A Texas woman admitted to brutally beating and stabbing the grandmother who raised her to death while having a courtroom meltdown and claims “voices” and believing her grandma was practicing “witchcraft” drove her to murder.
Tamera Laws, 28, was hysterical as she testified in her own defense in a San Antonio court Thursday for the 2020 murder of Doris Novella, 70, inside her home, according to WOAI.
“Who does that?” Laws shouted through her tears on the stand. “She’s never done anything for me to want to kill her for.”
Prosecutors allege Laws — whose attorney argues she should be found not guilty by reason of insanity — choked, stabbed, and repeatedly struck Novella with a hammer, killing her.
“Do you remember stabbing your grandmother?” prosecutors asked her.
“This is too much,” Laws replied, holding back tears.
She was able to pull herself together and said she “used her hands” and beat her with a hammer.
“I thought the energy was on me, so I was thinking to get it off, I had to beat it out,” Laws told prosecutors.
The disturbed woman then said she stabbed her “in the throat” to finally kill her grandmother.
When asked if she was in her “right mind” during the murder, Laws said “no” and said if she was, she would have never killed Novella.
“Did you know at the time what you were doing was wrong,” the prosecutor asked her.
“No,” she replied.
Laws shared that she was struggling with meth addiction and working as an escort leading up to the murder. Around this time, she claims that “voices” were telling her “people were trying” to kill her.
“I would hear voices in my head telling me that people were trying to kill me,” she said.
“I was like, I know my grandma’s trying to kill me. I was afraid that my grandma was going to do witchcraft on me.”
Laws also told the court her father was the one who told her that Novella was practicing “witchcraft” against her.
She spoke with her father twice on the phone on the night of the murders — with the first call lasting over an hour and the second lasting 42 minutes, WOAI reported.
The disturbed 28-year-old claims her father told her to kill her grandmother.
“I remember telling him, ‘Are you f–king telling me to kill my grandma right now,” Laws recalled asking her dad during one of the phone calls. “And he was like, ‘Yes,’ because he said I was protecting myself.”
“(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,” she told the court.
The accused killer said her dad has a history of violence and was a convicted felon living in California.
While she told the court she “didn’t know” she was doing “something wrong” during the murder, prosecutors argued that Laws was aware of what she was doing and tried cleaning up the crime and fled the scene, according to KSAT.
However, a psychiatrist testified before Laws took the stand on Thursday and said she suffered from mental health issues and would go into psychosis and have hallucinations.
Laws waived her right to a jury trial and opted for a bench trial, meaning the judge, Catherine Torres Stahl, will decide the outcome.
Stahl will also decide whether to accept her insanity defense.
Laws faces up to life in prison if found convicted of murdering Novella.
