Man ruled insane in N.J. Turnpike killing

A man who beat a 75-year-old stranger to death at a New Jersey Turnpike rest stop last year was legally insane at the time of the murder, a Burlington County Superior Court judge ruled today.

Brian White, 27, believed God ordered him to attack Russian immigrant Michail J. Makarenko with a rock in March 2007, said Assistant Prosecutor Michael Mormando. In fact, White believed Makarenko was Satan, Mormando said.

Acting on recommendations from Mormando and White's attorney, Judge Thomas S. Smith, Jr. found White not guilty by reason of insanity and committed him to a state hospital.

White, a diagnosed schizophrenic, will receive periodic evaluations but is likely to remain in a psychiatric facility for the foreseeable future, Mormando said. White is being held at the Ann Klein Forensic Center in West Trenton.

Authorities say White's attack on Makarenko was a random act of violence that was triggered by White's religious delusions.

Makarenko, a Soviet dissident who had escaped communist Russia and worked as an activist for other immigrants, had stopped at a Mount Laurel rest stop while traveling from his home in Virginia to visit friends in New York. White was also en route to New York, and stopped at the same place.

White approached Makarenko, offering to sell him a hip-hop CD that White had recorded. When Makarenko declined, White picked up a nearby rock and struck Makarenko over the head with it, then led police on a nearly 90-mile chase through North Jersey before he was caught by police.