The defense will likely rest their case Friday after presenting testimony from a few final witnesses in the criminal trial of State Sen. Nicole Mitchell. The first term DFLer from suburban Woodbury is charged with two felonies, first degree attempted burglary and possession of burglary tools, for allegedly breaking into the Detroit Lakes home of her stepmother in April 2024.
Mitchell spent a long day on the witness stand Thursday, first explaining her reasons for her actions during a lengthy direct questioning from her own defense attorney, before enduring a withering cross examination from the prosecutor.
Mitchell admitted that she broke into the house in pre-dawn hours after driving through the night to Detroit Lakes, and she acknowledged her actions were wrong but said she went there out of concern about her stepmother, who is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
“I don’t take things,” she told the court, adding that she could have taken clothes or other belongings of her father from the house during her prior visits. In police body camera video, however, Mitchell can be heard saying she had come to collect items of her father.
“I did trespass,” she testified. “I understand that I did the wrong thing. To me, it felt different because it was my parents’ house and I had a key and I’d been in and out of there for years.”
Earlier in the day, Mitchell testified that she once had a close relationship with her stepmother Carol Mitchell — but that changed in recent years as Carol experienced the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.
“She was one of my parents,” Mitchell said, recalling her experience with her stepmother before her diagnosis with Alzheimer’s. “I always remember Carol being in my life and as a mother figure, and so it was nice to have another mother figure.”
But in recent years and especially since her father’s death in 2023, Sen. Mitchell noted repeatedly that Carol Mitchell had become increasingly confused, irrational and agitated.
On the day she went to the home in the early morning darkness, dressed in all black, Mitchell testified that as she tried to enter the home, it appeared a chair was pushed up against the door. So she said she went through a basement egress window. One inside, she said she checked to see if the mail had been opened, that there was food in the fridge, that Carol's phone was working. Mitchell testified she even went into Carol’s bedroom.
“I know this sounds creepy, I sat and listened to her breathe for a couple seconds, kind of like when I check on my kids at night and they’re breathing and I can hear them and I know they’re OK.”
That’s when Carol woke up. Mitchell said Carol recognized her and asked her what she was doing there. Then Mitchell ran to the basement and Carol called 9-1-1, saying someone had broken into her house.
Mitchell was asked by her attorney if she regrets what she did.
“So I regret what happened and maybe that I didn’t do it the right way. I don’t regret being worried. I think you should try to look out for your family.”
But Mitchell’s testimony at times contradicted what she said to policy, recorded in the body camera footage of her arrest.
The jury saw that footage Tuesday, which also shows Mitchell being taken into custody, and she tells police that she was at the house to get a few mementos of her late father, including “a couple pictures and maybe one of his shirts.”
Becker County Attorney Brian McDonald pounced on those contradictions in his cross examination. He asked her over and over what was truth and what was fiction, circling back to what she told police that night.
McDonald also pressed her several times on whether she was truly concerned or if she was trying to cover for her criminal actions, and he returned to the topic in a key moment before ending his cross examination.
“You’ve talked about paranoia and triggers and things like that,” McDonald asked.
Michell responded, “Yes.”
“And yet, fully aware of all of that, fully aware of Carol Mitchell’s Alzheimer’s, you still made a decision to break into her house that morning,” McDonald continued, seeming incredulous.
“Yes,” Mitchell responded.
“In your mind that was the best course of action, not telling anybody else, driving 220 miles and breaking into her house,” McDonald stated, before Mitchell’s defense objected on grounds the question had already been asked and answered, and the judge sustained the objection.
McDonald then pivoted and asked Mitchell if her father was proud of her accomplishments. “I believe he was, yes,” Mitchell responded.
“How would he feel about you breaking into his own home?” McDonald then sharply asked.
Nicole Mitchell paused for several seconds before responding in a measured tone.
“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 have wanted me to do my best to take care of her,” she testified.