By: Associated Press//April 15, 2015//
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A defense attorney has told jurors that ALS affected the brain of a former Dane County sheriff’s deputy on trial for the killings of his wife and sister-in-law.
Forty-year-old Andrew Steele of Fitchburg has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. He is charged with first-degree intentional homicide in the shooting deaths last August of his wife, 39-year-old Ashlee Steele, and her 38-year-old sister, Kacee Tollefsbol of Lake Elmo, Minn.
In her opening statement Tuesday, defense attorney Jessa Nicholson told jurors that her experts will testify that ALS, a terminal degenerative muscle disease, can affect the brain as well as the body.
Steele was diagnosed with ALS in June, about two months before the killings.
The Wisconsin State Journal reports prosecutors will make an opening statement Thursday.