Former UW-Madison student Adam Peterson pleaded guilty to the charge of first-degree intentional homicide at a hearing Monday for the January stabbing death of Joel Marino.
Peterson will now be moved from the Dane County Jail to the state prison system and will be sentenced within 60 to 90 days. Extended supervision will be determined at a later date,"" said Dane County Circuit Judge James Martin, who imposed the mandatory life sentence at the hearing.
""The state has agreed to a recommendation of extended supervision not greater than 40 years from [Monday's] date,"" Martin said.
The guilty plea means Peterson will not face trial, previously scheduled to begin in January.
Peterson, who appeared at the hearing in a quilted anti-suicide smock, has been on suicide watch since Sept. 25, when he attempted to hang himself in the shower with a pair of jail-issued uniform pants nearly three months after he was arrested and charged in connection with Marino's death.
On Jan. 28, Peterson entered the home of 31-year-old Marino, where an argument ensued and resulted in Peterson stabbing Marino in the abdomen and upper chest with a paring knife. Police said the homicide was the result of a botched robbery attempt and that Marino and Peterson did not know one another. In a recorded phone conversation with his father while in jail, Peterson said he stabbed Marino ""out of nowhere"" and that he ""just wasn't thinking sanely"" at the time of the killing.
Police found Peterson's DNA on the knife at the scene and a stocking hat and backpack nearby, but it was a series of calls from his twin brother Eric concerning Peterson's welfare that put him on police radar. Detectives traveled to the home of Peterson's mother in Grant, Minn., where Peterson was living after dropping out of UW-Madison, and arrested him June 26.
