Q: I’m wondering whatever happened to Stephen Coffeen, the Davis man accused of killing his father in Florida. Last I read, he was using an insanity defense that relied partly on his heavy consumption of Red Bull prior to the murder. Did it work? — Sam, Davis

A: On June 8, 2011, a Florida judge ruled that Stephen Coffeen was not guilty by reason of insanity for the Dec. 18, 2009, smothering death of his father, 83-year-old Robert Coffeen, in his St. Petersburg home.

The case was dubbed the “Red Bull defense case” because of one psychiatrist’s mention during a court hearing that Coffeen suffered from sleep deprivation and depression, which “led to his psychosis and it was accelerated by his use of Red Bull” energy drink.

However, “this case is not and never has been about Red Bull,” Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Nancy Moate Ley said at the June hearing, according to an article in the Tampa Bay Times. She said four psychological experts who examined Coffeen’s mental state at the time of the killing concluded he “did not understand the wrongfulness of his actions.”

Prosecutors and Coffeen’s defense attorneys stipulated to the evaluations, and Ley ordered Coffeen, who is now 42, committed to a state hospital for treatment.

At a review hearing last December, attorneys stipulated that Coffeen should remain hospitalized, based on a report issued by the hospital at that time. Another review is slated for Aug. 8.

Assistant State Attorney Kendall Davidson said Coffeen could remain hospitalized, tranferred to a less-restrictive treatment program or released to the community, depending on what the hospital recommends and the court accepts. Davidson said Coffeen’s lawyers also may seek to have Coffeen transferred to a facility in California.

“We’re all just waiting to hear” the hospital’s recommendation, Davidson told The Enterprise this week. “I’d like to see him stay in the state hospital so we know everybody’s safe.”

Coffeen’s brother, Thomas Coffeen, declined to comment on the record last week about his brother’s case. But he’s repeatedly expressed doubts about his brother’s insanity defense, as well as concern for the safety of his family and the rest of society.

“He and I know he’s deceiving everyone here,” Thomas Coffeen told Judge Ley in June 2011, according to ABC News coverage of that hearing. “He knows what happened. I know what happened. He clearly came here to kill my father.”

Formerly an East Davis resident, Stephen Coffeen had been visiting his father for the Christmas holidays at the time of the incident. Authorities said Thomas Coffeen had taken his family to Disney World when he received a phone call from his brother instructing him to come home.

When Thomas Coffeen arrived at the house, he found his father’s body covered with a blanket and pillow on the living-room floor.

The St. Petersburg Times reported that Stephen Coffeen “made odd statements” when officers arrived on scene. Police said Coffeen asked that his rental car be taken into evidence, and that he instructed officers to make sure no one touched anything in his father’s house because “it is going to show that he (the father) is the crazy one. It was self-defense. He got suffocated. I did it out of self-defense.”

Coffeen also advised police to inspect his brother’s house, saying, “I can tell you where there are my father’s fingerprints to prove he is crazy. I did it to protect myself. My father tried to poison my brother’s dog,” the Times reported.

Coffeen, who worked for a local engineering consulting firm before his arrest, had no prior criminal history.

— Reach Lauren Keene at [email protected] or (530) 747-8048. Follow her on Twitter @laurenkeene

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Stephen Coffeen listens in a Florida courtroom as a judge declares him not guilty by reason of insanity in the Dec. 18, 2009, smothering death of his father, 83-year-old Robert Coffeen. Courtesy photo

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