January 31st, 2012. A doorbell rings in Madison, South Dakota. Norman Johnson, age 72, walks to his front door. The man standing there asks Norman to confirm his identity. Norman says yes. And then everything Norman built over seven decades ends in two gunshots. The shooter is 73 years old. And he's been waiting fifty years for this moment.

The 50-Year Grudge: How Carl Ericsson Murdered His High School Rival

A Locker Room Incident Became a Life Sentence

So here's what we know happened on January 31st, 2012. Carl Ericsson, 73 years old, woke up in his home in Watertown, South Dakota. He got in his car and drove south to Madison, about an hour away. He had a .45 caliber pistol with him. When he arrived at Norman Johnson's house, he rang the doorbell like he was stopping by to chat about the weather.

Norman Johnson answered the door. He was 72, retired, living the good life after decades of teaching and coaching at Madison High School. Carl looked at him and asked Norman to verify who he was. Norman confirmed his identity. And then Carl shot him twice in the face.

Norman's wife Barbara found him on the floor. She saw a man walking toward a dark sedan parked outside. That night, police arrested Carl Ericsson and charged him with first-degree murder. When Carl appeared before the judge, he didn't deny anything. He said, "I shot him, your honor."

And then he said something that made this case go national. He told the judge the reason he killed Norman was because of something that happened over 50 years ago. In high school. In the locker room. Carl claimed someone put a jockstrap on his head.

That's it. That's the motive. A locker room prank from the 1950s.

Norman Johnson

Two Men, Two Different Lives in Madison, South Dakota

To understand how we got here, we need to go back to Madison High School in the 1950s. This is where Carl Ericsson and Norman Johnson first crossed paths, and where the seeds of something toxic got planted in Carl's mind.

Norman was the high school sports star. Track athlete. Later played college football. He was the guy everyone knew, the guy everyone liked. After college, Norman earned both a bachelor's and a master's degree, then came back to Madison to teach and coach. He stayed there for more than 30 years. When Norman died, over 600 people showed up to his funeral. That's roughly one-sixth of Madison's entire population. That tells you everything about how this community felt about Norman Johnson.

Carl worked as the student sports manager. Not the athlete. Not the star. The guy who helped out, who stayed in the background. Carl did fine for himself. He went to college, became an insurance salesman, got married and stayed married for 44 years. He lived in Wyoming for a while, then moved back to South Dakota and settled in Watertown. He had no criminal record. By all outward measures, Carl Ericsson was living a stable, conventional life.

Something was rotting underneath all that stability.

The Jockstrap Story That May Not Be True

Carl told police and the judge that the reason he killed Norman was because of that locker room incident. Someone put a jockstrap on his head when he was a teenager, and that humiliation never left him. He said it was "apparently in my subconscious."

Here's the problem. Nobody else remembers this happening.

Lake County State's Attorney Kenneth Meyer said he couldn't find anyone who could corroborate Carl's story. Not one person. The prosecutor wouldn't even confirm whether Carl specifically named Norman as the person who did it. So we're left with this question: did this incident actually happen the way Carl remembered it, or had Carl's mind turned some minor teenage interaction into a defining trauma that justified murder?

Norman's daughter, Beth Ribstein, had her own theory. She said Carl was "just jealous of Dad his whole life." She said Carl envied Norman's success and standing in the Madison community. Beth dismissed the locker room story as "just goofing off" and said she couldn't understand how anyone could hold onto something like that for 50 years.

The real answer probably involves both humiliation and jealousy, twisted together into something much darker.

When Depression Became the Breaking Point

In January 2012, the same month Carl killed Norman, a psychiatrist named Dr. Robert Giebink met with Carl for the first time. What he found was alarming. Carl was severely depressed. He told Dr. Giebink that every night, he wished he wouldn't wake up in the morning. Carl had a long history of anxiety problems and what Dr. Giebink described as "severe and recurrent depression that is, for the most part, treatment resistant."

And here's the most important part: Dr. Giebink said Carl's thinking was irrational and his judgment was impaired.

