, a police detective told him a lawyer retained by his sister was waiting outside the room.

Fitzgerald, recalled police detective Wayne Bichel, then said, "That's ridiculous. I just killed my father and my sister hired an attorney for me."

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 the evaluation of Fitzgerald's sanity is scheduled for May 12. If a jury should find Fitzgerald not guilty by reason of insanity, he would be held at the state hospital until doctors determined he was sane.

- Colorado Springs Gazette (USA) / 2009-03-12

[sriracha john]

Some quite bizarre aspects of the case including two separate, pre-murder radio talk show interviews with the accused and the victim by quite bizarre radio talk hosts:

Edited March 13, 2009 by sriracha john

[t.s]

that is odd indeed.

he seems quite delusional.

Edited March 13, 2009 by t.s

[sriracha john]

that is odd indeed.

he seems quite delusional.

Which is not all that unusual following serious head trauma...

The accused's participation in these quirky groups prior to his injury could easily become even further greatly distorted following it.

but I can't explain the radio hosts' bizarreness, who don't have such a readily plausible explanation.

[sriracha john]

Various blog and forum entries on the perplexing nature of things with this case...

http://visibility911.com/blog/?p=722

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=129763

http://www.jackbloodforum.com/phpBB3/viewt...f=5&t=21076

Edited March 13, 2009 by sriracha john

[Junglejumbo]

I wonder why some of his blogs were removed by the US authorities?

Sounds like he didn't lose his conscience and went straight to the medical clinic? Just wonder if he was delusional before the head injury incident...

Do we have firm prove he did suffer a head injury? Hit by a truck? Meaning that he rode a bicycle into a parked truck? He scraped the side of it? Surely on the basis of a truck versus a bicycle, the cyclist would have been a lot more injured...broken leg, rib bones, knocked out, ran over...etc...Could the incident just be another episode of the delusion?

Chased my para military police is not out of the question but the way he describes it, is more like something that may have happened in Russia during the cold war when spies would have come up and injected him with something, not really Thailand. If Thai people were chasing him, then it would have been the chasers who got him, not a truck somewhere ahead....Also what was the point of the chase....if they were doing that in Thailand it would be to arrest him or kill him...especially if the truck was involved too...why would they just let him go? The bump on the head would appear insignificant to any by-standers at the time, not a reason for chasers to let him go.

If Thai police wanted to catch him, they would take his computer for starters, I would have thought...but then again later on it becomes unclear whether the Thai "paramilitary" are getting him because of being outspoken about the Thai government or because he was outspoken about 9/11??? Is he trying to say it was US hired hands??? Not totally out of the question, but there's no evidence that he was ever in a position to know something about 9/11 that others didn't...just his conspiracy surely?

Also no information about the truck such as colour, type or details of driver, license plate, etc which is unusual.

[animatic]

This actually may be one of then proper usages of this insanity plea.

Surely nothing like mafia boss Vincente Gigante in NY walking the streets in PJ's

pretending to be off the bell curve. Didn't work.

My condolences to his family.

[TPI]

This actually may be one of then proper usages of this insanity plea.

Surely nothing like mafia boss Vincente Gigante in NY walking the streets in PJ's

pretending to be off the bell curve. Didn't work.

My condolences to his family.

It must have been awful for a mother to see her son in such a state and have to try and save her husband/long time lover/friend as well.....!!

[cruiser2]

This actually may be one of then proper usages of this insanity plea.

My condolences to his family.

Yesterday, that's exactly what happened.

He was found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity.

http://www.krdo.com/Global/story.asp?S=11151358

[animatic]

Even as it is the right legal method, the whole thing is of course quite sad.

Condolences for all involved.