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Bloody News Anchor LOCKED UP for Mom's Brutal Murder · Murder Files Unsealed

0:00
Speaker 1: Imagine, if you will, just turning on your television on
0:04
Speaker 1: a weekday morning. Right. You're watching the local news, maybe
0:06
Speaker 1: in a major market like St. Louis. Okay.
0:09
Speaker 2: Yeah.
0:10
Speaker 1: And the person on the screen, she's just, she's polished.
0:15
Speaker 1: She's charismatic.
0:16
Speaker 2: Right. The perfect hair, flawless delivery.
0:19
Speaker 1: Exactly. She's smiling. She's projecting this aura of just absolute competence,
0:25
Speaker 1: you know, and approachability. You invite her into your living
0:28
Speaker 1: room every single morning with your coffee.
0:29
Speaker 2: You really feel like you know her.
0:31
Speaker 1: You do. You absolutely do. Now, I want you to
0:35
Speaker 1: take that image, hold it in your mind, and just
0:38
Speaker 1: completely shatter it.
0:39
Speaker 2: Oh, wow.
0:40
Speaker 1: Yeah. Imagine that exact same woman years later standing on
0:45
Speaker 1: a suburban porch on Halloween morning. God. She is covered
0:49
Speaker 1: in blood. She has cuts all over her hands. She
0:52
Speaker 1: is holding a towel, just staring blankly at a terrified
0:56
Speaker 1: neighbor and making these deeply disturbing, completely nonsensical claims to
1:02
Speaker 1: the police about her own mother.
1:04
Speaker 2: It's, I mean, it is the ultimate cognitive dissonance. It's
1:07
Speaker 2: totally binary. You have this public face of absolute control
1:11
Speaker 2: on one hand, and then you just have the private
1:13
Speaker 2: reality of complete, unimaginable chaos on the other.
1:17
Speaker 1: And that shattered image, it isn't a hypothetical. It is
1:20
Speaker 1: the exact tragic reality of former news anchor Angie Mock.
1:24
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:25
Speaker 1: Today, we're pulling from this massive Law and Crime Network
1:28
Speaker 1: broadcast hosted by Chris Stewart to really figure out the
1:33
Speaker 1: mechanisms of that collapse. It's a heavy one. It is.
1:36
Speaker 1: We want to understand how a woman goes from delivering
1:40
Speaker 1: the morning headlines to becoming the subject of a gruesome
1:43
Speaker 1: homicide investigation culminating in the brutal murder of her own mother,
1:47
Speaker 1: Anita Avers.
1:48
Speaker 2: And you know, what is so compelling about this broadcast
1:50
Speaker 2: transcript isn't just the true crime element of what happened
1:54
Speaker 2: on that Halloween morning. It's the documentation of this spectacular,
2:00
Speaker 2: catastrophic psychological collapse. It really forces us to examine that
2:04
Speaker 2: invisible space between a carefully constructed professional resume and a sudden,
2:10
Speaker 2: violent descent into completely untreated psychosis.
2:14
Speaker 1: Exactly.
2:14
Speaker 2: We're looking at the dark intersection of severe mental illness
2:18
Speaker 2: and the justice system, and honestly, the visceral ripple effects
2:21
Speaker 2: of family violence.
2:24
Speaker 1: Okay. Let's unpack this, because where do we even begin
2:28
Speaker 1: to understand a fall this steep?
2:30
Speaker 2: Right. You have to start at the baseline. Right.
2:32
Speaker 1: So the Law and Crime Network, they dug into her background,
2:35
Speaker 1: specifically her LinkedIn profile, to establish who Angie Mogg was
2:40
Speaker 1: to the public. And you really need to understand the
2:43
Speaker 1: heights she reached to comprehend just the severity of the drop.
2:47
Speaker 1: I mean, she had a decade-long, incredibly demanding career in
2:51
Speaker 1: local television news.
2:53
Speaker 2: Which, by the way, requires an immense amount of executive function.
2:57
Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely.
2:58
Speaker 2: We should probably look at what that specific career path
3:01
Speaker 2: actually entails. Working in local news, especially as an anchor
3:05
Speaker 2: or reporter, it's not just a job. It is a
3:08
Speaker 2: relentless psychological grind.
3:10
Speaker 1: Right. The broadcast tracks are starting back in November of 2002.
3:15
Speaker 1: She was a sports reporter in Lincoln, Nebraska.
3:18
Speaker 2: Okay.
3:19
Speaker 1: And from there, she did what people in that industry
3:21
Speaker 1: have to do if they want to survive, right? She
3:23
Speaker 1: climbed the ladder, market by market.
3:25
Speaker 2: Constantly moving.
3:27
Speaker 1: Exactly. She moved to Rochester, Minnesota, then Missoula, Montana, then
3:32
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City.
3:33
Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah.
3:34
Speaker 1: She was really paying her dues, uprooting her life repeatedly,
3:38
Speaker 1: moving from smaller markets to larger ones.
3:41
Speaker 2: And just think about the biological and psychological toll of
3:44
Speaker 2: that specific environment for a second.
3:46
Speaker 1: The stress, you mean?
3:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, the stress, but also the sleep. You are talking
3:51
Speaker 2: about someone who likely had to operate on severely fragmented
3:55
Speaker 2: sleep schedules.
3:56
Speaker 1: Oh, right. Morning news.
3:57
Speaker 2: Exactly. Morning news often requires waking up at 2 or
4:00
Speaker 2: 3 a.m. every single day.
4:02
Speaker 1: That alone would break most people.
4:04
Speaker 2: Right. And on top of that, you are under constant,
4:07
Speaker 2: hyper-vigilant public scrutiny.
4:08
Speaker 1: Yeah.
4:09
Speaker 2: Producers, news directors, and just the viewing public at home,
4:13
Speaker 2: they are evaluating your appearance, your cadence, your reactions in
4:17
Speaker 2: real time.
4:18
Speaker 1: It's intense.
4:19
Speaker 2: To survive a decade in broadcasting, you cannot be visibly unraveling.
4:23
Speaker 2: You just can't. You have to maintain an iron grip
4:26
Speaker 2: on your public persona.
4:27
Speaker 1: And she maintained that grip successfully for a long time.
4:31
Speaker 1: She finally made it to her biggest market, which was
4:33
Speaker 1: Fox 2 News in St. Louis.
4:34
Speaker 2: That's a major market.
4:35
Speaker 1: It is. The long crime broadcast actually highlights a public
4:39
Speaker 1: YouTube video from 2011, introducing her to the St. Louis
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Speaker 1: market as a new member of their news team. And
4:44
Speaker 1: she was introduced with all the fanfare, the bright lights,
4:47
Speaker 1: the makeup, the teleprompter, everything. She worked there from 2011
4:50
Speaker 1: to 2015. Okay. But then the timeline shifts. After 2015,
4:57
Speaker 1: according to her LinkedIn, she left the broadcasting business entirely
5:01
Speaker 1: and switched to software sales.
5:03
Speaker 2: Which is a big pivot. It is.
5:05
Speaker 1: Though Chris Stewart notes in the segment that leaving the
5:08
Speaker 1: news business isn't inherently suspicious. I mean, people burn out
5:11
Speaker 1: on the terrible hours and the deadlines all the time.
