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high school classmate's doorbell in January, verified the man's identity and then shot him dead, the question had been what prompted him to confront a man he hadn't even spoken to in years.
• The startling answer, a prosecutor said Friday, was a 1950s locker room humiliation that festered in Ericsson's mind for a half-century.
• "He said that a jockstrap was put on his head," Kenneth Meyer said. "It's the only thing he's ever mentioned in talking to law enforcement."
• Ericsson, who a psychiatrist said suffered from anxiety and depression for years, last month pleaded guilty but mentally ill to second-degree murder in the death of Norman Johnson.
• "I guess it was from something that happened over 50 years ago," Ericsson told

a judge then. "It was apparently in my subconscious."
• He was sentenced Friday to life in prison.
• Johnson was a track star at Madison High School, and Ericsson a student sports manager. The prosecutor said he had no other details about the locker room story, which never was corroborated.
• "I know of no one that remembers it or acknowledges it other than Carl," Meyer said.
• He also declined to say whether in Ericsson's telling, it was Johnson who put the jockstrap on his head.
• Beth Ribstein, Johnson's youngest daughter, said she couldn't understand how someone could hold onto a grudge for so long.
• "It was just goofing off in a locker room," Ribstein said, shaking her head.
• Ribstein, 50, addressed the court before Ericsson was sentenced, and accused him of envying Johnson's success in the Madison community.
• After high school, Johnson played college football, earned a bachelor's and a master's degree and returned to Madison High to teach and coach for more than 30 years.
• More than 600 people -- about one-sixth of Madison's population -- attended Johnson's funeral, including one of Ericsson's family members. Johnson was well-liked and respected across the community, Ribstein said.
• "I can't blame you for being jealous of dad," she said to Ericsson.
• Ericsson himself was no failure.
• He had lived in Wyoming before returning to South Dakota and settling in Watertown, a town nearly an hour north of Madison. He has been married to his wife, Deanna, for more than 44 years, is a North Dakota State University graduate and

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