Latest / 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories / Sweet But Psycho: Isabella Guzman
Transcript
- 0:02Discretion is advised. This is ten minuted murderer. Forty seven year old you
- 0:22Me Hoy was becoming more and more frightened of her teenage daughter, eighteen year
- 0:28old Isabella Guzman. The two of them had never had a great relationship,
- 0:32and they frequently argued ever since Isabella was a little girl. The arguing got
- 0:38so bad that when Isabella was only nine, she spent a portion of time
- 0:41living with her biological father in the hopes that some distance would improve the relationship
- 0:47with her mother. According to Isabella's stepdad, Ryan Hoy, Isabella continued to
- 0:53disrespect her mother throughout her teenage years. After she dropped out of high school,
- 0:58the relationship deteriorates, did it even further, her behavior escalated to include
- 1:03screaming at Yumi and even spitting at her. The assaults and threats came to
- 1:10a head on Wednesday, the twenty eighth of August twenty thirteen, when Yumi
- 1:15received a threatening email from her daughter. The email was simple, saying you
- 1:21will pay, but Umi was so shaken by it that she and Ryan decided
- 1:26to call the police and report that their daughter had threatened to harm them,
- 1:30as well as calling the police about the threat, Umi and Ryan called Isabella's
- 1:34biological father and asked him to come and talk to his daughter. Robert Guzman
- 1:40had always had a much better relationship with Isabella, and Umi hoped that he
- 1:45might be able to calm her down. Robert was aware that Umi and Isabella
- 1:49always had a strained relationship. Umi worked grueling twelve hour days at her portrait
- 1:55studio in town, trying to support the family, but Isabella just quote,
- 2:00didn't appreciate anything her mother did for her. Soon after the phone conversation,
- 2:05Robert Guzman drove over to the house and he called Isabella into the back yard
- 2:09to speak to her alone. Quote. I started to talk to her about
- 2:13the respect that people should have for their parents, Robert said. And I
- 2:16was trying to let her know that she should be obedient to her parents,
- 2:21not rebellious, and that she should try to listen more. And everything was
- 2:24going fine in the conversation. I thought I made progress, but obviously it
- 2:30didn't do nothing, because hours later this thing happened. When the police arrived
- 2:36at the house, they had a stern talk with Isabella, telling her that
- 2:38because she was a legal adult, if she didn't behave her mother could kick
- 2:43her out of the house. They didn't seem to think that there was a
- 2:46serious threat. Instead, they viewed her as a rebellious teenager who needed to
- 2:51learn a lesson to you. Me and Ryan's relief, the presence of the
- 2:54police seemed to work. Isabella calmed down and left them all alone, spending
- 3:00the rest of the early evening alone in her bedroom. It was something that
- 3:05she often did when she was upset, retreating to her room and listening to
- 3:08her iPod. Later that night, Ryan was eating his dinner in the living
- 3:13room of the house when Yumi went upstairs to have a shower. Shortly afterwards,
- 3:17Ryan was startled by a loud banging noise and Umi calling for help.
- 3:23He ran upstairs and he tried to enter the upstairs bathroom, but when he
- 3:28tried to push the door open, he saw that Isabella was inside with Umi.
- 3:31She pushed her back against the door to hold it shut and then locked
- 3:36it behind her. Ryan quickly noticed two things. The shower was still running,
- 3:42and there was a puddle of blood flowing from underneath the door. Ryan
- 3:46then ran to call the police, telling the dispatcher that his wife had been
- 3:51attacked, and he tried to get into the bathroom again. Shortly afterwards,
- 3:55Isabella opened the bathroom door and walked straight past him. She was carrying a
- 4:01bloody knife in one hand and looking straight ahead as if she didn't see her
- 4:05stepfather at all. Without saying a single word, Isabella calmly walked downstairs and
- 4:13left the house, wearing only a pair of shorts and a pink sportspra In
- 4:17the bathroom, Ryan saw Yumi lying naked on the floor, her eyes opened
- 4:24and pointed in the direction of the ceiling. Isabella had stabbed her mother a
- 4:29total of seventy nine times in the face, throat, and neck. Ryan,
- 4:33who was still on the phone to nine one one, explained what was
- 4:38happening. The operator instructed him to clear yu Me's airway and start to perform
- 4:44CPR. He did his best to try to revive his wife, but her
- 4:47injuries were too severe she was already dead. On Thursday afternoon, the police
- 4:54received a call from a concerned member of the public who believed they had seen
- 4:59a body inside a park car. Officers traveled to that parking garage where the
- 5:03caller had been found the vehicle, but now there was no sign of a
- 5:08body anywhere. A brief search of the car uncovered items that were believed to
- 5:13be connected to Isabella, so a K nine team and several undercover officers were
- 5:17called in to thoroughly search the area. During the search, an undercover officer
- 5:24saw a teenage girl matching Isabella Guzman's description walking calmly out of the parking garage.