5:14
Speaker 2: Oh, for sure. It is a really common off-ramp. Yeah.
5:17
Speaker 1: Yeah.
5:18
Speaker 2: Software sales or sometimes public relations, they often offer better hours,
5:22
Speaker 2: less public scrutiny, and honestly, a chance to regulate your
5:25
Speaker 2: nervous system after years of chronic stress.
5:27
Speaker 1: That makes sense.
5:29
Speaker 2: But in the context of a severe psychological break later
5:32
Speaker 2: in life, this transition actually operates as a crucial data point.
5:36
Speaker 1: How so?
5:37
Speaker 2: Well, when psychiatrists look at the onset or exacerbation of
5:41
Speaker 2: severe mental illness, particularly in adults, they always look for
5:44
Speaker 2: changes in baseline behavior.
5:46
Speaker 1: Meaning was the career shift a symptom rather than a
5:48
Speaker 1: deliberate choice?
5:49
Speaker 2: Exactly. Did she leave the highly structured, intensely scrutinized environment
5:54
Speaker 2: of a newsroom because she just wanted better hours? Or
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Speaker 2: was it because the internal cracks were starting to form
6:00
Speaker 2: and she could no longer maintain the mask?
6:02
Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
6:03
Speaker 2: Because the cognitive load required to read a teleprompter, engage
6:07
Speaker 2: in unscripted banter with a co-anchor, and process breaking news
6:10
Speaker 2: in an earpiece simultaneously?
6:12
Speaker 1: It's massive.
6:13
Speaker 2: It's massive. If you are beginning to experience disorganized thinking
6:17
Speaker 2: or paranoia, a live television set is literally the first
6:21
Speaker 2: place you will fail.
6:22
Speaker 1: So you hide.
6:23
Speaker 2: Right. Seeking a less public-facing role might have been a
6:27
Speaker 2: desperate attempt to retreat as her internal reality began to fracture.
6:31
Speaker 1: It's like looking at a sinkhole, you know?
6:34
Speaker 2: Yeah.
6:34
Speaker 1: On the surface, the asphalt looks perfectly intact. She's smiling
6:38
Speaker 1: on the St. Louis news broadcast, projecting total authority. But underneath,
6:42
Speaker 1: the water has been eroding the limestone for years.
6:44
Speaker 2: That is the perfect way to visualize it.
6:47
Speaker 1: And when the collapse finally happens, it looks sudden to
6:50
Speaker 1: the people in the street. But structurally, it's been failing
6:54
Speaker 1: for a decade.
6:55
Speaker 2: That is exactly the silent buildup. From the outside, a
6:58
Speaker 2: violent break looks instantaneous, like a switch was just flipped, right?
7:02
Speaker 2: But the brain slowly loses its grip on shared reality
7:06
Speaker 2: over time. The person might be masking it, or maybe
7:10
Speaker 2: the family might be normalizing the strange behavior because they
7:12
Speaker 2: love the person, right?
7:14
Speaker 1: You want to believe they're fine.
7:15
Speaker 2: Exactly. You desperately want to believe things are fine. The
7:18
Speaker 2: public saw the anchor. They saw the software sales rep.
7:21
Speaker 2: But behind closed doors, the limestone was washing away.
7:25
Speaker 1: Which brings us to the moment the asphalt completely caved in. Yeah.
7:29
Speaker 1: October 31st of last year, Halloween morning.
7:32
Speaker 2: A dark day.
7:34
Speaker 1: Extremely. We are in Wichita, Kansas, on Crawley Street. A
7:39
Speaker 1: 911 call comes in to the Wichita Police Department.
7:42
Speaker 2: Okay.
7:43
Speaker 1: And the dispatcher notes that are read on the broadcast,
7:46
Speaker 1: they are so fragmented and chaotic.
7:48
Speaker 2: What do they say?
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Speaker 1: It's something like, two-four and supervising you, four of her cutting,
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Speaker 1: figuring on top.
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Speaker 2: That doesn't even make sense.
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Speaker 1: It doesn't. It's just the kind of garbled panic that
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Speaker 1: tells you the situation on the ground is completely chaotic.
8:02
Speaker 1: Entirely out of control.
8:04
Speaker 2: Right.
8:05
Speaker 1: When police arrive, they find 47-year-old Angie Mock standing outside.
8:09
Speaker 1: And the description is stark. It's a white female standing outside, bleeding,
8:16
Speaker 1: holding a towel. God. She has blood all over her hands.
8:19
Speaker 2: And this is where the facade is entirely gone. Right here.
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Speaker 1: Completely gone. A neighbor actually witnessed her behavior before the
8:25
Speaker 1: police arrived, noting that she was acting, quote, scared and
8:29
Speaker 1: approaching them in this bloody state.
8:31
Speaker 2: And what she says to that neighbor is it's chilling.
8:34
Speaker 1: It really is. Over the police dispatch audio, there is
8:38
Speaker 1: a statement relayed that Angie allegedly told this neighbor. She
8:42
Speaker 1: said she, quote, had to stab the mother to save herself.
8:45
Speaker 2: That's horrific.
8:47
Speaker 1: And when the police go inside the home, they find
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Speaker 1: the reality of that statement. They find Angie's mother, Anita Avers,
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Speaker 1: lying in her bed. She has been stabbed multiple times
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Speaker 1: in her face and her torso.
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Speaker 2: In her own bed? Yes.
9:01
Speaker 1: And I really need to emphasize who Anita Avers was,
9:04
Speaker 1: because the source material points out this incredibly heartbreaking irony.
9:08
Speaker 2: Right, her profession.
9:09
Speaker 1: Yeah. She wasn't just a mother. She was a clinical
9:12
Speaker 1: therapist in Wichita. She literally dedicated her professional life to
9:17
Speaker 1: helping people navigate mental health crises.
9:19
Speaker 2: The irony there is almost too painful to even process.
9:24
Speaker 1: It really is.
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Speaker 2: A professional whose entire career was built on identifying psychological distress...
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Speaker 2: providing interventions and, you know, de-escalating mental health crises, she
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Speaker 2: becomes the victim of the ultimate fatal mental health crisis
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Speaker 2: right within her own home.
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Speaker 1: How does this even happen? I mean, I'm looking at
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Speaker 1: this chasm between the woman on the Fox 2 anchor
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Speaker 1: reel from 2011 and a 47-year-old woman with bloody hands
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Speaker 1: holding a towel on a suburban porch, surrounded by police tape.
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Speaker 2: It's a total disconnect.
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Speaker 1: It is. And the report explicitly states Angie Mock had
9:57
Speaker 1: zero criminal history.
9:59
Speaker 2: None.
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Speaker 1: How does a person with no record of violence whatsoever
10:02
Speaker 1: cross that line so absolutely?
10:05
Speaker 2: You cross that line when you are no longer inhabiting
10:08
Speaker 2: the same reality as the rest of the world. Okay.
10:11
Speaker 2: And the source material actually gives us very specific details
10:14
Speaker 2: about the crime scene that prove this wasn't a calculated
10:17
Speaker 2: act of malice. it was a descent into severe pathology.
