Killer Instinct

"This is the knife that the defendant used to kill Steven Fitzgerald," Deputy District Attorney Jacque Russell told the jury, holding the blade in one hand and the handle in the other. "And this is the shovel that this defendant used to bludgeon Steven Fitzgerald as he lay on the ground bleeding to death."

Defense attorney Maggie Baker told the jury about the 28 places where Michael Tate had lived in thirteen years, placements that started when he was just three. "Michael Tate's memory is not accurate, because he is literally out of his mind," she warned the jury.

Michael Tate has few family pictures, but he has a mug shot.

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More About

• Michael Tate
• Michael Fitzgerald
• Steve Fitzgerald
• Trials
• Mental Health

Tate's faulty memory was augmented by twenty binders full of mental-health records, plus 4,500 pages of social-service records documenting much of his life between his first hospitalization at the age of five and his last at fifteen. The files were full of tales of bizarre and grotesque behavior, aggressive sexual behavior and suicide attempts, one in which the boy choked himself unconscious. Baker told the jurors that it would be hard to listen to this history.

The prosecution's first witness was Jessica Fitzgerald, who should have been at her first day of school instead of in court, testifying about the day her father was murdered. Jessica was followed by Steve's widow, Kris, who was followed by the realtor who was handling La Petite, the old daycare facility where the Michaels had hidden out. Then came a parade of Westminster cops and juvenile delinquents who talked about what Tate had said while he was awaiting trial.

Day four of the trial started dramatically, when Michael Fitzgerald tried to revoke his plea. But by that afternoon, he was on the stand.

"Did you kill your father, Steven Fitzgerald?" Chief Deputy District Attorney Bob Weiner asked.

"No," Michael responded.

"Who did?"

"He is in the courtroom."

"Could you please identify him?"

"He is in this courtroom."

"Where is he seated, and what is he wearing?"

"He is wearing a white shirt. His name is Michael Tate."

"Why did you plead guilty?" Weiner asked.

"Because I threw a post-hole digger at my dad."

On the prosecution's cue, Michael Fitzgerald told his version of the story — from first meeting Tate and talking about the Insane Clown Posse, to going on the run, to the murder.

"I started hearing my voices, and I picked up a post-hole digger and threw it at my dad," he repeated, in a monotone.

On day six, Tate was shackled for reasons not made public as psychologists, psychiatrists, treatment providers and counselors all offered their opinions as to his mental condition.

"My conclusion was that Michael Tate was legally sane at the time of this offense," said David Johnson, a forensic psychiatrist who'd interviewed Tate at the state's mental facility in Pueblo. Although he testified that Tate may have been the only juvenile he'd evaluated in over twenty years, he'd interviewed him on six occasions for a total of about seven hours — double the amount of time he normally allocates to evaluations.

Tate had been diagnosed with an array of mental illnesses ranging from post-traumatic stress disorder to bipolar disorder, Johnson noted, citing the "amazing record in terms of diagnoses and medications" that he'd had received over the years, including five different anti-depressants, six different anti-psychotic prescriptions and two sedatives, none of which had made a consistent improvement in his behavior or mood for any significant amount of time, and none of which Tate was on at the time of the murder.

We can't just assume that everything that is written about him has some kind of truth to it," Johnson told the jury. "But the bottom line is, nobody has been able to pin down what exactly is wrong with this kid."

For example, did Tate really see the spider hallucinations he'd reported to specialists over the years? And if he did, were they signs of a psychosis, or a side effect of one of the many medications that Tate was on? Johnson said he also wasn't convinced that Tate really saw Satan in that Boulder shed. He could have made it up, or the vision may have been induced by the joint that he'd smoked a half hour before, which might have been laced with angel dust or cocaine.

Johnson did acknowledge that Tate had a very disturbed history, but said he wasn't convinced that the boy was abused. In fact, he added, if anyone had been abused, it was the families who took him in. And while some of Tate's behaviors — the suicidal tendencies and the dead hamsters — did seem to be symptomatic of psychosis, most of what he'd exhibited over the years more accurately classified him as afflicted with childhood conduct disorder, which Johnson defined as a pattern of irresponsible behaviors in which the rights of other people are violated.

That condition is marked by fifteen behavioral categories. The prosecution ran Johnson through the list; all but three applied to Tate. Although childhood conduct disorder doesn't necessarily rule out additional conditions such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, Johnson said that Tate wasn't afflicted by either of those at the time of the murder. And childhood conduct disorder wasn't enough to support a defense of not guilty by reason of insanity. Tate manipulated the system to get what he wants, Johnson testified — and what he wants is to stay out of prison.