OTTAWA — A man serving a life sentence for drowning his son was in court Wednesday seeking to withdraw his guilty plea renewing his defense that the medications he was on contributed to the crime.
Michael Luebrecht, 48, took the witness stand to tell Judge Randall Basinger he was like a zombie who had no control over his actions when he killed his 13-month-old son, Joel, on May 23, 2005, at his home in Fort Jennings. Luebrecht drowned his son in the bathtub.
Luebrecht tried to describe his mindset and said he was overwhelmed with suicidal and homicidal thoughts.
“The only way I can explain it is the mental state I was in at the time I had no other choice. It was like a computer that nothing was going to get through until the end,” he said. “It was like somebody, some force, someone was making me do what I didn’t want to do. I didn’t have any control over it whatsoever.”
Luebrecht’s attorney, Dan Hill, filed a motion in Luebrecht’s 11-year-old case seeing to let Luebrecht withdraw his guilty plea to aggravated murder for which he was sentenced to life in prison. The attorney said 15 medicines Luebrecht took for various conditions including obsessive compulsive disorder, depression and anxiety played a key role in the crime. The medicines have serious side effects including causing suicidal or homicidal thoughts especially when the medicines are stopped without a tapering period.
Hill said the side effects were not well-known at the time of his case 10 years ago. Hill even referenced Basinger’s comments in the case about mental illness.
“It was these medications that caused these thoughts in his head that he wasn’t able to escape from,” Hill said.
But Assistant Putnam County Prosecutor Todd Schroeder, who opposes the motion, said Luebrecht knew right from wrong and developed a plan he carried out to kill his son. Schroeder said defendants often say they were off their medications as a way to blame their actions on something but this is the first time he has ever heard someone making the opposite claim.
Schroeder also told the judge the side effects of homicidal thoughts are extremely rare with the medications Luebrecht was prescribed. He said even if Luebrecht would be allowed to withdraw his plea, blaming the crime on medication prescribed by doctors is not a valid defense.
“It doesn’t result in one losing their conscience. It doesn’t result in one losing their ability on the thought not to kill,” Schroeder said. “What is being stated today is an exaggerated version of what was said in 2006.”
Luebrecht said he has been stabilized in prison and no longer has suicidal or homicidal thoughts. He said he now has hope in his life.
Luebrecht has a long history of mental illness dating back to his teenage years. He was hospitalized on several occasions. He said the thoughts to harm one of his children began the year before he drowned his son and he spoke to professionals treating him but not enough was done to help him or stop him from killing.
Luebrecht’s wife testified during the hearing on behalf of her husband explaining his condition in the years that preceded the killing. She also said once Luebrecht got to prison and received different treatment he was back to his old happy self, the person she married nearly 25 years ago.
Luebrecht’s prison psychiatrist also testified about Luebrecht’s treatment plan, which mainly consisted of using different drugs.
Basinger did not rule. He will consider the testimony along with hundreds of pages of reports and other evidence before making a decision.
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