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Speaker 1: Wait, pause for a second. Because I want to talk
10:23
Speaker 1: about one of those specific details because I am just
10:26
Speaker 1: trying to wrap my head around it and it honestly
10:29
Speaker 1: just breaks my brain.
10:30
Speaker 2: The weapon.
10:30
Speaker 1: Yes. When police find Anita's body on the bed, the
10:34
Speaker 1: affidavit states that next to her, laid out on a pillow,
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Speaker 1: the officer located, quote, multiple kitchen-style knives and a cheese grater.
10:42
Speaker 2: Yeah.
10:43
Speaker 1: A cheese grater.
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Speaker 2: A cheese grater.
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Speaker 1: I mean, if you are planning an attack, out of
10:46
Speaker 1: anger or financial gain or whatever terrible motive, you bring
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Speaker 1: a weapon.
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Speaker 2: Right.
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Speaker 1: Finding a cheese grater on a pillow just shatters any
10:54
Speaker 1: idea of a calculated crime for me.
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Speaker 2: Completely.
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Speaker 1: What is happening neurologically that makes a brain place a
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Speaker 1: kitchen utensil next to a murder weapon on a pillow?
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Speaker 2: It shatters the idea of a calculated crime because it
11:06
Speaker 2: is the physical manifestation of a profoundly disorganized mind.
11:09
Speaker 1: Disorganized.
11:10
Speaker 2: Yes. In severe psychotic breaks, particularly in acute schizophrenia, you
11:15
Speaker 2: see something called disorganized thinking and disorganized behavior.
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Speaker 1: What does that look like in the brain?
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Speaker 2: Well, the brain's neural pathways are essentially misfiring. They're creating
11:26
Speaker 2: this hyperconnectivity. So the brain starts making connections and assigning
11:31
Speaker 2: deep meaning to things that have absolutely no connection in
11:34
Speaker 2: shared reality.
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Speaker 1: Okay, so the brain is essentially building like a conspiracy
11:38
Speaker 1: board out of random objects.
11:39
Speaker 2: Exactly. That's a great way to put it. To a healthy,
11:42
Speaker 2: regulated brain, a cheese grater is just a culinary tool.
11:45
Speaker 2: You see it, your brain accesses the file for, you know,
11:48
Speaker 2: making dinner, and you move on. Right. But to a
11:51
Speaker 2: brain that is fully submerged in psychosis, flooded with dopamine...
11:55
Speaker 2: and trapped in a state of extreme hyperarousal, that object
11:59
Speaker 2: might take on a terrifying, monumental significance.
12:02
Speaker 1: Like it's a threat. Or a weapon.
12:05
Speaker 2: Or a tool of torture. Or an object imbued with
12:08
Speaker 2: some dark, magical property. The fact that it was placed
12:12
Speaker 2: alongside the actual weapons, right there on a pillow, shows
12:16
Speaker 2: a ritualistic, deeply confused thought process.
12:19
Speaker 1: It's ritualistic.
12:21
Speaker 2: Yeah. Wow. It defies logical explanation because the brain executing
12:25
Speaker 2: the action is just entirely divorced from logic.
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Speaker 1: And the police interrogation only deepens this terrifying picture.
12:32
Speaker 2: Because of what she said?
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Speaker 1: Yes. When officers asked Angie what happened, she pointed to
12:38
Speaker 1: her face and her eyes and then gestured to her torso.
12:42
Speaker 2: Mimicking the wounds.
12:44
Speaker 1: Exactly. Mimicking the wounds she had just inflicted on her
12:46
Speaker 1: own mother.
12:47
Speaker 2: Unbelievable.
12:48
Speaker 1: And then she started telling a story. She claimed she
12:51
Speaker 1: went into her mother's bedroom to talk to her because
12:54
Speaker 1: Angie had an upcoming job interview at a TV station
12:57
Speaker 1: in Wichita.
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Speaker 2: Notice that detail.
13:00
Speaker 1: Yeah. According to Angie, her mother was jealous. Her mother
13:04
Speaker 1: didn't want her to get the job. So Angie claimed
13:07
Speaker 1: her mom was sitting there in bed sharpening knives and
13:10
Speaker 1: then came after her to attack her.
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Speaker 2: So notice how the delusion latches onto the remnants of
13:15
Speaker 2: her past identity.
13:16
Speaker 1: The job interview.
13:17
Speaker 2: The job interview at a local TV station.
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Speaker 1: But why does it do that? Like, if she's entirely
13:22
Speaker 1: divorced from reality, why is the delusion so specific to
13:25
Speaker 1: her old life?
13:26
Speaker 2: Well, because delusions rarely manifest just out of thin air.
13:30
Speaker 2: They are usually built from the scrap material of the
13:32
Speaker 2: person's actual life and anxieties, but twisted through a lens
13:36
Speaker 2: of persecution.
13:36
Speaker 1: Oh, I see.
13:37
Speaker 2: It's a really classic feature of paranoia. She had a
13:40
Speaker 2: highly successful, identity-defining career in television. When her mind broke,
13:45
Speaker 2: it constructed a narrative where that specific identity was under threat.
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Speaker 1: From her own mother.
13:50
Speaker 2: Right. She believed her mother, the therapist who likely supported
13:53
Speaker 2: and cared for her, was violently jealous of this potential
13:56
Speaker 2: return to the spotlight. The brain uses familiar elements to
14:00
Speaker 2: build a terrifying, unfamiliar world.
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Speaker 1: But the narrative she builds gets so much darker than
14:05
Speaker 1: just professional jealousy.
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Speaker 2: It does.
14:08
Speaker 1: Angie claims she fought back because she was stronger, pushing
14:10
Speaker 1: her mother back. And then Angie claims her mother said, quote,
14:14
Speaker 1: I know you're bleeping Jesus Christ. And Angie said her
14:18
Speaker 1: mother started, quote, spewing venom at me out of her
14:21
Speaker 1: bleeping mouth. So she had to stab her to save herself.
14:25
Speaker 1: She literally said she needed to kill her mom because
14:28
Speaker 1: she wasn't going to stop chasing her around the house.
14:31
Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture, spewing venom,
14:34
Speaker 2: I know you were Jesus Christ. These phrases are textbook
14:38
Speaker 2: quintessential hallmarks of severe acute psychosis.
14:41
Speaker 1: Textbook.
14:42
Speaker 2: Absolutely. We are looking at grandiosity, the belief that she
14:45
Speaker 2: is Jesus Christ or that her mother recognized her as such.
14:48
Speaker 2: And we are looking at severe visual and auditory hallucinations.
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Speaker 2: I mean, the literal perception of venom spewing from a mouth.
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Speaker 1: So wait, she wasn't speaking metaphorically. Like, in her mind,
14:59
Speaker 1: she was literally seeing venom.
15:01
Speaker 2: Yes, literally. When a schizophrenic brain experiences a visual hallucination
15:05
Speaker 2: of that magnitude, it is not a dream. It's not
15:08
Speaker 2: an act of imagination. The visual cortex of the brain
15:11
Speaker 2: is lighting up exactly as it would if there were
15:14
Speaker 2: actually venom in the room. Oh, my God. The delusion
15:16
Speaker 2: has constructed a completely inverted reality.
15:19
Speaker 1: Yeah.
