U.S.

S.D. man pleads guilty in old grudge death

May 15, 2012 / 5:33 PM EDT / AP

(AP) MADISON, S.D. - A 73-year-old South Dakota man accused of fatally shooting his long-ago classmate in a grudge reaching back decades has pleaded guilty but mentally ill to a second-degree murder charge.

Carl Ericsson was charged in the Jan. 31 killing of retired Madison High School teacher and track coach Norman Johnson. Johnson was shot twice in the face after answering his door at his home in Madison. Johnson's wife, Barbara, found him lying on the floor and saw a man walking to a dark sedan that was parked outside.

An arrest affidavit suggests the incident might have been sparked by a decades-old grudge that originated when Johnson and Ericsson were students at Madison High.

"I shot him, your honor," Ericsson told the judge in court Tuesday. "I guess it was from something that happened over 50 years ago. It was apparently in my subconscious."

Ericsson pleaded not guilty to a first-degree murder charge in February and requested a jury trial. But defense attorney Scott Bratland and Lake County State's Attorney Kenneth Meyer announced May 1 that a deal had been reached.

The first-degree murder charge could have carried the death penalty if prosecutors chose to pursue it. The second-degree murder charge carries a mandatory punishment of life in prison.

A defendant can be sentenced to the state penitentiary under South Dakota's "guilty but mentally ill" law. Treatment for the mental illness can be given in prison, or the inmate can be transferred to other facilities under the jurisdiction of the Department of Social Services for treatment and then returned to the penitentiary to complete his or her sentence.

Ericsson's brother, Madison resident Dick Ericsson, said in an affidavit filed shortly after the shooting that his brother suffers from depression and alcoholism and that the two had last talked about six months earlier.

Dick Ericsson said his brother was a sports manager at Madison High years ago and "there was an incident where Norm Johnson did something to Carl," and he held a grudge.