SALEM, Mass. — A Massachusetts judge has ruled not guilty a man who police said admitted beating to death three elderly men at an apartment complex 2 ½ years ago.

Superior Court Judge Helene Kanzajian determined Salvatore Guglielmino, 55, who family members said was bipolar, lacked the mental capacity for criminal responsibility in the triple slaying.

Three psychiatric experts hired by the defense and prosecution lawyers to examine Guglielmino concluded he suffered from “mental disease or defect.” There was no jury trial in the case.

He has been held at the state hospital for the criminally insane since his arrest, and was returned there following the judge’s not guilty verdict on three counts of murder and breaking and entering.

Guglielmino was indicted by a grand jury for the Jan. 6, 2015, bludgeoning deaths of Walter Hamilton, 78; George Kettinger Jr., 79, and Frank Kort, 68, in their separate residences at an apartment complex in North Andover.

“I kicked down three doors and killed three people,” Guglielmino told his mother and sister at the time, according to the police investigative report. “Their dead bodies are over there.”

The family alerted police and they found each of the victims in their apartments, dead of blunt force trauma to the face and head. Investigators could never determine a motive for the murders.

Shocked family members said at the time Gugliemino was on medication for bipolar disorder. They described him as a “gentle giant who wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

Details for this story were provided by The Eagle-Tribune, North Andover Massachusetts.