15:20
Speaker 2: The victim, a 70-something sleeping woman, is transformed into an
15:23
Speaker 2: omnipotent venom-spewing aggressor. And the attacker, Angie, becomes the victim,
15:28
Speaker 2: acting in desperate self-defense.
15:31
Speaker 1: So it's not a lie.
15:32
Speaker 2: No, this isn't a lie constructed to cover up a crime.
15:34
Speaker 2: This is an entirely fabricated, hallucinated universe. that she was
15:39
Speaker 2: actively inhabiting at that moment.
15:41
Speaker 1: And the medical evaluation confirmed exactly what you're saying. The
15:44
Speaker 1: broadcast notes that a couple of months after the murder
15:47
Speaker 1: in January, doctors evaluated Angie Mock and found her incompetent
15:51
Speaker 1: to stand trial. She was officially diagnosed with schizophrenia.
15:55
Speaker 2: Right.
15:56
Speaker 1: But I have to push back here on how the
15:57
Speaker 1: investigators and ultimately the law deal with this. Okay. Because
16:02
Speaker 1: when police arrived, they noted Angie had cuts on her hands,
16:06
Speaker 1: which they classified in the initial report as defensive wounds.
16:11
Speaker 1: Angie is using that physical evidence to anchor her hallucinated reality,
16:15
Speaker 1: claiming self-defense. But later in the source material, during the
16:18
Speaker 1: victim impact statements, we learned that Anita, the mother, had
16:22
Speaker 1: defensive wounds on her arms from being ambushed in bed
16:25
Speaker 1: while she was asleep.
16:26
Speaker 2: Yeah.
16:27
Speaker 1: So how do investigators separate the physical evidence of a
16:31
Speaker 1: brutal ambush from the perpetrator's absolute conviction that they were
16:35
Speaker 1: fighting a venom spewing monster?
16:37
Speaker 2: That is one of the most agonizing challenges in the
16:39
Speaker 2: criminal justice system. You have physical evidence that tells a clear,
16:45
Speaker 2: undeniable story of an ambush, right? A woman attacked in
16:47
Speaker 2: her bed, fighting for her life, resulting in defensive wounds
16:51
Speaker 2: on her arms.
16:51
Speaker 1: Yes.
16:52
Speaker 2: And then you have the perpetrator's wounds. In a frenzied
16:56
Speaker 2: close quarters knife attack, it is extremely common for the
16:59
Speaker 2: attacker's hands to slip down the blade of the knife
17:02
Speaker 2: when it hits bone or struggles against resistance. which causes
17:06
Speaker 2: severe cuts to the attacker's own hands.
17:08
Speaker 1: Ah, so the defensive wounds on Angie weren't defensive at all.
17:12
Speaker 1: They were just an occupational hazard of wielding a knife violently.
17:16
Speaker 2: Precisely. But in her psychotic state, Angie likely interpreted the
17:20
Speaker 2: sudden pain of her own self-inflicted wounds, combined with the
17:23
Speaker 2: desperate thrashing of her dying mother, as an offensive attack
17:26
Speaker 2: against her.
17:27
Speaker 1: It validates the delusion.
17:28
Speaker 2: Exactly. The delusion incorporates the physical sensation of pain to
17:32
Speaker 2: validate the hallucination. The investigators have to rely on the
17:35
Speaker 2: blood spatter, the location of the body in the bed,
17:38
Speaker 2: the physical impossibility of a woman sharpening knives while asleep,
17:42
Speaker 2: and the presence of objects like the cheese grater to
17:44
Speaker 2: ground the case in physical reality.
17:47
Speaker 1: Just completely disregarding her psychological reality.
17:49
Speaker 2: They have to completely disregard the psychological reality the perpetrator
17:53
Speaker 2: is trapped inside.
17:54
Speaker 1: Which transitions us directly into the bizarre mechanics of how
17:57
Speaker 1: the justice system processes a mind that is fundamentally broken.
18:01
Speaker 2: It's messy.
18:02
Speaker 1: Extremely. Because she has completely fabricated this universe where her
18:06
Speaker 1: mother is a monster. The police are now holding a
18:08
Speaker 1: woman who doesn't even share our reality, which forces the
18:12
Speaker 1: legal system into an impossible corner. How do you put
18:15
Speaker 1: someone on trial who doesn't even know what universe they
18:17
Speaker 1: are in?
18:18
Speaker 2: Well, you can't. Right. Which is why the timeline presented
18:21
Speaker 2: in the source material just stalls for months. Right.
18:25
Speaker 1: In January, she's found incompetent. The case goes totally quiet.
18:29
Speaker 1: But then in July, there is a massive legal twist.
18:32
Speaker 1: An order comes down on July 30th, suddenly finding Angie
18:35
Speaker 1: Mock competent to stand trial for the murder of her mother.
18:38
Speaker 2: Just like that.
18:39
Speaker 1: Just like that. By August, she pleads guilty to first-degree
18:42
Speaker 1: felony murder. The broadcast actually shows the details of the
18:46
Speaker 1: plea document where she acknowledges her rights.
18:49
Speaker 2: Oh, this part is fascinating.
18:50
Speaker 1: It really is. It reads, and I'm quoting here from
18:54
Speaker 1: line two, I know of no reason why my mental
18:57
Speaker 1: competence should be questioned. I have not taken any drugs
19:00
Speaker 1: or medications during the past 48 hours except Abilify, lithium,
19:05
Speaker 1: and then there are two additional mental health medications.
19:08
Speaker 2: Right.
19:08
Speaker 1: He goes on to say, any such drugs or medications
19:11
Speaker 1: do not affect my ability to understand my rights or
19:13
Speaker 1: the consequences of this plea.
19:16
Speaker 2: The intersection of stark clinical court language and severe psychiatric
19:20
Speaker 2: intervention here is just staggering.
19:23
Speaker 1: It's wild.
19:23
Speaker 2: She is signing a legally binding contract that essentially says,
19:27
Speaker 2: I am perfectly sane and competent to plead guilty, and
19:30
Speaker 2: the reason I am competent is that my brain is
19:32
Speaker 2: flooded with heavy, mind-altering psychiatric drugs.
19:36
Speaker 1: Wait, I need to stop here because this feels deeply,
19:39
Speaker 1: deeply paradoxical. It is. The court is explicitly acknowledging she
19:43
Speaker 1: requires a massive pharmaceutical cocktail just to function, Abilify and lithium.
19:49
Speaker 1: How does the court recognize... medicating someone just enough so
19:52
Speaker 1: they complete guilty to an action they committed when their
19:55
Speaker 1: brain was unmedicated and broken?
19:57
Speaker 2: To understand that, it requires understanding the specific mechanisms of
20:01
Speaker 2: those drugs and the very narrow administrative definition the court
20:05
Speaker 2: uses for competency.
20:07
Speaker 1: Okay. Lay it out for us.
20:09
Speaker 2: So Abilify is a powerful atypical antipsychotic used to treat schizophrenia.
20:13
Speaker 2: It works primarily by binding to dopamine receptors in the brain.
20:17
Speaker 1: Right.
20:17
Speaker 2: During a psychotic break, the brain is often flooded with dopamine,
20:20
Speaker 2: causing that hyperactive, terrifying overdrive we talked about earlier.
