Opinion ID: 1907203
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 33

Heading: Richard Biegenwald (1A)

Text: On August 27, 1982, Richard Biegenwald approached eighteen-year-old Anna Olesiewicz on the Asbury Park Boardwalk and offered her marijuana. Olesiewicz accompanied Biegenwald to his house. Biegenwald intended to have his roommate and protégé, Theresa Smith, kill Olesiewicz so that she could understand the thrill of killing. However, when he was unable to rouse Smith, Biegenwald shot Olesiewicz four times in the head. The next day, after coaxing Smith to touch the victim's body and tell him how it felt, Biegenwald and another friend dumped the body in a vacant lot behind a fast food restaurant. On January 14, 1983, Olesiewicz's skeleton was discovered. One week later, Smith went to the police and implicated Biegenwald in the murder. Police subsequently recovered several guns, narcotics, and a ring belonging to Olesiewicz from Biegenwald's house. Biegenwald was arrested and charged in four different murders, including the murder of Olesiewicz. Biegenwald was verbally and physically abused as a child. He was institutionalized at the age of eight, diagnosed as schizophrenic, and given at least twenty electro-convulsive shock treatments. He later entered a state hospital after trying to set himself on fire. On his release, he was beaten again by his father, stole from his mother, and frequently ran away from home for days at a time. At age eighteen, Biegenwald was convicted of a murder committed while robbing a store, for which he served seventeen or eighteen years in prison. At the time of the Olesiewicz murder, he had been married for two years, had a five-month-old daughter and was employed as a construction worker. He denied abusing alcohol but admitted smoking marijuana. A forensic psychiatrist for the defense testified that Biegenwald suffered from a severe personality disorder known as antisocial personality with paranoid traits. Although he did not find Biegenwald to be legally insane, the psychiatrist testified that Biegenwald lacked the emotional capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his act or to conform his behavior to the law. The jury found two aggravating factors, c(4)(a) (prior murder) and c(4)(c) (outrageously and wantonly vile), and two mitigating factors, c(5)(d) (mental disease or defect) and c(5)(h) (catch-all). The jury determined that the mitigating factors did not outweigh the aggravating factors and sentenced Biegenwald to death. On appeal, the Court reversed the death sentence because of the inadequacy of the jury charge regarding the weighing of aggravating and mitigating factors. State v. Biegenwald, 106 N.J. 13, 524 A. 2d 130 (1987) ( Biegenwald I ).