SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — After a trial that lasted more than a week, Edward Gutting was found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect in the 2016 killing of his former colleague Marc Cooper.

Greene County Judge David Jones made the determination on Friday after presiding over the bench trial. Gutting will be committed to the Department of Mental Health to be housed in a secured facility for an indeterminate amount of time.

The prosecution and defense both agreed that Gutting stabbed Cooper to death at Cooper’s home on East University Street in August of 2016. The trial focused on Gutting’s mental state at the time.

Several mental health experts testified Gutting suffers from schizophrenia and may have been experiencing delusions at the time of the stabbing. Prosecutors argued that Gutting still knew what he was doing was wrong.

Gutting and Cooper had worked together in Missouri State University’s history department. Testimony during the trial revealed Gutting and Cooper had a strained relationship at work, and Gutting was passed over for Cooper’s old job prior to the killing.