20:24
Speaker 1: The venom, the Jesus Christ illusion. Exactly.
20:28
Speaker 2: Abilify acts as a stabilizing cap on those receptors. It
20:31
Speaker 2: literally turns down the volume of the hallucinations. And then
20:35
Speaker 2: lithium is a powerful mood stabilizer used to prevent the
20:38
Speaker 2: extreme highs and lows of severe mood disorders.
20:40
Speaker 1: So they chemically force the brain to quiet down.
20:43
Speaker 2: Exactly. They chemically restrain the psychosis. Now, the legal system
20:48
Speaker 2: is fundamentally unequipped to handle the nuances of severe psychiatric illness.
20:52
Speaker 1: It doesn't do gray area as well. No, it doesn't.
20:55
Speaker 2: So it draws a very harsh line between two concepts.
20:58
Speaker 2: Competency to stand trial and insanity at the time of
21:01
Speaker 2: the crime.
21:01
Speaker 1: OK, what's the difference?
21:03
Speaker 2: Competency merely asks a functional question. Does the defendant currently, today,
21:08
Speaker 2: in this courtroom, understand the charges against them, and can
21:11
Speaker 2: they assist their lawyer?
21:12
Speaker 1: So it's just a basic present tense awareness check.
21:15
Speaker 2: Right. And with enough Abilify and lithium capping those dopamine receptors,
21:19
Speaker 2: the answer becomes yes.
21:20
Speaker 1: Wow.
21:21
Speaker 2: The hallucinations subside enough for her to read a contract,
21:24
Speaker 2: understand what the words first degree murder mean, and comprehend
21:28
Speaker 2: the sentence. She is administratively functional. But- That absolutely does
21:32
Speaker 2: not mean she wasn't legally insane at the exact moment
21:35
Speaker 2: she was holding the cheese grater and the knives on Halloween.
21:38
Speaker 1: But by pleading guilty in August, she effectively throws away
21:41
Speaker 1: the chance to argue that insanity, right? Yes.
21:44
Speaker 2: By accepting the plea deal while deemed competent, she waives
21:47
Speaker 2: the right to present an insanity defense to a jury trial.
21:51
Speaker 2: The court values the administrative efficiency of a closed file
21:54
Speaker 2: over the incredibly messy, expensive, and ambiguous process of dissecting
21:58
Speaker 2: her psychological state on Halloween.
22:00
Speaker 1: I am stuck on the profound moral dissonance of that.
22:03
Speaker 2: It's hard to accept.
22:05
Speaker 1: The state is essentially saying, we acknowledge your brain was
22:07
Speaker 1: so sick, it created a hallucinated universe where you were
22:11
Speaker 1: defending your life. But now that we have given you
22:14
Speaker 1: enough heavy medication to bring you back to our universe,
22:17
Speaker 1: we are going to lock you in a cell for
22:18
Speaker 1: the rest of your life for the actions of your
22:20
Speaker 1: untreated sickness.
22:21
Speaker 2: Yeah.
22:22
Speaker 1: Is that justice? Or is it just the state finding
22:25
Speaker 1: the most expedient way to sweep a horrific tragedy into
22:28
Speaker 1: a prison cell?
22:29
Speaker 2: Well, it is a functional necessity of a legal system
22:33
Speaker 2: that requires a binary outcome. Guilty or not guilty. Mental
22:37
Speaker 2: illness isn't binary. It exists on a sliding scale of pathology.
22:41
Speaker 2: The court cannot incarcerate a disease, so it incarcerates the
22:45
Speaker 2: vessel of the disease completely regardless of intent.
22:49
Speaker 1: And the sentencing phase really highlights that cold mechanical nature
22:52
Speaker 1: of the law.
22:52
Speaker 2: It really does.
22:54
Speaker 1: At her plea hearing, Angie told the judge she understood
22:56
Speaker 1: she was waiving her right to a jury trial. And
22:58
Speaker 1: waiving her right to appeal anything except the sentence.
23:02
Speaker 2: Right.
23:02
Speaker 1: But the judge, Judge Johnson, made it very clear that
23:05
Speaker 1: even the sentence wasn't up for debate. Wow. Yeah, he
23:08
Speaker 1: stated the Supreme Court says that I have to. This
23:11
Speaker 1: is a mandatory sentence. I have no discretion to go
23:13
Speaker 1: higher or lower. He sentenced her to life imprisonment, requiring
23:18
Speaker 1: her to serve 25 years before she is even eligible
23:20
Speaker 1: for parole, plus lifetime parole after that.
23:23
Speaker 2: Wow.
23:24
Speaker 1: And he noted on the record there is no good
23:26
Speaker 1: time she's eligible for.
23:28
Speaker 2: See, the judge is stripped of his humanity and forced
23:31
Speaker 2: to operate like an algorithm.
23:33
Speaker 1: Just input, output. Exactly.
23:35
Speaker 2: The statute says X, therefore the output is Y. There
23:38
Speaker 2: is no room for nuance, no room for discussing the
23:41
Speaker 2: systemic failure to treat her schizophrenia, no room for mitigation.
23:45
Speaker 1: Because it's mandatory.
23:46
Speaker 2: Because it's a mandatory statute. Her defense attorney stood up
23:49
Speaker 2: and confirmed she has no intention of appealing. She is
23:52
Speaker 2: 47 years old. She will be in her 70s before
23:56
Speaker 2: she can even ask a parole board to review her case.
23:59
Speaker 1: The broadcast ends the courtroom segment with an image that
24:01
Speaker 1: is just incredibly bleak.
24:03
Speaker 2: Yeah.
24:04
Speaker 1: It notes that as Angie Mock was led away, you
24:06
Speaker 1: could hear the clinking of her shackles and you could
24:09
Speaker 1: hear her crying as she was walked out of the courtroom.
24:11
Speaker 2: It's a devastating visual.
24:13
Speaker 1: A former television anchor, heavily medicated, weeping in chains, heading
24:18
Speaker 1: to a concrete cell until she is an old woman.
24:20
Speaker 1: But as dark as that image is... The true bottomless
24:23
Speaker 1: darkness of this deep dive lies in the collateral damage.
24:26
Speaker 2: The family.
24:27
Speaker 1: Yes, the family. Because while the legal system treats a
24:30
Speaker 1: murder as a crime committed against the state, the state
24:34
Speaker 1: of Kansas versus Angie Mock, the victim impact statements provided
24:37
Speaker 1: in the source material show us the reality. Right. Murder
24:41
Speaker 1: isn't just a legal violation. It is a biological hazard
24:44
Speaker 1: of grief that infects and mutates the entire family structure.
24:49
Speaker 2: It is an emotional detonation. You know, when a stranger
24:53
Speaker 2: commits a murder, the family unifies in their grief and
24:55
Speaker 2: their anger toward the perpetrator.
24:57
Speaker 1: They have a common enemy.
24:58
Speaker 2: Exactly. But in cases of parricide, the killing of a
25:02
Speaker 2: parent by a child, the detonation happens inside the family unit.
25:06
Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
25:07
Speaker 2: The people left behind are forced to navigate a landscape
25:09
Speaker 2: where they loved both the victim and, horrifically, the perpetrator.
