Teen accused of killing 5-year-old foster brother not guilty by reason of insanity

[Omaha Steve]

Last edited Fri Nov 7, 2014, 02:12 PM - Edit history (1)

Source: Omaha World Herald

By Andrew J. Nelson / World-Herald staff writer

LOGAN, Iowa — A teen accused of killing his 5-year-old foster brother last year was been found not guilty by reason of insanity.

Cody Metzker-Madsen, now 18, was charged with first-degree murder in the death of Dominic Elkins.

District Court Judge Kathleen Kilnoski found Metzker-Madsen not guilty by reason of insanity on Friday.

Prosecutors say Metzker-Madsen, then 17, killed Dominic as the two were playing outside Aug. 31, 2013, at a rural home north of town.

FULL story at link. Also see reply #13.



Cody Metzker-Madsen

Read more: http://www.omaha.com/news/crime/teen-accused-of-killing--year-old-foster-brother-not/article_ff3669c7-572b-524e-b273-aba89d87a3f0.html

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Related Stories at link.

Iowa teen charged in foster brother's death says he was killing a goblin

Testimony in foster brother's death suggests teen accused of killing lacked structure

[merrily]

1. Imagine being the parent.

[belzabubba333]

2. imagine being a 5year old and having someone kill you

his last moments of life must have been a horror

[merrily]

3. Not just someone. His big brother, who he probably idolized.

I idolized my big sister, anyway.

[belzabubba333]

5. it's just heartbeaking

[phil89]

4. Another obscenity

courtesy of our legal system. Mental health disorders do not cause violence. No evidence supports that. I hope he's marked for life and people can somehow avoid being bi tuxes by this person in the future

[merrily]

6. The woman who drowned her kids because of Satan sure seemed ill to me.

[phil89]

8. The use of stigma inducing language

doesnt indicate you've done a great deal of research on the topic. There aren't any known mental disorders that cause people to kill. The majority of people with her affliction don't harm anyone, and in fact are more likely to be victimized themselves.

[merrily]

10. Fair enough. I was being flip. I apologize for the language and will edit.

[Maru Kitteh]

19. "When I was five, my mom cut my baby kitten's head off with a steak knife on the kitchen table. She

(the kitten) was my only friend. I knew she was going to kill me too."

I can still hear with perfect clarity the voice of my best friend telling me story of her mother's paranoid schizophrenia and why she and her brother didn't have much contact with their mom. It shook me to my core in such a way that I can still recall everything about the room we sat in - the dark faux wood paneling, the smell of the warm still air and the dust motes floating about in the blue/grey shafts of sunlight offering dim hope to the neglected houseplants in dirty terracotta pots.

Unmedicated and untreated, her mother was convinced that the kitten was monitoring her activities and controlling her thoughts on behalf of space aliens.

You are absolutely, positively, factually correct when you state that the majority (the vast majority, in truth) of people with any form of mental illness, even those with untreated schizophrenia, including paranoid types, harm no person other than, most tragically, themselves.

You are sadly, factually incorrect when you state that mental disorders do not cause people to kill.

This is the distinction we must learn to make as a society and a nation. We must come to understand through information, compassion, understanding and education, that the acts of a person whose rational process fails as a result of being consumed by mental illness is the result of an ILLNESS and NOT a character flaw, in the same way that a person whose ability to maintain an optimal blood sugar fails as a result of an illness affecting their pancreas.

My friend's mom was institutionalized in the early/mid 70's. By the mid 1980's some of the medications and therapies developed helped to return her to at least a fair facsimile of the real person within. I met her a few times. On meds she was gentle and patient, incredibly open and of course, hauntingly eager to compensate for what she knew had happened before at her own hands.

I am now a health provider. The impact of my friend's experience will always remain. It is easy and salacious to attribute incomprehensible behavior to evil. Once upon a time we attributed food poisoning and leprosy alike to punishment from GOD. We now understand this was an error of ignorance and prejudice. Our prejudice and ignorance against illnesses of the brain must, and will eventually pass. I believe this.

[KingCharlemagne]

21. Thank you for this magisterial refutation of what appears to have been a drive-by

poster, not really willing to stick around and defend his own obscene take on mental illness.

Sincere hat tip!

[belzabubba333]

7. bi tuxes?

[RobinA]

11. Mental Health Disorders

do not cause violence? Never? Wouldn't it be more helpful to deal with reality on this subject? Ms. Yates surely committed her act as a result of her illness.

[Android3.14]

12. Oh puh-lease

I tire of this whiny "don't blame disability" attitude.
Either mental illness was a contributing factor, or the courts should imprison the older brother for life.
If mental illness didn't contribute to people committing crimes like killing your brother because you think he's a goblin, then we wouldn't need a multi-billion dollar industry top deal with mental illness.

[AndreaCG]

14. As a bipolar person

And someone who works in law enforcement I found that statement rather remarkable. So I researched it, and found it is largely true. While it is not true that mental illness NEVER is the cause of violent behavior, a study by the APA found that it was the only causality in 7.5 percent of crimes in the study. I see my psychiatrist today, who specializes in forensics, and will ask him on his take of this.

[pnwmom]

15. Most paranoid schizophrenic are not violent. But some are, and they are disconnected

from reality.

Plenty of evidence supports that.

[Marrah_G]

17. You don't think that there are times that some mental disorders cause murders?

[Neoma]

18. It's not any more than the rest of the population.

[NickB79]

20. So, you think this kid killed his 5-yr old brother for what, fun?

Would it be less of an obscenity to imprison a mentally unbalanced teenager for the rest of his life?

[Omaha Steve]

13. Logan teen says he was fighting a goblin, not killing his foster brother

http://www.nonpareilonline.com/news/local/logan-teen-says-he-was-fighting-a-goblin-not-killing/article_79fa792e-6543-11e4-b9ab-17c57884c315.html

Posted: Wednesday, November 5, 2014 5:28 pm | Updated: 5:30 pm, Wed Nov 5, 2014.

By Kirby Kaufman
[e-mail]

LOGAN – Cody Metzker-Madsen testified Wednesday he remembered killing a goblin with a brick while in his own fantasy world, but he didn’t realize until later the creature was actually his 5-year-old foster brother.

Metzker-Madsen, who is being tried in Harrison County District Court for first-degree murder, said he was visiting another world at the time authorities say the 18-year-old killed Dominic Elkins last year while they played in a ravine near their rural home north of Logan.

The defendant’s attorney, Michael Williams, is using Metzker-Madsen’s testimony as part of an insanity defense in which he’s trying to prove that his client didn’t know the difference between right and wrong. The teen told the court that he knew the difference – but not at the time of Dominic’s death.

Metzker-Madsen told the court that he visits a different world whenever he starts playing a game with someone. He said the worlds he visits are different – that the smell, environment and colors aren’t the same. He also said that only he can visit those worlds.

FULL story at link.



Staff photo/Kirby Kaufman
Cody Metzker-Madsen, 18, accused of killing his 5-year-old foster brother, confers with his defense attorney, Michael Williams, on Oct. 28, 2014, during the first day of his first-degree murder trial at the Harrison County Courthouse.

[blkmusclmachine]

16. Future Republican Senator from Iowa