Teen pleads guilty to killing roommate, carving ‘joker' in body

CATAWBA COUNTY, N.C.,None — A teenager pleaded guilty Thursday to killing a man and carving into his body.

According to court documents, the word carved on Stephen Starr’s body was the word "joker."

Prosecutors and 19-year-old Michael Anderson’s attorney talked about how the teen abused large amounts of cough medicine in the hours before the killing.

But prosecutors still contend Anderson killed his roommate, Starr, at their home near Hickory, and then mutilated the body after his death with an axe. He also used a knife to carve the word “joker” into his side.

Deputies removed several weapons from the home last February, but officials did not reveal until Thursday that Anderson took as many as 19 pills of the cough medicine Mucinex DM prior to the killing.

"If you take enough of a certain type of cough medicine that has dextromethorphan in it, it causes you to have an LSD acid-type high. You see things that are not there. Everything becomes distorted," said defense attorney Robert Campbell.

Anderson’s attorney said the high, known on the street as Triple C's, skittles, and robo-tripping, is something teenagers can easily access.

Prior to the killing, Anderson had never been in trouble and did not have a criminal record.

Prosecutors said Starr was killed in his sleep and that Anderson confessed to the crime.

"Law enforcement could not find any motive except the defendant gave a complete confession about what he did and how he went about doing it. He just kept mentioning the pills made him do it," said prosecutor Michael Van Buren.

With the urging of Starr's family, the district attorney’s office agreed to a second-degree murder plea deal. The judge sentenced Anderson to between 16 and 20 years of prison time

The judge also agreed to the family’s request to have all the weapons seized in the case destroyed.

WSOC