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State Sen. Nicole Mitchell takes the stand in her burglary trial

Sen. Nicole Mitchell's testifies in her own defense in burglary trial
Sen. Nicole Mitchell's testifies in her own defense in burglary trial 04:28

State Sen. Nicole Mitchell, who is accused of burglarizing her stepmother's Detroit Lakes home, took the stand on the third day of testimony.

Nicole Mitchell doesn't deny she was at her stepmother Carol Mitchell's home on April 22, 2024; she says she was there to retrieve some of her late father's items and check on her. Nicole Mitchell pleaded not guilty to felony first-degree burglary and possession of burglary theft or tools

"I always remember Carol being in my life"

The beginning of Nicole Mitchell's testimony Thursday morning focused on her relationship with her stepmother Carol Mitchell, who she said has Alzheimer's. The Alzheimer's had caused Carol Mitchell to become paranoid, according to Nicole Mitchell. 

Before the diagnosis, Nicole Mitchell said she had a steady relationship with her stepmother, who had been in her life since she was 4 years old.

"I always remember Carol being in my life, and as a mother figure," Nicole Mitchell said. 

Nicole Mitchell said she first noticed signs of Alzheimer's in 2020, but Carol Mitchell was not formally diagnosed until 2022. Her father died in 2023, which she described as a "major" event in her relationship with her stepmother.

The day after her father died, she said Carol Mitchell accused her of coming to steal paperwork related to her inheritance, but she was working in the state Senate that day and recorded on video doing so. 

"There was no way I was there," Nicole Mitchell said. 

According to her testimony, the two had discussed money after Nicole Mitchell's father died; he had left no will, and Carol Mitchell was clear that she planned to split funds between Nicole Mitchell and her son Jonathon, whom she had given up for adoption but reconnected with 30 years later. 

Nicole Mitchell said that she had no intention of taking Carol Mitchell's money, and her concern centered on the potential costs of a memory care facility for her stepmother, if she would end up needing it.

"I knew that if it came to it and there wasn't enough, I would be the one covering everything, so I just wanted to make sure it was protected," Nicole Mitchell said. 

"She was so confused"

The latter half of Thursday morning's testimony centered on a text exchange between Nicole Mitchell and her stepmother, which happened in the weeks leading up to the one-year anniversary of Rod Mitchell's death.

The two, according to the exchange, agreed to meet on Good Friday so that Nicole Mitchell and her children could visit her father's ashes. Carol Mitchell then texted and said a cemetery had decided that Rod Mitchell's internment would be on the anniversary of his death.

"I find it disappointing it would be scheduled for a day that excluded Dad's only child and grandchildren, and I know he would be hurt we were excluded, too," Nicole Mitchell texted her stepmother after saying she couldn't attend the internment because of her senate schedule.

According to the messages, Nicole Mitchell then called the cemetery and learned that Carol Mitchell had picked the day, and the internment could have been on Good Friday. 

"She was struggling and I didn't say anything because ... but that was the one thing, it just, it was so hard because we loved him too," Nicole Mitchell told the court.

After the exchange, Nicole Mitchell said she "never contacted her again." 

"I was feeling so emotionally beat up by that point, and there was so much other stuff going on that I just couldn't keep doing it, and I needed a break," Nicole Mitchell said.

Despite cutting off her stepmother, she said she was "still really worried" about Carol Mitchell.

"She was so confused," Nicole Mitchell said, "I don't know if she would have done that outside of the Alzheimer's."

Nicole Mitchell details growing concerns, recounts break-in

After a break, Nicole Mitchell returned to the stand Thursday afternoon, testifying that a look at Carol Mitchell's medical records led to heightened concern about her Alzheimer's.

Nicole Mitchell said her stepmother had gifted her a laptop, and she was going through it in 2024 while doing some spring cleaning. She checked the documents, pictures and emails for anything important and found references to medical appointments. Nicole Mitchell said she accessed online medical records by resetting Carol Mitchell's password.

One of the emails referenced an April 17, 2024, appointment, after which Nicole Mitchell checked the records again and found notes that concerned her. 

"I was worried in general and I decided to check and see how things were myself," Nicole Mitchell said.

She testified that she was driven to act — to eventually break into her stepmother's home under cover of night — out of concern for her stepmother, because she's "had situations before where I've waited too long for something and then the bad thing happens or almost happens."

Nicole Mitchell relayed the story of a child she lost midway through a pregnancy because a doctor dismissed her concerns and she didn't push the issue for fear of looking foolish.

She said the experience taught her "that I should trust my gut a little bit more and that sometimes the thing you're worried about really does happen."

Nicole Mitchell's testimony then turned to the break-in itself. She said she decided to visit her stepmother's home because she "couldn't think of any other way to sate my worries." She decided to do it clandestinely because "I didn't want confrontation, I didn't want to hear something awful, I just couldn't."

