Former Wisconsin deputy on trial for murders of wife, sister-in-law
MADISON, Wis. - A former Wisconsin deputy with Lou Gehrig's disease planned the killings of his wife and sister-in-law, a prosecutor told jurors Thursday.
Assistant District Attorney Paul Barnett made his opening statement in the trial of Andrew Steele, who has pleaded not guilty by reason of mental disease in the August shooting deaths of his wife, 39-year-old Ashlee Steele, and her 38-year-old sister, Kacee Tollefsbol, of Lake Elmo, Minnesota.
Barnett asked jurors to listen to testimony for clues that Steele acted with forethought before the killings, the Wisconsin State Journal reported.
"Consider as you listen to this evidence whether the defendant sought to manufacture the crime scene in a way to fit his story," Barnett said. "Consider whether the defendant sought to destroy evidence during the commission of these crimes."
On Wednesday, a forensic psychiatrist testified for the defense that he believes Lou Gehrig's disease is the reason Steele killed his wife and sister-in-law. Dr. Doug Tucker said a message Steele wrote about suicide and sexual relations with his wife and sister-in-law was delusional and shows Steele's brain was deteriorating because of ALS.
Steele, a former Dane County deputy, was diagnosed with the progressive neurodegenerative disease last June.
"This behavior in this guy... is a result of his frontal temporal major neurocognitive disorder," Tucker said, according to CBS Minnesota. "That's the reason he killed his wife and her sister."
Steele was "substantially unable to conform his conduct to the law" because of the disorder, Tucker testified.
The defense also called the victims' sister, Hailee Meisterling, who testified about Steele's behavior on a cruise the families took last year.
"He knew I was getting changed and he came into the room knowing I was getting changed into my swimsuit," Meisterling said. "Another time I was in their room and he just started taking his pants off."
Steele signed the couple's wills within 36 hours of the slayings and evidence shows he communicated with his parents about how to care for the couple's children if his wife was absent.
According to the Wisconsin State Journal, Steele's defense attorney Jessa Nicholson said in her opening statement Tuesday that Steele and his wife had sex on the afternoon of the killings and that they engaged in some bondage behavior, which she said was something they occasionally did. Nicholson said that the last thing Steele remembers before waking up in the hospital was trying to find scissors to cut a zip-tie that had become too tight around his wife's neck.
Despite a note Steele wrote that implied the sisters were planning a suicide pact with him, family members of the women testified for the prosecution Thursday that they were not suicidal.
Tollefsbol's husband, Mark, testified that she was trying to finish nursing school. Her second and final year was to start three days after she was killed.
Jurors also heard Tollefsbol's 911 call in which she told a dispatcher that she had been shot in the back by Steele. In the background, an alarm wails, likely triggered by charcoal that Steele burned in a portable fire pit in the laundry room of the Fitchburg home.
Tollefsbol, breathing heavily, urged rescuers to hurry, but as the nine-minute call goes on her voice fades as she tells the dispatcher, "I'm dying, I'm dying."
Andrew Steele was found unconscious and suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning from burning charcoal inside the laundry room.
The trial is expected to last two weeks.