25:13
Speaker 2: The source material provides a microscopic, agonizing look at what
25:17
Speaker 2: happens to those survivors.
25:19
Speaker 1: Let's start with Angie's stepsister, who addressed the court. She
25:22
Speaker 1: began by painting a picture of who Anita Avers actually was,
25:26
Speaker 1: outside of the sterile police reports.
25:28
Speaker 2: The person behind the victim title.
25:30
Speaker 1: Right. She described her as a bright, compassionate, loving woman
25:35
Speaker 1: who was intentionally focused on the emotional needs of everyone
25:37
Speaker 1: in her family. She described a home full of laughter,
25:41
Speaker 1: game playing, and quiet, peaceful moments between Anita and her husband.
25:45
Speaker 2: That's beautiful.
25:47
Speaker 1: It is. But then... The stepsister describes the immediate aftermath
25:51
Speaker 1: of Halloween. And this is the grim reality of true
25:55
Speaker 1: crime that the glossy television shows and, you know, media
25:58
Speaker 1: coverage usually skip right over.
26:01
Speaker 2: The physical reality.
26:02
Speaker 1: The physical reality of the aftermath.
26:05
Speaker 2: The things the state absolutely does not handle.
26:08
Speaker 1: Exactly. The stepsister said, My husband and I helped Dad
26:13
Speaker 1: clean up the mess the next day. I scrubbed blood
26:15
Speaker 1: off the floors, walls, and curtains. My husband and a
26:19
Speaker 1: friend of the family removed the mattress and the bedroom carpet.
26:23
Speaker 2: Just wow.
26:24
Speaker 1: She said, by God's grace, we were able to remove
26:27
Speaker 1: the ugliness of the act to give dad his house back.
26:31
Speaker 2: The physical and psychological toll of that specific act is unimaginable.
26:36
Speaker 1: Scrubbing the walls?
26:37
Speaker 2: Yes. The justice system removes the body. They take the photographs.
26:41
Speaker 2: They collect the cheese grater and the knives for evidence.
26:44
Speaker 2: But they do not clean the house. No. The family...
26:48
Speaker 2: in a state of absolute paralyzing shock, and acute grief
26:52
Speaker 2: is left to procure cleaning supplies, get down on their
26:55
Speaker 2: hands and knees, and physically scrub their loved one's blood
26:59
Speaker 2: out of the carpet and off the curtains.
27:02
Speaker 1: I can't even fathom the trauma of that. You are
27:05
Speaker 1: wiping away the literal life force of your stepmother.
27:09
Speaker 2: And look at the language she uses to describe the
27:11
Speaker 2: act itself. The stepsister uses the words calculated and demonic.
27:16
Speaker 1: She did, yeah.
27:17
Speaker 2: This highlights A profound and common struggle for the families
27:21
Speaker 2: of perpetrators with severe mental illness. They are trying to
27:24
Speaker 2: reconcile the clinical, sterile diagnosis of schizophrenia with the sheer
27:29
Speaker 2: visceral evil of the physical destruction.
27:32
Speaker 1: It doesn't match up in their heads. It doesn't.
27:35
Speaker 2: When you are scrubbing blood off a bedroom wall, the
27:38
Speaker 2: phrase psychotic break feels deeply insufficient. It feels demonic. It
27:45
Speaker 2: feels calculated. because the devastation to your life is so
27:48
Speaker 2: absolute and permanent. The brain rejects the idea that an
27:52
Speaker 2: illness caused this much pain. It demands a villain.
27:55
Speaker 1: The stepsister also noted that while they gave her dad
27:57
Speaker 1: his physical house back, quote, there's nothing that can bring
28:01
Speaker 1: back the home that it was.
28:02
Speaker 2: Of course not.
28:04
Speaker 1: She also revealed that agonizing detail we touched on earlier,
28:07
Speaker 1: that Anita had defensive wounds on her arms. The stepsister
28:11
Speaker 1: said she went to her death knowing that it was
28:13
Speaker 1: her own daughter who was slaughtering her.
28:15
Speaker 2: That's the ultimate betrayal.
28:17
Speaker 1: And the stepsister expressed deep concern that Angie has something
28:19
Speaker 1: so evil and heinous within her that she needs to
28:22
Speaker 1: be kept away from the public for life. And she
28:24
Speaker 1: prayed the Department of Corrections deals with her accordingly.
28:28
Speaker 2: See, the empathy for the perpetrator, even as a family member,
28:31
Speaker 2: is completely erased by the brutality of the act.
28:35
Speaker 1: Next, the court heard a statement written by Anita's sister,
28:38
Speaker 1: who was Angie's aunt. It was read aloud to the court. Okay.
28:42
Speaker 1: She said, there was a hole in my heart. where
28:45
Speaker 1: she once lived. I've had to learn how to breathe,
28:48
Speaker 1: stand upright, and move through a world that no longer
28:51
Speaker 1: holds her.
28:52
Speaker 2: That's, I mean, it's a description of grief not as
28:56
Speaker 2: a sadness, but as a physical amputation.
29:00
Speaker 1: Yes, a hole in the heart.
29:02
Speaker 2: She is describing the autonomic nervous system having to relearn
29:05
Speaker 2: basic functions like breathing and standing because the shock of
29:09
Speaker 2: the trauma has entirely rewired her baseline state of being.
29:13
Speaker 1: And she makes a poignant observation about the concept of
29:15
Speaker 1: time and the justice system. She notes that should her niece, Angie,
29:20
Speaker 1: ever stand before a parole board in 25 years, the
29:23
Speaker 1: aunt herself will likely not be alive to attend and
29:25
Speaker 1: remind them of the immeasurable loss.
29:28
Speaker 2: Oh, that's heavy.
29:29
Speaker 1: She said she was stolen from all of us and
29:32
Speaker 1: there is no ransom to be paid to have her back.
29:35
Speaker 2: It is a stark reminder of the permanence of murder
29:37
Speaker 2: versus the temporary nature of a prison. sentence. The legal
29:41
Speaker 2: system deals in blocks of time, right? 25 to life. Right.
29:45
Speaker 2: But the family deals in eternity.
29:47
Speaker 1: But I want to spend significant time on the final
29:50
Speaker 1: victim impact statement from the source material because it is
29:54
Speaker 1: one of the most comprehensive, articulate, and heartbreaking accounts of
29:59
Speaker 1: grief I have ever encountered. Okay. Now, I need to
30:02
Speaker 1: make a quick correction to the source material here.
30:04
Speaker 2: Oh, a correction.
30:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, because the law and crime anchor, Chris Stewart, introduces
30:09
Speaker 1: this final speaker as Mock's sister. But if you actually
30:12
Speaker 1: listen to the audio of the woman speaking in the courtroom,
30:15
Speaker 1: she repeatedly says, she took my grandmother from me and
30:18
Speaker 1: I lost an aunt. Oh, okay.
30:20
Speaker 2: So the speaker in the audio is clearly Anita's granddaughter.
30:23
Speaker 1: Yes.
30:24
Speaker 2: Which makes her Angie Mock's niece, not her sister.
30:27
Speaker 1: Right.
