Ohio woman sentenced for beating mom with cast-iron skillet, fatally stabbing her with steak knife
10/04/2023 11:54 am PDT
AKRON, Ohio (TCD) -- A judge has sentenced a 23-year-old woman to life in prison with the possibility of parole after she was convicted of killing her mother at their home in 2020.
The Summit County Prosecutor’s Office announced the sentencing Sept. 28 and said Sydney Powell must serve 15 years before she is eligible for parole. A jury convicted Powell on Sept. 20 of two counts of murder — special felonies, second-degree felonious assault, and third-degree tampering with evidence.
The prosecutor’s statement said Powell hit her mother, Brenda Powell, in the head with a cast-iron skillet and stabbed her about 30 times in the neck on March 3, 2020. WEWS-TV reports Powell used a steak knife in the attack.
Prosecutors reportedly argued during the trial that Sydney Powell killed Brenda Powell because Sydney got expelled from Mount Union University and she did not want Brenda to find out.
According to WEWS, Brenda Powell worked at the Akron Children’s Hospital Showers Family Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Disorders as a child life specialist. Sydney Powell’s attorneys reportedly said she should be found not guilty by reason of insanity.
Her defense attorney, Don Malarcik, argued, "This was a brutal, brutal attack, and that brutality speaks to the insanity of this incident."
He said Sydney Powell committed the crime because "she has a serious mental disease — schizophrenia — and that serious mental disease, as our doctor says, put her in a psychotic break."
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