Robert Farrington Pett is escorted by Carver County Sheriff Les Melchert.By Mark Olson 

Last Friday, Carver County District Court Judge Kevin Eide handed down a life sentence, without parole, to Grant Everson for his part in the murder of his mother, Nancy Everson.

It was a dark chapter in county history, but it isn’t the first time it has been told.

On at least two previous occasions in the Carver County Courthouse, sons have stood before a judge, accused of killing their parents.

However, each case ended with vastly different outcomes.

Richard Happ

On March 24, 1999, Richard Albert Happ, 30, stabbed both of his parents to death in their Waconia home with a butcher knife.

His brother, David Happ, escaped the carnage and dialed 911. Richard Happ then fled in a responding Carver County Sheriff’s Deputy squad car, resulting in a chase that ended near Lake Minnetonka.

On April 28, 2000, Happ was found not guilty by reason of mental illness in the murders of his parents, Angela and Richard Happ.

“In 14 years as a county attorney, never have I had a case where there was a legitimate mental illness defense in the situation of a homicide,” stated Carver County Attorney Michael Fahey at the time of the verdict.

Doctors at St. Peter’s Regional Treatment Center declared that Happ was “psychotic” and that “his ability to reason and exercise sound judgment was seriously compromised.”

He remains in St. Peter’s Regional Treatment Center for an “indeterminate commitment.”

“It’s anticipated he’s going to be down there for a long, long time,” said Fahey in May 2000.

Robert Pett

More than 50 years ago, Carver County faced a case with even more twists and turns.

In 1952, teenager Robert Farrington Pett stood trial for killing his foster mother, Mary Pett, at their Chanhassen home on Christmas Lake.

The Chaska Herald, then the Weekly Valley Herald, reported intently on the court proceedings. It was also picked up by the 15 cent crime magazine, “Headquarters Detective,” which detailed the crime under the headline, “The corpse kept crying.”

A police officer told the court that Pett confessed to the murder. Pett had contemplated suicide, reported Patrolman Robert Clark. However he decided, “As long as I couldn’t kill myself, I would kill my mother.”

He shot her in the face using a .22 caliber rifle, the court alleged. However, she was still alive following the blast. As she attempted to crawl to her bed, her son hit her with a club, Clark said the youth admitted.

Pett then took a knife from under his bathrobe, “‘which I had brought forth for the purpose and stabbed knives into her body,’” Clark quoted the youth as saying.

Sheriff Les Melchert said that Mary Pett was found with two knives sticking in her body. “The one in the chest was in up to the hilt and the one in the stomach showed half a blade,” he reported.

The defense brought forward Minneapolis psychiatrist Dr. H.B. Hannah, who labeled Pett as having a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde personality, the Herald reported. “This condition is known as schizophrenia, which is marked by hallucinations, a split personality and a world of unreality.”

Hannah told the court that Pett killed his mother to silence her nagging, but that he continued to hear her voice following the murder. Other mental experts took the stand to claim that Pett didn’t know right and wrong.

Pett was convicted of first-degree murder following an 11-day trail and sent to the Stillwater prison.

However, a few years after the conviction, in a courtroom twist, the Minnesota Supreme Court ordered a retrial on the grounds that Pett had not been processed through juvenile court prior to his district court trial. (Pett was 16 at the time of the murder.)

Pett pleaded guilty to third-degree murder during the second trial, held in Little Falls.

The charge carried a 10-year sentence. With time served, it was reported that, with good behavior, he would be eligible for release within “a matter of months.”

The May 18, 1959 story about Pett’s third-degree murder plea was apparently the last Herald article to report on his whereabouts.

Mark Olson can be reached at (952) 345-6574 or editor@chaskaherald.com.

To read more about the Everson murder trial, see our group on the trial.