The 50-Year Grudge: Carl Ericsson's Fatal Revenge on His High School Rival

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You're listening to 10 Minute Murder.

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January 31, 2012, a doorbell rings in Madison, South Dakota.

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Norman Johnson, age 72, walks to his front door.

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The man standing there asks Norman to confirm his identity.

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Norman's like, "Yeah, that's me."

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And then everything Norman built over seven decades in in two gunshots.

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The shooter is 73 years old and he's been waiting 50 years for this moment.

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So here's what we know happened on January 31, 2012.

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Carl Erickson, 73 years old, woke up in his home in Watertown, South Dakota.

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He got in his car and drove south to Madison about an hour away.

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He had a 45 caliber pistol with him.

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When he arrived at Norman Johnson's house, he rang the doorbell like he was stopping by to chat about the weather.

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Norman Johnson answered the door.

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He was 72, retired, living the good life after decades of teaching and coaching at Madison High School.

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Carl looked at him and asked Norman to verify who he was.

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Norman confirmed his identity and then Carl shot him twice in the face.

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Norman's wife Barbara found him on the floor.

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She saw a man walking toward a dark sedan parked outside.

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That very night, police arrested Carl Erickson and charged him with first degree murder.

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When Carl appeared before the judge, he didn't deny anything.

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He said, "I shot him, your honor."

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And then he said something that made this case go national.

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He told the judge the reason he killed Norman was because of something that happened over 50 years ago.

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In high school, in the locker room.

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Carl claimed someone put a jock strap on his head.

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That's it. That's the motive.

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A locker room prank from the 1950s.

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To understand how we got here, we need to go back to Madison High School in the 1950s.

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This is where Carl Erickson and Norman Johnson first crossed paths.

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And with the seeds of something toxic got planted in Carl's mind.

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Norman was the high school sports star.

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Track athlete, later played college football.

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He was the guy everyone knew, the guy everyone liked.

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After college, Norman earned both the bachelor's and a master's degree,

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then came back to Madison to teach and coach.

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He stayed there for 30 years.

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When Norman died, over 600 people showed up to his funeral.

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That's roughly one-sixth of Madison's entire population.

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That tells you everything about how this community felt about Norman Johnson.

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Carl worked as the student sports manager, not the athlete, not the star.

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The guy who helped out, the guy who stayed in the background.

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Carl did find for himself.

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He went to college, became an insurance salesman, got married and stayed married for 44 years.

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He lived in Wyoming for a while, then moved back to South Dakota and settled in Watertown.

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He had no criminal record.

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By all outward measures, Carl Erickson was living a stable, conventional life.

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But something was rotting underneath all that stability.

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Carl told the police and the judge that the reason he killed Norman was because of a locker room incident.

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Someone put a jock strap on his head when he was a teenager.

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And that humiliation never left him.

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He said it was apparently in my subconscious.

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Here's the problem.

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Nobody else remembers this happening.

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Late county state's attorney Keith Meyer said that he couldn't find anyone who could cooperate Carl's story, not one person.

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The prosecutor couldn't even confirm whether Carl specifically named Norman as the person who did it.

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So we're left with this question.

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Did this incident actually happen the way Carl remembered it?

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Or had Carl's mind turned some minor teenage interaction into a defining trauma that justified murder?

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Norman's daughter Beth had her own theory.

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She said Carl was just jealous of dad his whole life.

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She said Carl envied Norman's success in standing in the Madison community.

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Beth dismissed the locker room story as just goofing off and said she couldn't understand how anyone could hold on to something like that for 50 years.

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

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In January 2012, the same month Carl killed Norman, a psychiatrist named Dr. Robert Guybink met with Carl for the first time.

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What he found was alarming.

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Carl was severely depressed.

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He told Dr. Guybink that every night he wished he wouldn't wake up in the morning.

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Carl had a long history with anxiety problems.

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And what the doctor described as severe recurrent depression.

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That is, for the most part, treatment resistant.

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And here's the most important part.

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The doctor said Carl's thinking was irrational and his judgment was impaired.

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Carl's brother Dick, who was a successful attorney in City of Fishland Madison, confirmed that Carl struggled with depression and alcoholism.

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This was less of a gradual decline in more of a psychiatric collapse.

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Carl was suicidal.

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He was mentally falling apart.

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And in that state of depression and distorted thinking, he fixated a Norman Johnson as the source of all of his failures.

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Think about what's happening in Carl's mind.

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He's 73 years old, battling severe depression, feeling like his life has been a complete waste.

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Norman was thriving in Madison, beloved by everyone, celebrated for decades of success.

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Carl moved back to South Dakota and settled into Watertown, not Madison.

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He came back into the area where Norman was a local hero.

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Where Norman had everything Carl felt he'd been denied.

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For someone prone to resentment, that proximity felt probably unbearable.