30:27
Speaker 2: It's a journalistic error in the broadcast, but pointing it
30:30
Speaker 2: out actually highlights the sprawling, chaotic nature of family trees
30:34
Speaker 2: when they are broken by violence.
30:35
Speaker 1: How so?
30:36
Speaker 2: The trauma doesn't just hit the immediate parent-child relationship. It
30:40
Speaker 2: echoes down through the generations, shattering nieces, nephews, and grandchildren.
30:44
Speaker 2: Everyone is affected.
30:46
Speaker 1: And this granddaughter's statement is a masterclass in explaining how
30:49
Speaker 1: violent crime fundamentally ruins the basic mechanics of everyday life.
30:54
Speaker 1: She talks about the visceral, physical toll.
30:56
Speaker 2: Like what?
30:58
Speaker 1: She told the court that in the first couple of
31:00
Speaker 1: months after the murder, she lost 20 pounds because she
31:02
Speaker 1: could barely keep food down.
31:03
Speaker 2: Oh, my God.
31:04
Speaker 1: She said people would tell her, you look great. Keep
31:06
Speaker 1: doing whatever you're doing. And she would have to stand
31:09
Speaker 1: there and listen to those words, knowing she was literally
31:12
Speaker 1: starving herself out of grief.
31:14
Speaker 2: That is a brilliant and horrific encapsulation of how society
31:17
Speaker 2: fundamentally misunderstands deep trauma. People see weight loss and culturally
31:21
Speaker 2: congratulated as a sign of health or discipline as They
31:25
Speaker 2: are completely blind to the biological reality that her body
31:28
Speaker 2: is physically rejecting sustenance because her psychological state is in ruins.
31:32
Speaker 1: She just couldn't eat?
31:33
Speaker 2: Her nervous system is locked in a constant state of
31:36
Speaker 2: fight or flight. When the brain detects a massive threat,
31:39
Speaker 2: like the brutal murder of a matriarch, it shuts down
31:42
Speaker 2: non-essential functions like digestion. She wasn't dieting. She was experiencing
31:46
Speaker 2: a biological inability to process food because she was consumed
31:50
Speaker 2: by trauma.
31:51
Speaker 1: And the timeline of the murder? Halloween morning. Completely ruined
31:55
Speaker 1: the holiday.
31:56
Speaker 2: Oh, I hadn't even thought of that.
31:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, she was supposed to have a Halloween party with
31:59
Speaker 1: her friends that night. She describes the surreal horror of
32:02
Speaker 1: turning kids away at her porch because she was standing
32:04
Speaker 1: in a, quote, literal house of horrors while her friends
32:08
Speaker 1: cried over the pumpkins they'd carved.
32:10
Speaker 2: That is so dark.
32:11
Speaker 1: But it wasn't just Halloween. It was every single family tradition.
32:16
Speaker 1: She mourns the loss of her grandmother's specific recipes. Sugar-covered strawberries,
32:20
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving cheesecake, casseroles.
32:23
Speaker 2: All those sensory memories.
32:24
Speaker 1: Exactly. She talks about how she can't even sit at
32:27
Speaker 1: the table in her grandfather's house or walk barefoot across
32:30
Speaker 1: the floor because for months, all she could see in
32:33
Speaker 1: her mind was her grandmother's blood scattered throughout the house.
32:36
Speaker 2: This is a perfect example of how trauma rewires the
32:39
Speaker 2: brain's spatial associations.
32:41
Speaker 1: Spatial associations?
32:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, a house that for decades was a sanctuary, a
32:45
Speaker 2: place of safety, food, and laughter, instantaneously becomes a trigger
32:50
Speaker 2: for post-traumatic stress.
32:51
Speaker 1: Oh, I see.
32:52
Speaker 2: The environment is permanently contaminated. The brain overlays the memory
32:56
Speaker 2: of the crime scene onto the present reality, making it
32:59
Speaker 2: impossible to feel safe in a place designed for safety.
33:03
Speaker 1: She even gave a detail that ties back to the
33:05
Speaker 1: bizarre crime scene evidence.
33:07
Speaker 2: The cheese grater. Yeah.
33:09
Speaker 1: She said, there are still certain kitchen tools I cannot
33:11
Speaker 1: use because I know what they were used for. Just
33:14
Speaker 1: looking at them or thinking about them makes my stomach turn. Wow.
33:18
Speaker 1: Imagine that. A basic, everyday kitchen tool, perhaps a carving knife,
33:23
Speaker 1: or even a cheese grater, now induces physical nausea because
33:27
Speaker 1: it is eternally linked to the brutal murder of the
33:30
Speaker 1: woman who used to cook for her.
33:32
Speaker 2: It's the weaponization of the mundane. When the murder weapon
33:35
Speaker 2: is a kitchen tool, the kitchen itself becomes a minefield.
33:39
Speaker 1: Right.
33:39
Speaker 2: You cannot make dinner without being confronted by the implement
33:42
Speaker 2: of your grandmother's death. It forces the survivor to navigate
33:46
Speaker 2: constant daily microtraumas just to exist in their own home.
33:50
Speaker 1: She goes on to list all the invisible things that
33:53
Speaker 1: are gone. Her grandmother harmonizing with her grandpa while singing
33:56
Speaker 1: happy birthday at every new year. They carefully picked out
33:59
Speaker 1: cards with thoughtful handwriting, games of hand and foot, stringing
34:04
Speaker 1: popcorn garlands around the Christmas tree.
34:06
Speaker 2: It's just devastating.
34:08
Speaker 1: But then she says a sentence that I think defines
34:11
Speaker 1: the entire tragedy. She said, I wish my grief could
34:14
Speaker 1: just be missing her. Instead, my grief is tangled together
34:18
Speaker 1: With images and thoughts I never wanted, I cannot separate
34:21
Speaker 1: losing her from what was done to her.
34:24
Speaker 2: If we really sit with that statement, I cannot separate
34:28
Speaker 2: losing her from what was done to her, we arrive
34:31
Speaker 2: at the core psychological horror of homicidal bereavement.
34:34
Speaker 1: Which is what?
34:35
Speaker 2: Well, when someone dies of natural causes or old age,
34:39
Speaker 2: you grieve their absence. You grieve the empty chair. But
34:43
Speaker 2: when someone is brutally murdered, especially by their own child
34:47
Speaker 2: in a psychotic frenzy, Your grief is constantly interrupted by terror.
34:52
Speaker 1: Right, the terror of what they went through.
34:54
Speaker 2: You are haunted by their final moments. The granddaughter explicitly
34:58
Speaker 2: mentions thinking about the fear, the agony, and the ultimate
35:01
Speaker 2: betrayal her grandmother must have experienced waking up to her
35:05
Speaker 2: daughter attacking her. The grief is complicated, it's traumatic, and
35:08
Speaker 2: it's inescapable because the survivor's mind keeps trying to process
35:12
Speaker 2: the unprocessable violence of the event rather than just the
35:15
Speaker 2: loss of the person.
35:16
Speaker 1: She talks about the nightmares that result from that tangled grief.
35:20
Speaker 1: She said sometimes she dreams her grandmother is there. She
35:23
Speaker 1: hears her voice. And for a fleeting moment, she almost
35:26
Speaker 1: has her back. But then she wakes up to the devastating,
35:30
Speaker 1: suffocating reality.
