A Fremont County man accused of shooting his wheelchair-bound landlord to death last year has announced he’s no longer using an insanity defense in court.
Burdick Nelson Seminole, 59, still has a not-guilty plea in place in a case where he’s accused of shooting Michael Standing Elk to death as the latter sat in a wheelchair last August.
Standing Elk was 42.
Seminole’s trial is set for Nov. 12 in the Casper post of the U.S. District Court for Wyoming.
But he’s no longer waging an insanity defense, despite pleading “not guilty by reason of mental illness” on April 19.
“(Seminole) provides notice to the government and the court that he withdraws his notice of intent to rely upon an insanity defense,” says a document Seminole’s attorney Eric Palen filed in the federal court Thursday.
Palen did not immediately respond to an email request for comment.
Seminole also pleaded not guilty when he gave his insanity plea. In Wyoming a person may advance both those pleas simultaneously. His not guilty plea appears to be intact.
Murder Case
Seminole faces one count of first-degree murder, which is punishable by life in prison and up to $250,000 in fines.
A grand jury also indicted him in the case with one count of firing a gun during a crime of violence (punishable by between 10 years and life in prison and up to $250,000 in fines), and causing death while using a firearm in a crime of violence (up to life and up to $250,000).
The case evidentiary affidavit accuses Seminole of entering a crowded home on the Wind River Indian Reservation the morning of Aug. 8 after his landlord, Standing Elk, evicted him four months prior.
Seminole was evicted on claims that he brought “young females” to the home to get them high, the affidavit says.
Seminole turned on the light in Standing Elk’s room at 8 a.m. and started slapping Standing Elk’s head, telling him to “talk shit now,” according to a witness interview police gathered later.
Standing Elk told his female partner to call police. He then got into his wheelchair and rolled down the hall, telling others in the house to wake up, says the affidavit.
Seminole pistol-whipped Standing Elk with a gun, multiple witnesses later told police. The federal prosecutor is also preparing to bring an expert witness to trial who can attest to that based on Standing Elk’s facial injuries.
Standing Elk tried to shoot Seminole, and his gun jammed, one witness told police.
“OK, I’m done, you win Burdick,” one witness recalled hearing Standing Elk say.
The document says Seminole then shot at Standing Elk, and Standing Elk slumped over in his wheelchair.
Another tenant came out of a bedroom and shot at Seminole, then ducked back into a room, says the affidavit.
Seminole took himself to the Wind River Family and Community Health Care clinic on the reservation; and later was at a hospital being treated for a gunshot wound. There, he told police he had enough of Standing Elk “talking smack,” says the affidavit.
Seminole said he rushed out of the home after being shot and grabbed a .45-caliber pistol, but then his memory blacked out, and when he regained consciousness, he was standing in the house and “shooting back” at Standing Elk, the document says.
‘Perforating’
The federal prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Elmore, is planning to bring multiple expert witnesses to trial to give forensic analyses, primarily surrounding the blood and gunshot projectiles involved in the scene.
Dr. William Spafford Smock, a gunshot wound forensic evaluator, is slated to testify that Standing Elk died of gunshot wounds to the chest and bore blunt-force trauma wounds to his face consistent with pistol whipping, says an Oct. 1 filing by Elmore.
One projectile entered the victim’s left upper chest and perforated his left and right lungs from an “intermediate” distance, stalling out within his right upper back. Another entered his left upper chest, perforated his heart, aorta, esophagus and right lung, exiting his right upper back and ripping through his wheelchair’s fabric, says the filing.
A third projectile hit the victim in the left arm, lodging in the soft tissues there, the filing adds.
The victim’s left ear and neck also bore “perforating gunshot wounds,” says the document
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