Carl's brother Dick, who was a successful attorney and city official in Madison, confirmed that Carl struggled with depression and alcoholism. This wasn't a gradual decline. This was a psychiatric collapse. Carl was suicidal. He was mentally falling apart. And in that state of desperation and distorted thinking, he fixated on Norman Johnson as the source of all his failures.

Think about what was happening in Carl's mind. He's 73 years old, battling severe depression, feeling like his life has been a waste. Norman was thriving in Madison, beloved by everyone, celebrated for decades of success. Carl moved back to South Dakota and settled in Watertown, not Madison. He came back to the area where Norman was a local hero, where Norman had everything Carl felt he'd been denied.

For someone prone to resentment, that proximity probably felt unbearable. Norman represented everything Carl believed he should have been. When Carl's mental illness stripped away his ability to think rationally, that resentment turned into a mission.

The Murder Was Planned, The Reason Was Madness

Carl drove from Watertown to Madison. He brought a gun. He rang the doorbell. He asked Norman to confirm his identity. Each action followed the next with cold purpose. This was a planned execution.

The reason behind all that planning was completely irrational. Killing someone over a 50-year-old locker room prank is not a sane response. Killing someone because you envy their success is not a sane response. The planning showed deliberation. The motivation showed a broken mind.

When Norman answered the door and confirmed who he was, Carl shot him twice in the face. Barbara found her husband on the floor. Carl walked back to his car and drove away. He was arrested that night.

At his sentencing hearing months later, Carl apologized to Barbara. He said, "I just wish I could turn the calendar back." That suggests he understood, once the acute episode passed, what he'd done. By then, Norman was dead and Carl's life was over too.

Guilty But Mentally Ill: Justice With a Psychiatric Asterisk

Carl was initially charged with first-degree murder, which in South Dakota can carry the death penalty or life in prison. He pleaded not guilty at first and asked for a jury trial. His defense attorney, Scott Bratland, recognized that the evidence was overwhelming and that Carl's mental state needed to be part of the legal equation.

On May 1st, 2012, Carl changed his plea. He pleaded Guilty but Mentally Ill to second-degree murder. This is a specific type of plea in South Dakota law. It's not the same as Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity. With that plea, you'd potentially be sent to a psychiatric facility and could be released if you got better. The Guilty but Mentally Ill plea means you're still convicted and still going to prison. The court acknowledges you were mentally ill when you committed the crime.

On June 15th, 2012, Carl was sentenced to life in prison. The law requires that he receive psychiatric treatment while incarcerated. If he needs specialized care, he can be temporarily transferred to other facilities. He'll always return to the penitentiary to serve out his life sentence.

This verdict balanced two things: justice for Norman's family, who needed to know Carl would never be free again, and recognition that Carl's mind was profoundly impaired when he pulled that trigger.

What Fifty Years of Resentment Actually Looks Like

This case forces us to ask uncomfortable questions about memory, grudges, and how the mind can twist minor wounds into life-defining traumas. Did that locker room incident really happen the way Carl remembered? Maybe. Maybe not. What matters is that Carl believed it, and he built his entire sense of victimhood around it.

Underneath that story was something more corrosive: envy. Carl spent 50 years watching Norman succeed, watching him be celebrated, watching him live the life Carl thought he deserved. When Carl's mental illness stripped away his ability to suppress that envy, it exploded outward.

Norman Johnson spent his life teaching kids, coaching track, being a good husband and community member. He had no idea Carl was carrying this around. On January 31st, 2012, when he opened his door to see who was ringing the bell, he had seconds left to live.

Carl Ericsson is still in prison. He's in his mid-80s now if he's still alive. He destroyed Norman's life, Barbara's life, and his own. For what? A grudge that may have been based on something that never really happened the way he remembered it. A jealousy that ate him alive from the inside out. A mental illness that turned bitterness into bullets.

This is what happens when resentment doesn't fade. When you can't let go. When you decide that the only way to feel better about your life is to end someone else's. Nobody wins in the end. Norman is dead. Carl is locked up forever. And a small town in South Dakota lost one of its most beloved members because a 73-year-old man couldn't let go of high school.