A woman from Texas who is charged with killing her grandmother said that she was in a state of psychosis when she struck the victim with a hammer.
Her fate is now being decided by a court in San Antonio.
According to KSAT, Tamera Laws’ lawyer stated that she should be found not guilty by reason of insanity at the conclusion of closing statements in her murder trial, which concluded on Friday, January 31.
Laws’ lawyer claimed that Laws’ psychotic delusions caused her to stab, beat with a hammer, and choke her 70-year-old grandmother, Doris Ruth Novella, on February 20, 2020, according to KSAT.
According to News4SA, prosecutors said that Laws killed her grandmother because she had admitted to using methamphetamine.
Evidence indicates that “the defendant’s acts were attributed to her drug use, specifically methamphetamine, which is voluntary and disqualifies her from being able to assert the insanity defense,” according to the prosecutor.
According to News4SA, Laws became so upset during cross-examination that the court gave her two five-minute breaks.
According to News4SA, Novella brought up Law, who claimed that she killed her grandma because she wasn’t in her “right mind” that evening.
She told News4SA, “I thought the [bad] energy was on me, so I was thinking to get it off, I had to beat it out,” when asked why she hit her grandma with a hammer.
Anthony Cantrell, her lawyer, questioned her, “In your right mind, would you have done anything to harm her?”
According to News4SA, she denied twice before Cantrell questioned her, “Did you know at the time what you were doing was wrong?”
“No,” she answered. “No.”
According to the San Antonio Express-News, Laws claimed that after developing a meth addiction, she started hearing voices.
“I would hear voices in my head telling me that people were trying to kill me,” she stated. “I realized that my grandmother was attempting to murder me.”
In her delusions, she informed her lawyer, she thought her father had ordered her to kill her grandmother.
She summarized her alleged mental condition by saying, “He told me that if I did not kill my grandma, I was going to end up chopped up and sent to him in a box by Monday,” according to News4SA.
Laws apologized for killing her grandmother without seeking assistance.
She stated, “I want to say I’m sorry for my grandmother for not sticking to getting help sooner,” according to News4SA. “[I] tried to do it on my own strength, I failed miserably, and I’m sorry for what occurred.”
PEOPLE’s request for response from her lawyer was not answered.
According to News4SA, if Judge Catherine Torres Stahl finds Laws guilty of murder, she could spend up to 99 years or her entire life behind bars.
Laws will spend a considerable amount of time in a state institution if she is judged not guilty by reason of insanity, according to News4SA.