By SEAN MURPHY
A man charged with killing his father, who was Oklahoma’s labor commissioner, repeatedly stabbed him with a large kitchen knife in the neck and head at a busy restaurant while his mother tried to stop him, police said Monday.
Christian Costello, 26, was being held on a preliminary first-degree murder charge Monday after the Sunday night killing of his father, Oklahoma Labor Commissioner Mark Costello. The son had asked his parents to meet him at the Braum’s fast-food restaurant in northwest Oklahoma City, where he argued with his father while his mother waited outside.
“What set him off to attack the commissioner, we still don’t know,” Oklahoma City police Capt. Paco Balderrama said at a news conference.
Family members issued a statement through a spokesman on Monday saying they couldn’t adequately express the “shock and sadness” they were feeling. They also mentioned that Christian Costello has a mental illness, although they didn’t specify which one.
In a plea bargain over a DUI charge, Christian Costello said he was once confined for three months so that he could be treated for mental illness, according to court records obtained by The Associated Press. Last year, he was accused of “outraging public decency” by standing outside of an Oklahoma City elementary school with his pajama pants down.
His father, meanwhile, was considered a rising star in Republican Party politics. Mark Costello took 64 percent of the vote against an incumbent Democrat in 2010, and the telephone software company founder was re-elected last year.
Sunday evening, officers were called to the ice cream and fast-food restaurant after a stabbing was reported. Mark Costello, 59, had been stabbed multiple times in the head and neck and died at a hospital.
Balderrama said Cathy Costello, who was the victim’s wife and is suspect’s mother, was waiting outside the restaurant while the two men met inside, and that she tried to intervene when the fight spilled into the parking lot. At least one witness knocked Christian Costello off-balance with a vehicle, and others held him down until officers arrived, the police spokesman said.
Gov. Mary Fallin directed that flags be lowered to half-staff for the rest of the week.
“My prayers and deepest sympathies go out to his family, friends and staff. Oklahoma has lost a dedicated public servant and a good man,” she said in a statement.
In a 2012 case involving driving under the influence of drugs, Christian Costello told the court he had spent three months being treated for mental illness and that he was taking mood stabilizers. He pleaded guilty and received a deferred sentence.
Last October, he was cited for outraging public decency — a misdemeanor — for allegedly appearing outside of the Catholic school with his pajama pants down and wearing one green shoe. The case remains unresolved.
“The defendant was chewing on two bird feathers and what appeared to be dandelions and other weeds,” records filed with the court said.
Labor Department Chief of Staff Jim Marshall said “hearts ache” at the agency and that the department was grieving for the family.
Oklahoma Republican Party Chairman Randy Brogdon called Costello “a great Christian, a good man and a wonderful husband and dad” to five children.
“I’m just numb right now, as many of us are,” Brogdon said. “He is going to be sorely missed.”
Republican U.S. Sen. James Lankford called Costello “passionate about our nation, conservative fiscal principles, and the people of our state.”
Costello faced criticism for comments he made in 2011 in which he compared state bureaucrats to “feral hogs,” a comment he later said was “an unfortunate animal analogy.”
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This story has been corrected to show that the suspect’s mental health issues were raised in court records, not police records.
