Boy’s Killer Intrigued by Potential Fame, Police Say

A man who admitted killing a 9-year-old boy at a beach restroom showed no remorse during his arrest, but instead showed interest when an investigator said the crime would probably make him “famous,” a detective told jurors at the man’s sanity trial.

“That pretty much lit him up,” Oceanside Det. Chris McDonough told jurors in San Diego Superior Court on Thursday. “He was pretty excited about that.”

Brandon Wilson admitted slashing the throat of Matthew Cecchi on Nov. 14, but pleaded not guilty to murder by reason of insanity.

The jury must decide whether Wilson, a drifter from St. Croix Falls, Wis., was sane when he committed the killing. If the 21-year-old man is found sane, he faces the death penalty or life in prison without parole. If found insane, he will be sentenced to a state psychiatric hospital.

In confessing to the crime, Wilson told police he was the devil and that he nearly killed his mother when he was 16, McDonough said.

Wilson also described himself as a martyr chosen by God to kill, telling police: “There are people that are lambs, and I am the lion.”

In other testimony, Dr. Charles Rabiner told jurors that Wilson wasn’t legally insane because he was able to distinguish right from wrong at the time of the killing.

A psychiatrist hired by the defense testified earlier that Wilson’s delusion that God wanted him to kill prevented him from distinguishing right from wrong.

The trial is expected to last about two more weeks.