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Norman represented everything Carl believed he should have been.

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When Carl's mental illness stripped away his ability to think rationally, that resentment turned into a mission.

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Carl drove from Watertown to Madison.

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He bought a gun, he rang the doorbell, he asked Norman to confirm his identity.

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Each action followed the next with cold purpose.

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This was a planned execution.

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The reason behind all that planning was completely irrational.

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Killing someone over a 50-year locker room prank is not a sane response.

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Killing someone because you envy their success is not a sane response.

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The planning showed deliberation.

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The motivation showed a broken mind.

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When Norman answered the door and confirmed who he was, Carl shot him twice in the face.

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Barbara found her husband lying on the floor.

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Carl walked back to his car and then drove away.

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He was arrested that night.

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At his sinencing hearing, months later, Carl apologized to Barbara.

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He said, "I just wish I could turn the calendar back."

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That suggests he understood what he had done once the acute episode passed.

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But by then, Norman was dead and Carl's life was over too.

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Carl was initially charged with first-degree murder, which in South Dakota can carry the death penalty or life in prison.

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He pleaded not guilty at first and asked for a jury trial.

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His defense attorney, Scott Brantlin, recognized that the evidence was overwhelming

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and that Carl's mental state needed to be a part of the equation.

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On May 1, 2012, Carl changed his plea.

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He pleaded guilty but mentally ill to second-degree murder.

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This is a specific type of plea in South Dakota law.

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It's not the same as not guilty by reason of insanity.

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With that plea, you'd potentially be sent to a psychiatric facility and could be released if you got better.

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The guilty but mentally ill plea means you're still convicted and still going to prison.

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The court acknowledges you were mentally ill when you committed the crime.

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On June 15, 2012, Carl was sentenced to life in prison.

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The law requires he received psychiatric treatment while incarcerated.

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If he needs specialized care, he can temporarily be transferred to other facilities.

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He'll always return to the penitentiary to serve out his life's sentence.

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This verdict balanced two things, justice for Norman's family,

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who needed to know Carl would never be free again,

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and recognition that Carl's mind was profoundly impaired when he pulled that trigger.

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With this case, does is force us to ask uncomfortable questions about memory,

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grudges, and how the mind can twist minor wounds into life-defining traumas.

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Did that locker room incident actually happen the way Carl remembered?

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Maybe? Maybe not?

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What matters is that Carl believed it, and he built his entire sense of victimhood around it.

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Underneath that story was something more corrosive.

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Carl spent 50 years watching Norman succeed.

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Watching him be celebrated.

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Watching him live the life Carl thought he deserved.

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When Carl's mental illness stripped away his ability to suppress that envy, it exploded outward.

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Norman Johnson spent his life teaching kids, coaching track, being a good husband and community leader.

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He had no idea Carl was carrying this around.

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On January 31, 2012, when he opened that door to see who was ringing the bell,

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he had seconds to live.

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Carl Erickson is still in prison now in his mid-80s.

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He destroyed Norman's life, Barber's life, and his own.

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For what?

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A grudge that may have been based on something that never really happened the way he remembered it.

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A jealousy that ate him alive from the inside out.

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A mental illness that turned bitterness into bullets.

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This is what happens when resentment doesn't fade.

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When you can't let go.

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When you decide the only way to feel better about your life is to end someone else's.

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Nobody wins in the end.

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Norman is dead.

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Carl is locked up forever.

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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.

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Thanks for listening to "10 Minute Murder," "Bingeable True Crime Stories."

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I'm Joe, I'm the host.

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This email is "Subjects on Popular Opinions Welcome" from Courtney and Denver.

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Hey Joe, what is one true crime documentary or podcast everyone loves that you just couldn't get into?

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I promise I won't judge unless you say "Mind Hunter."

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And I will not say "Mind Hunter" because I absolutely love it.

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And I'm having a hard time with this question because I can't think of one immediately.

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What if I tell you a true crime personality that I've just never really cared for? Nancy Grace.

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I understand people lover.

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She's got a big fan base and people love everything that she does.

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It's just not for me.

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It feels too sensationalized.

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A little too over the top.

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Some people dig that and that's fine.

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I'm not judging you.

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I'm just saying that that's not for me.

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But what I will judge about her is it feels like sometimes her southern accent is put on.

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I live in the south.

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I've lived in the south for a very long time.

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I know a southern accent and I know a fake southern accent and that feels fake sometimes.

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Not all the time, but it sounds like sometimes she puts on a little bit.

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So Nancy Grace is not my favorite, but she's had a ton of success and that's great for her.

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And that's going to do it.

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That is your episode for today.

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Thank you again so much.

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I'm honored every time I release one of these episodes and I see the download numbers and it increases every time.

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It means so much to me that you guys enjoy what I'm doing here.

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So thank you again.

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See you next time.

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