Attorneys for the suspect in a Centerville triple homicide will raise the insanity defense in the nine felony counts he faces.
Jay Ostrem, 64, pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity to three counts of first-degree murder, three counts of second-degree murder and three counts of felony first-degree murder at an arraignment Thursday afternoon in McCook County.
The charges stem from a May 27 incident, when three people were shot and killed in Centerville, a small town of fewer than 1,000 people where Ostrem once served as mayor.
Authorities responded to a call at about 10 p.m. that evening by a man who had reported that his brother had been shot and killed, before later reporting that he himself had been shot.
As authorities arrived, a Game, Fish and Parks officer saw Ostrem leaving the home in question, finding him bleeding from the hand, smelling of alcohol and in possession of a handgun and a rifle.
Inside the home, authorities found Paul Frankus, 26, Zachary Frankus, 21, and Timothy Richmond, 35, dead.
When authorities visited Ostrem's nearby home, Ostrem's wife told them that on May 23 she and Paul Frankus had been drinking together when he forcibly kissed her and exposed his genitals to her, according to an affidavit about the case.
Ostrem's wife said she told Ostrem about the incident on the evening of May 27, which led to him "raging out of the house," documents state. She told officers that he did not say anything about where he was going, and that he didn't leave armed — though she said he had weapons inside the home, and possibly in his vehicle.
Outside of the details mentioned in the affidavit, the incident on May 23 has not been confirmed.
Judge David Knoff gave state prosecutors a deadline of Aug. 16 to file documents as to whether they'd be seeking the death penalty in the six felony counts that could carry it, and set Ostrem's next court hearing for 2 p.m. Aug. 22 at the McCook County Courthouse in Salem.
Who is Jay Ostrem?
With 20 years of law enforcement experience, Ostrem played a role in helping the city overcome state-level scrutiny when the city's police chief at the time faced an investigation for a crime not named publicly in 2006 by working for the city police department on weekends after a time when the town had little to no law enforcement, the archives show. That former police chief, Nolan Clark, later pleaded guilty to DUI in 2007 and Ostrem stopped taking those weekend shifts then.
Ostrem, a Gillette, Wyoming transplant, was also a Turner County Sheriff's Office investigator in 2007 and a deputy in 2010, according to Argus Leader archives. He assisted in the 2010 trial of Ethan Johns, who was convicted of killing sheriff's deputy Chad Mechels and sentenced to life in prison.
He was also at the center of a two-year legal battle for Centerville between 2010 and 2012, when the city's former police chief filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Ostrem, who was the former mayor by that time. He was mayor in 2010, archives show.
The two settled the lawsuit, but the former chief, Rachel Kopman, had alleged she was "repeatedly inundated with sexually inappropriate comments and remarks from Ostrem," during her tenure. Neither commented about the settlement at the time, Argus Leader archives show.
His law enforcement certification expired in 2016, reported South Dakota Searchlight, a nonprofit newsroom.
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