35:31
Speaker 2: That whiplash is brutal.
35:34
Speaker 1: Other times, she dreams that the murderer, her aunt, Angie,
35:37
Speaker 1: has been released and that she or her grandpa will
35:40
Speaker 1: be the next targets.
35:41
Speaker 2: So she's not just grieving. She's terrified.
35:43
Speaker 1: She lives in a state of perpetual fear. She says
35:47
Speaker 1: she wishes the basket around her neck wasn't the only
35:49
Speaker 1: way to keep her close to her heart, presumably meaning
35:52
Speaker 1: an urn necklace holding her ashes. She even mentions that
35:56
Speaker 1: watching the TV show Gilmore Girls is the only way
35:58
Speaker 1: she can feel her grandmother next to her.
36:00
Speaker 2: Those little touchstones.
36:02
Speaker 1: It's just an incredibly profound articulation of a life permanently fractured.
36:07
Speaker 1: She lost the person who made her feel completely known
36:10
Speaker 1: and understood without judgment. And she is incredibly angry.
36:15
Speaker 2: Naturally.
36:16
Speaker 1: She told the court she gets angry with God, struggling
36:19
Speaker 1: to understand how a woman with so much faith could
36:22
Speaker 1: be allowed to leave the world in such a horrific,
36:24
Speaker 1: violent way.
36:26
Speaker 2: And what is the perpetrator's response to this outpouring of
36:29
Speaker 2: unimaginable pain? Well, the source material notes that throughout these statements,
36:34
Speaker 2: Angie Mock sat there looking down, holding a tissue, clearly emotional.
36:39
Speaker 2: But when Judge Johnson gave her the formal opportunity to
36:42
Speaker 2: speak in mitigation of her punishment to offer any words
36:45
Speaker 2: of explanation or sorrow, she simply shook her head and
36:49
Speaker 2: declined to say anything at all.
36:51
Speaker 1: Silence. After all of that destruction, after the blood, the
36:55
Speaker 1: shattered holidays, the ruined kitchen tools, and the words poured
36:59
Speaker 1: out by her grieving family, she offered absolute silence.
37:04
Speaker 2: It's chilling.
37:05
Speaker 1: It is a haunting, hollow conclusion to her time in
37:08
Speaker 1: the public eye. Think about the trajectory from a career
37:12
Speaker 1: built on communicating with thousands of people every morning in St. Louis,
37:16
Speaker 1: using her voice to establish trust and authority.
37:19
Speaker 2: To sitting in a Wichita courtroom.
37:20
Speaker 1: Yes, heavily medicated and completely mute before being locked away
37:25
Speaker 1: for the rest of her life.
37:27
Speaker 2: The silence perfectly mirrors the complete collapse of her world.
37:30
Speaker 1: It really does.
37:32
Speaker 2: The voice that defined her career, the executive function that
37:35
Speaker 2: allowed her to climb the ladder of local news is gone.
37:38
Speaker 2: It has been replaced only by the mechanical functioning of
37:41
Speaker 2: antipsychotic medication, the silence of a prison sentence, and the
37:46
Speaker 2: weeping in the hallway as she is led away in shackles.
37:49
Speaker 1: So we've traced the entire horrific arc of this long
37:52
Speaker 1: crime broadcast. We've gone from the bright lights of the St.
37:55
Speaker 1: Louis news desks, through the grueling high-pressure climb of local television,
38:00
Speaker 1: to a complete catastrophic psychotic break involving a cheese grater
38:04
Speaker 1: and venom-spewing delusions.
38:06
Speaker 2: We've covered a lot.
38:07
Speaker 1: We've navigated the baffling paradox of the legal competency system
38:11
Speaker 1: that medicates a mind just enough to lock it in
38:13
Speaker 1: a cage. And finally, we've examined the shattered, blood-stained reality
38:17
Speaker 1: left behind for a family that just wants to play
38:20
Speaker 1: a game of hand and foot with their grandmother again.
38:22
Speaker 2: It's a lot to process.
38:24
Speaker 1: It is. So what does this all mean for you,
38:27
Speaker 1: the listener? Why spend this time diving into the dark,
38:29
Speaker 1: granular details of a family tragedy in Kansas? Because it's
38:33
Speaker 1: a stark, terrifying reminder of how little we truly know
38:37
Speaker 1: about the internal lives of the people we interact with
38:39
Speaker 1: every single day.
38:41
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
38:42
Speaker 1: The polished professionals we see on our screens, the colleagues
38:45
Speaker 1: we work with, or even the neighbors in our own communities.
38:49
Speaker 1: We assume competence equals stability. But behind the makeup, the teleprompter,
38:54
Speaker 1: or the front door, there can be a psychological fault
38:57
Speaker 1: line just waiting to rupture.
38:59
Speaker 2: It underscores the absolute generational devastation of untreated mental illness.
39:05
Speaker 2: It shows us that when the mind breaks with this
39:08
Speaker 2: level of severity, it doesn't just destroy the individual suffering
39:11
Speaker 2: from the delusion. No. It detonates like a bomb inside
39:14
Speaker 2: the family structure, leaving collateral damage that ruins holidays, poisons memories,
39:19
Speaker 2: and rewires the nervous systems of the survivors. The legal
39:23
Speaker 2: system can process the paperwork and lock away the physical threat,
39:26
Speaker 2: but it possesses absolutely no tools to fix the psychological.
39:30
Speaker 2: ruins left behind.
39:31
Speaker 1: In that house. Which brings me to a final lingering
39:34
Speaker 1: paradox that wasn't explicitly debated in the courtroom, but it's
39:37
Speaker 1: something I cannot stop thinking about. And it's what I
39:40
Speaker 1: want to leave you with today. What's it? Think about
39:43
Speaker 1: Anita Avers. She wasn't a bystander to mental illness. She
39:48
Speaker 1: was a clinical therapist. She spent her entire professional career
39:52
Speaker 1: studying the human mind, helping strangers navigate mental health crises,
39:57
Speaker 1: identifying pathology, and offering tools for psychological survival. Right. Yet
40:02
Speaker 1: the most severe, fatal, and catastrophic mental health crisis was
40:08
Speaker 1: brewing silently inside her own daughter's mind, ultimately leading to
40:11
Speaker 1: her brutal death in her own bed.
40:14
Speaker 2: That is the ultimate tragedy of this case.
40:16
Speaker 1: It leaves you wondering, How often do we completely miss
40:19
Speaker 1: the deepest, most dangerous fractures in our own homes? Simply
40:23
Speaker 1: because we're too close to see them. Or worse, because
40:26
Speaker 1: we believe we possess the professional tools to fix them. Yeah.
40:31
Speaker 1: We like to think that if we are vigilant, or
40:33
Speaker 1: if we have the right vocabulary, we can she the
40:36
Speaker 1: jagged line on the x-ray. That we can diagnose the
40:39
Speaker 1: break before it shatters everything. But sometimes, the sinkhole is
40:45
Speaker 1: perfectly masked. Sometimes you don't see the structural failure until
40:49
Speaker 1: the ground completely gives way beneath you, and the screen
40:52
Speaker 1: just goes permanently dark.