Insanity Finding For 'Dad-Killer' Could Salvage Son's Share Of Home, Inheritance From Dead Father's Estate

In Pinellas County, Florida, The Tampa Tribune reports:

• In a murder case that gained national notoriety with its "Red Bull" defense, Thomas Coffeen now says it wasn't the energy drink that drove his brother to kill their father. [...] Coffeen doesn't believe his brother Stephen was sleep-deprived from energy drinks when he suffocated their father with a couch pillow in St. Petersburg two years ago.
• He doesn't believe Stephen was legally insane at the time, either, though five doctors have concluded he was. The question will be decided [] by Pinellas Circuit Judge Nancy Moate Ley. Ley will rule on a plea deal worked out by attorneys for the defense and prosecution in which Stephen Coffeen, 42, would spend time in a state mental hospital rather than stand trial on a murder charge.
• Thomas Coffeen is waging an eleventh hour campaign to persuade the judge to let a jury decide the case. Others also say Stephen Coffeen was sane when he killed his father, retired college professor Robert Coffeen, 83. [...] Thomas Coffeen says he believes his brother killed his father out of jealousy and thinks his brother planned the murder before coming here for a rare family visit from his home in California.

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• But others suggest justice for his father may not be the only reason Thomas Coffeen is pushing for prison instead of commitment to a state mental hospital for his brother. If Stephen Coffeen is convicted at trial, he won't get to split his father's inheritance of about $385,000 and a house.
• If he is found not guilty by reason of insanity, on the other hand, he could walk away with his share.

For more, see Inheritance rides on whether father killer was insane.

For story update, see Son who suffocated St. Petersburg father judged insane:

• A Pinellas County judge ruled [] that a man who suffocated his father with a pillow is not guilty by reason of insanity. Stephen Coffeen, 42, will be sent to the Florida State Hospital in Chattahoochee for the slaying in December 2009 of his 83-year-old father, Robert Coffeen, a World War II veteran who used a walker.
• Stephen Coffeen will never stand trial in the slaying because of the ruling by Pinellas Circuit Judge Nancy Moate Ley. A court hearing on whether he should be released from the state hospital could be scheduled in six to seven months.