A Minnesota man has been sentenced to more than 30 years in prison for killing his grandmother with a hammer in 2015.
The Dakota County attorney general’s office announced Friday that 42-year-old Timothy Steele had been sentenced to 366 months in prison.
In October 2015, Farmington police responded to a call for medical assistance. At the home, they found Steele sitting on the couch. He admitted to police that he had killed his grandmother, 84-year-old Agnes Maria-Wagner Steele, with a hammer.
Police found her in a bedroom with head injuries.
Steele told authorities that he couldn’t get the taste of mucus out of his mouth after his grandmother had blown her nose during dinner the night before. He said he heard voices in his head and thought the feeling and smell of mucus would go away if killed her, so he grabbed a hammer and hit her in the head 7 or 8 times, according to the criminal complaint.
Shortly after Steele was charged in connection to the killing, he was deemed incompetent to assist in his defense in court. A petition was filed to deem him mentally ill and dangerous, and he was committed to the Minnesota Security Hospital in St. Peter until a trial could proceed.
Although Steele asserted he was not guilty by reason of mental illness, a judge found him guilty of second-degree intentional murder in November.
And after a trial in February about his mental illness defense, a judge ordered that Steele had not met the burden in proving the defense and convicted him.
“Sadly, this is a tragic and extreme example of what can occur when a person’s mental illness disorder is not adequately treated,” Dakota County Attorney Kathy Keena said in a statement.
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