- 5:30He stopped and talked to her, but before she walked out of the
- 5:33building and into the parking lot, the three officers strategically followed Isabella, and
- 5:41before she could decide how to escape, they had completely surrounded her and drawn
- 5:45their weapons. She was quickly placed under arrest and taken to the Aurora Police
- 5:49headquarters. That Friday, a judge ordered that Isabella beheld in the Arapahoe County
- 5:56jail without bond leading up to her trial. Short date was meant to have
- 6:00taken place on Thursday, but it had be postponed after Isabella simply refused to
- 6:05leave her jail cell. Throughout the hearing, Isabella seemed like she wasn't taking
- 6:11the situation seriously, making faces at the camera in the courtroom and smiling when
- 6:16the judge informed her that she was facing a first degree murder charge. Isabella
- 6:21began crying, but then she looked straight at the courtroom camera and pointed at
- 6:27her tears as if saying, look, I'm crying. Isabella decided to plead
- 6:32not guilty by reason of insanity, and shortly afterwards a psychiatric evaluation led to
- 6:39her being diagnosed with schizophrenia and found unfit to stand trial. According to Isabella,
- 6:46she hadn't realized that she was stabbing her own mother. Instead, she
- 6:49had been experiencing delusions that she was stabbing a different woman by the name of
- 6:55Cecilia because she believed that she had to kill Cecilia to quote save the world.
- 7:01Isabella was institutionalized at Colorado Mental Health Institute, due to be released when
- 7:08the time came that she was found to be no longer a threat to herself
- 7:12or others. She spent seven quiet years receiving treatment at the Colorado Mental Health
- 7:17Institute. Then in twenty twenty two things happened. Isabella declared that she was
- 7:25now mentally fit for release, and she became an online celebrity. The footage
- 7:31from her hearing in twenty thirteen had been reposted on TikTok, and bizarrely,
- 7:36she quickly gathered a fan base of supporters. The videos were reposted to music
- 7:42that romanticized Isabella's actions, including the Ava Max song Sweet but Psycho. Commenters
- 7:49praised Isabella's physical appearance, filmed videos of themselves imitating the facial expressions that she
- 7:56made in court, and even created Instagram fan pages dedicated to photos of Isabella.
- 8:03Many people even suggested that you me must have done something to Isabella to
- 8:07result in the crime, or that Isabella's actions had been completely out of character
- 8:13for her, a sentiment that was partially shared by Isabella's biological father, Robert
- 8:18Guzman. Robert had previously told the media, quote, Isabella's a good kid.
- 8:24She's good hearted. But I don't know what could have happened, honestly
- 8:28to provoke this kind of reaction. Isabella's aunt, Melanie Guzman, also believed
- 8:33that there was something more to the case. She visited Isabella a month or
- 8:37so before the murders and thought that she appeared to be a completely normal teenage
- 8:43girl. Quote. Her demeanor was sweet, Melanie said, describing Isabella.
- 8:48She's very coquette, and I can see her yelling, screaming, storming off
- 8:52and locking herself in a room, but not being violent like that. During
- 8:58her time at the Colorado Mental Health Instant, she claimed that her outbursts of
- 9:01anger were a response to the abuse that she suffered from you me. She
- 9:07claimed that while both of her parents were Jehovah's witnesses, she made the decision
- 9:11to leave the religion as a young teenager, causing her mother to treat her
- 9:16very poorly. But she also said that if she could change what happened that
- 9:20day or take it back, she would quote. I was not myself when
- 9:24I did that, she said in an interview with CBS four Denver, and
- 9:28I have since been restored to full health. I'm not mentally ill anymore.
- 9:33I'm not a danger to myself or others. In mid twenty twenty one,
- 9:39a judge approved Isabella's request to leave the institute to go to external therapy sessions,
- 9:45but her request to be discharged from psychiatric care was denied. That's ten
- 9:58Minute Murder Today, brief and binge able true crime. My name's Joe.
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- 10:26email from one of you that listens. Hello Joe, greetings from Wyoming.
- 10:31I was wondering if you could cover this case I heard about. Then she
- 10:33goes in to talk about this case, which, by the way, is
- 10:35very interesting. Also, I wanted to ask if there is any chance of
- 10:39you doing another podcast of longer episodes or even interviewing people. I love the
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