The father of murder defendant Alan P. Nadeau broke down on the witness stand Wednesday as he relived the night his son, without apparent provocation, pounced on a family friend and fatally stabbed him in the living room of the Nadeau home in Lebanon. 

Alan Nadeau, 32, charged with murdering 37-year-old Christian E. Beloin of Coventry on April 12, 2015, was found not guilty by reason of insanity following a daylong hearing in New London Superior Court.

In addition to Norman Nadeau's harrowing account of the incident, a three-judge panel heard testimony from state police detective David Lamoureux and forensic psychiatrist Kenneth Selig, who told the judge Nadeau has a "long-standing, serious, life-altering psychotic disorder," and despite no previous history of violence, was "a time bomb" at the time of the incident.

"His psychotic thinking was that if he killed this man, his life would be much, much better," Selig testified. "He saw this individual as a threat and a danger who had to be eliminated."

Nadeau, now known as "acquittee," will be evaluated at Whiting for the next two months before returning to court for sentencing on March 28. He faces confinement of up to 60 years.

The father, Norman Nadeau, stopped often to collect himself and wipe away tears during his testimony. 

Siblings of the victim shed tears as they listened from the gallery. Nadeau, wearing tan prison scrubs and sitting between his attorneys, remained calm.

Norman Nadeau said he and Beloin, his friend of about five years, had returned to the Nadeau home at 67 Ledge Road around midnight after going to a Colchester restaurant to have dinner, drinks and to listen to music on Saturday, April 11, 2015.

He and Beloin were sitting in the living room, listening to music and having a few drinks for approximately four hours before the stabbing.

“We were just a couple of buddies, solving the problems of the world,” the father said, laughing nervously.

Alan Nadeau, who had a room in the basement, came into the room at one point and stayed about 15 minutes. He did not show any signs of anger, the father said.

Then, he testified, his son moved toward Beloin, who was sitting on the end of a couch.

Though Norman Nadeau said he didn’t have a clear view of the stabbing from where he sat, he remembered that Beloin immediately made a noise and grabbed his neck.

“Christian got up, holding his neck,” the father testified. “I knew Alan had done something. I thought he may have just hit him. I said, ‘Alan, why did you do that?’"

Norman Nadeau said he didn’t see a weapon and didn’t see his son again after that.

Beloin stumbled across the room, holding his bleeding neck, and fell in the doorway, gasping. Nadeau said he tried to comfort his friend and keep Beloin’s hand on his neck while calling 911. Beloin was pronounced dead at the scene.

One of the troopers who came to the home told the father that Alan Nadeau was in custody.

Nadeau had turned himself in at the Colchester State Police barracks with a computer bag containing a laptop and a bayonet-style knife with blood on both sides of its 8-inch blade.

The troopers collected a DNA sample from Nadeau and submitted it, along with the knife and Beloin’s DNA, to the state laboratory. The testing indicated that DNA from both Nadeau and Beloin were on the knife.

Nadeau, who confessed to killing Beloin during an interview with state police detective David Lamoureux, said he had been sexually abused by Beloin and his father during his childhood, but Lamoureux, during his testimony, said there was no evidence that Beloin had abused anyone.

Norman Nadeau said that in 2013, after another son became alarmed when Alan Nadeau made “strange and scary statements,” Nadeau was committed to the Natchaug Hospital for a month and came home, under medication, with an amicable and open demeanor.

Nadeau had worked off and on, but “it seemed like he always had issues with people, and would eventually be let go,” he said.

The father said he did not talk to his son’s mental health providers in any detail because he had no right to do so as the result of privacy laws.

After the stabbing, he said he found paranoid writings in his son’s room, which he said had “a theme of sexual abuse throughout.”

Nadeau told detective Lamoureux he killed Beloin so that he could be locked up in order to “stop the abuse,” Lamoureux testified. Nadeau said he had not taken his medications for about a year.

Alan Nadeau had lived with his father, who is divorced from Nadeau’s mother, since 2003. Selig, the psychiatrist, said school and medical records showed Nadeau had "significant psychological problems since he was very young."

Nadeau had difficulty adjusting to school and to the world, Selig said, and over time, he developed a series of ideas that weren't true but that he came to believe were true.

He claimed his father, doctor, school principal and dentist had raped him, Selig said. He said he was attacked by a wolf, shot by the police, had committed suicide and was drugged and attacked by his coworkers while employed at Mohegan Sun.

Nadeau slept with a knife under his bed because he feared his father would attack him, and "had the idea that life was repeating itself, over and over, and he couldn't stop it," Selig testified.

Selig said Nadeau told him he was happy at Whiting or in prison because he knew he was safe.

Senior Assistant State’s Attorney David J. Smith had prosecuted the case with assistance from Supervisor Inspector Philip Fazzino.

After listening to the evidence and to arguments from the attorneys, the judges recessed before returning to the bench and announcing the state had met its burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that Nadeau was guilty of murder. 

The judges ruled next that atttorneys M. Fred DeCaprio and Kevin C. Barrs, both public defenders, had proved, by a fair preponderance of the evidence, that at the time of the crime, Nadeau lacked substantial capacity to control his conduct as the result of mental disease or defect.

k.florin@theday.com

Twitter: @KFLORIN