Woman accused of brutally killing her grandmother pursues the defense of madness

San Antonio – The lawyer of a young woman in trial for the brutal murder of her own grandmother is asking the judge to find her not guilty for madness.

The laws of Tamera, 28, face life imprisonment if you are guilty of the murder of February 2020 by Doris Novella. The prosecutors say that the laws drowned their 70 -year -old grandmother, stabbed her and hit her with a hammer inside the house they shared in the deer stained on the southwest side.

“I mean, I don’t think there has been any doubt that she caused death,” said Paul Bergland, who became friends with the laws in 2019 and since then has become his roommate. “I was convinced that night that he was defending herself.”

Defensor lawyer Anthony Cantrell argued that the laws were crazy at the time of murder and did not know that his conduct was incorrect, telling the judge that this would be “indisputable when you listen to our testimony.”

Judge Catherine Torres-Stahl of the District Court 175 is supervising the banking trial and is expected to prevent a verdict at the end of the week.

During Wednesday’s testimony, the defense called the older sister and the mother of the laws to the witness, along with her friend Bergland, who described to witness several mental health struggles and addictions that led to the murder, including a period in a Rehabilitation clinic.

His sister Ashley Washington said the laws listened to voices.

“Do you know what those voices told him?” Cantrell asked.

“That everyone was basically to get it,” Washington explained.

Washington described how he saw the laws erratically acting on the day of murder.

“Have you ever in your wildest dreams, you thought Tamera would damage your grandmother?” Cantrell asked.

“No,” she replied.

“Tell us why,” he continued.

“Because they were very close,” Washington said.

His mother Lisa Jones agreed.

“Yes, they were very close. Tamera would do anything for his grandmother,” Jones said, adding that it was Novella who raised laws. “I wanted to help her, but I didn’t know how.”

All of them mentioned how the laws were depressed after having a dead baby, although their sister and mother said they did not know that she had become addicted to methamphetamine, nor that she had begun to escort.

After the police found Novella murdered inside her home in February 2020, the laws said she was a phone call with her father who made her do it.

“That he would have told him about his grandmother was practicing witchcraft on her,” Bergland explained. “That her grandmother was going to kill her. That if she didn’t defend himself and protected, she was going to be cut, put her in a box and sent him back. His father was telling him this about the phone.”

Bergland said he complied with the laws on the application of Tinder dates in the summer of 2019. They became close friends and finally roommates, and is now paying their legal fees.

“It definitely regrets what happened,” prosecutors told the interrogation.

The prosecutors then asked if she ever apologized.

“He apologized, since he is responsible,” he asked. “And so he regrets it?

When Bergland later indicated that the laws felt guilt for his grandmother’s death, prosecutors asked him to explain why he felt guilt.

“She understands that drugs can make a person develop psychotic behavior,” he said. “It apologizes that he once took drugs and that he would have caused that in it.”