She offered explanations for some of the items she had with her on April 22, 2024. A flashlight covered with a sock had been like that for a while, she said, because her adopted son is afraid of the dark and uses it when he sleeps in her room. She brought latex gloves in anticipation that she might find things out of sorts at the house, such as expired food or an unclean litterbox. 

As for her all-black apparel, Nicole Mitchell said all of the neighbors knew her and she didn't want them to see her and tell Carol Mitchell they had.

When she arrived at Carol Mitchell's house, she meant to enter through the door with a key she had had for years. But an activated floodlight alarmed her, and she noticed the door was barricaded from the inside, so she instead went to the basement egress window.

Once inside, she took off her "very dirty" shoes and searched the basement before moving to the main floor, where she saw papers piled on the kitchen stove and unopened mail on the dining table, both of which concerned her. 

"In general, I was just really worried, so I guess [I felt] relieved that it wasn't so bad, but also there were some things that verified a couple of concerns that I had," Nicole Mitchell said.

She wanted to check Carol Mitchell's phone, so she went to her bedroom. After she "sat and listened to her breathe for a couple seconds," Carol Mitchell started to stir and eventually woke up. She bumped into Nicole Mitchell, prompting the stepdaughter to run into the hallway and the stepmother to give chase. They eventually ended up in the basement and Carol Mitchell called the police, who eventually arrived and arrested Nicole Mitchell.

Nicole Mitchell denied she went to the home to harm her stepmother or to take anything.

"I don't take things. I'd been asking for different things for a year, but as upset as I was that [Carol Mitchell] gave away a lot of [Rod Mitchell's] ... I was visiting every month, if there was something that I just needed that badly I could have gotten it and stuff is never more important than the person," Nicole Mitchell said. "And I was just worried. I was always more worried about Carol and making sure she was OK than I was about stuff."

While she expressed remorse for how things have dominoed, Nicole Mitchell said she felt her actions were necessary at the time.

"I regret what happened and maybe that I didn't do it the right way," she said. "I don't regret being worried. I think you should try to look out for your family."

The defense asked Nicole Mitchell why she said multiple times on the body camera footage that she was in the house to retrieve some of her father's things.

"I had to think for a second about like, what am I going to say? Because in my mind, I couldn't say any of the truth, because [Carol Mitchell] would've freaked out and it would've made it worse," Nicole Mitchell said. "Whether it was the right decision or wrong, that was the only thing I could think of to say that wasn't one of the actually true things that would completely set her off."

On cross-examination, the prosecution asked Nicole Mitchell basic, factual questions about the case, repeatedly asking her if those things were "truth or fiction." This was an apparent attempt to call into question her testimony about lying to police about her reason for being in the house.

The prosecution asked Nicole Mitchell why, in the time she was alone with police, she didn't mention concern for Carol Mitchell's health. She denied that was the case. Later, when asked by the defense why she didn't tell police the real reason she was there, she said the police were telling Carol Mitchell everything she said.

"I knew that even if I told the police at the station, they would just immediately go back and say, 'She did this, she said this, can you verify it,' whatever else, and that would spin her up and it would make it impossible to calm her back down," Nicole Mitchell said.

The state also asked what Nicole Mitchell thinks her late father would make of the break-in.

"I think he would be very sad by this whole situation and that he would support me because he loved Carol and even if I did it the wrong way, he would've wanted me to do my best to take care of her," she said.

Body camera video shown during early testimony; Carol Mitchell felt "extremely violated" after break-in

When Carol Mitchell testified on the first day of the trial, she said she felt "extremely violated" when her home was broken into. 

When the defense team asked her if Nicole Mitchell cared about her well-being, Carol Mitchell said "I don't believe so," adding that "Nicole never let me get close to her."

The prosecution also showed police body camera video of Nicole Mitchell's arrest. Video shows Nicole Mitchell dressed in all black, and after Carol Mitchell accuses her of stealing documents, Nicole Mitchell says, "No one stole anything here."

As an officer leads Nicole Mitchell into his squad car, she tells him that her stepmother "progressively cut off the family" due to paranoia caused by Alzheimer's. In the video, Nicole Mitchell tells the officer that she got into the house through the basement window and "just wanted to get a couple of [her] dad's mementos."

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Detroit Lakes Police Department

Nicole Mitchell was first elected in 2022, and represents parts of Maplewood and Woodbury. She survived multiple attempts from her Republican Senate colleagues to expel her from the chamber, but the DFL Caucus removed her from committee assignments and caucus meetings after she was arrested.

WCCO will offer special, extended coverage of Mitchell's trial online and on CBS News Minnesota.

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