Paragraph five reads: "Modispaw checked herself into a mental health unit at a hospital a month before the stabbing, and was discharged with medication. Modispaw told the judge she's been on disability for depression and anxiety since she was 20 and had childhood head trauma, as well as hallucinations about demons."
A Pennsylvania woman who pleaded guilty but mentally ill to fatally stabbing her mother told a judge that she heard the voices of "Jesus and seven guys" and had hallucinations of demons before the incident.
Angela Modispaw, 32, of Smock, faces a maximum sentence of 20 to 40 years in prison when she's sentenced Sept. 29 after her plea to third-degree murder on Wednesday.
Modispaw told Fayette County Judge Steve Leskinen she doesn't clearly remember stabbing 56-year-old Theresa Modispaw in April 2008, but said she believes she did so and did not want to stand trial on the charges.
State police said Modispaw used a butcher knife to try to cut her mother's throat before stabbing the woman five times, then stabbed her brother in the back with scissors when he tried to intervene.
Modispaw checked herself into a mental health unit at a hospital a month before the stabbing, and was discharged with medication. Modispaw told the judge she's been on disability for depression and anxiety since she was 20 and had childhood head trauma, as well as hallucinations about demons.
On the night of the murder, Modispaw said she hugged and kissed her mother good night before she began hearing various voices, among them one that said, "Get out of my head, momma, get out of my head."
Modispaw said she believed she and her family "wouldn't have a happy eternity" unless they all died that night.
"Jesus and seven guys were telling me what to do," she told the judge. "If I did, I would have a happy eternity. I was told to look at people's homes and stuff and find what I'd like to have in my castle in heaven."
She also said she had hallucinations of demons before the stabbing.
"I saw visions of hell, and visions of demons rising," Modispaw said. "I heard voices in my head. It kept getting louder and louder."
Modispaw also has a brain tumor and her attorney, public defender David Kaiser, said questions remain about whether it affected her actions.