NJ Man Charged In Family Deaths Knew Right From Wrong: Prosecutor

LONG BRANCH, NJ — The Scott Kologi quadruple murder trial continued this week as Monmouth County prosecutors tried to make the case Wednesday that Kologi knew right from wrong.

Prosecutors in the trial, taking place in Monmouth County Superior Court in Freehold, tried to persuade the jury that Kologi knew full well he was wrong when he shot and killed four members of his family, including his parents, inside the family's Long Branch home on New Year's Eve 2017.

Kologi is on trial on four counts of first-degree murder in the shooting deaths of his mother, Linda Kologi, 44; his father, Steven Kologi, 42; his sister, Brittany Kologi, 18; and his grandfather's girlfriend, Mary Schultz, 70. Kologi was 16 years old at the time; he is now 20. His murder trial started this month. He has pleaded not guilty by reasons of insanity.

Maureen Santina, a forensic psychologist and witness for the defense, took the stand Wednesday for a second day and was cross-examined by the prosecution. Santina gave a mental assessment and interview with Kologi immediately after the shootings and has monitored him in the past five years since.

Santina previously diagnosed Kologi as having early onset schizophrenia, according to the Asbury Park Press.

Testimony involved Kologi's use of an AK-47 in the shootings, which was legally owned by his older brother, Steven Kologi, and kept in the home.

"So [Kologi] knew the act of loading the [weapon's] magazine was wrong and what he was going to be doing was wrong?" Assistant Prosecutor Sean Brennan asked Santina.

She responded in the affirmative.

In a police interview done immediately after the shooting, Kologi admitted he shot his family members.

Santina testified that Kologi told her he heard voices and had visions while lying in bed at night, starting at age 6 or 7, and that the voices were "demonic."

On Tuesday, Santina testified that Kologi's hallucinations started at age 6 and grew more frequent — and horrifying — as he got older: that he saw faces on a wall that turned red and that he saw a woman floating above his bed whose eyes turned red and had sharp teeth, according to the Asbury Park Press.

On the morning he is accused of shooting his family, Kologi said he heard a voice that told him, "welcome to the side of evil," Santina testified.

Kologi's half brother also took the stand Tuesday and said that Kologi, at age 16, still believed in Santa Claus; that he still slept in his parents' bed every night and that he needed his mother to help dress him in the morning, according to Law and Crime, a true crime TV show that is also covering the trial.

On Wednesday, Brennan tried to depict Kologi's hallucinations as a normal part of young childhood and as being inconsistent.

Brennan referred to a recorded interview Kologi gave with detectives in the hours immediately after the deaths. He said Kologi denied to police in the interview that he had hallucinations and did not mention voices or hallucinations until three years later, when he was interviewed in 2020 by Santina.

She said Kologi said he continued to hear voices while locked up in a juvenile detention center.

"He described hearing Morse code through the walls ... He heard his brother, Steven, talking to him," she testified.

Brennan played the interview for the jury.

The recording played in the courtroom Wednesday contained the following exchange.

Unidentified male detective: "So you knew it was wrong, what you were going to be doing?"

Kologi: "Yeah, yeah."

In that interview, "(Kologi) said, 'I know what is morally right and wrong. I know this is very wrong and my attachment to those people ... ,'" Brennan said. "He said, 'I know if I get caught I'm going to be in trouble.'"

A Normal New Year's Eve

It was a normal New Year's Eve in 2017 when the family gathered for a quiet celebration at their Wall Street home, prosecutors said. Just before midnight, Kologi put on sunglasses and a long black leather jacket, put earplugs in his ears and picked up his older brother's semiautomatic AK-47, which was kept in the home, they said.

He went upstairs, shot his father and mother, and then walked downstairs, where he shot his sister and then shot his grandfather's girlfriend in the kitchen, prosecutors said. The grandfather was also in the kitchen at the time; for reasons unknown, Kologi did not turn the gun on him, prosecutors said. Media reports said the grandfather and grandson were close.

Was Kologi Ever Given Medication?

Santina said that before the shootings took place, Kologi briefly received medication to treat schizophrenia, as well as antidepressants.

But he was on the drugs only briefly as his family did want him to keep taking them, she said.

Santina said in the five years since the murders, Kologi has not been prescribed any medication and has not had any violent outbursts. He graduated high school, where he did well on his courses, and started taking college courses.

The Kologi trial is being livestreamed, and the public can watch it here. The trial will resume at 9:30 a.m. Thursday.

Earlier: 'I Just Kept Firing:' NJ Teen Describes Killing Family

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