A woman has been sentenced to 60 years in prison after brutally beating her 75-year-old mother to death with a vacuum cleaner and attempting to dismember her in a shocking attack
A woman will spend the rest of her life in prison after being found guilty of battering her elderly mum to death with a vacuum cleaner.
Neighbours in Wilburton, Oklahoma, within the bounds of the Choctaw Nation Reservation, raised the alarm on February 26, 2024, after hearing chilling screams followed by an eerie silence. When police arrived, they discovered Linda Barnes, a 75-year-old mum, dead on the floor, with horrific injuries to her face and body.
At the time, officers reportedly described organs and tissue spilling out of her body.
As Barnes’ bloody body was discovered, Tracy Ann Mannon, Barnes’ 53-year-old daughter, reportedly was found calmly doing the dishes. She consequently admitted to killing her mum.
Moreover, she further admitted she was attempting to dismember Barnes, but confessed her knife “was not sharp enough for the job”, True Crime News reported. Mannon also told police she had attacked Barnes with a vacuum cleaner.
Court documents later revealed Mannon had a long history of mental health struggles, including diagnoses of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. On the day of the killing, Mannon had reportedly quit her job and stopped taking her medication.
Her lawyers went on to claim that she was suffering from a delusion “that her mother had been replaced by an identical robot which was going to detonate a large explosive device under the property”.
This was not Mannon’s first brush with the law. American news channel KOTV reported she had previously been charged with trying to strangle her own daughter with a rope.
Nevertheless, the gruesome case was reportedly dropped because of a Supreme Court ruling on tribal jurisdiction. Due to the crime taking place on tribal land, Mannon’s case was handled in federal court.
There, sentences for homicide in what is called “Indian Country” offer no chance of early release beyond good-behaviour credits. As a result, Mannon was sentenced to 60 years in jail.
Mannon did plead guilty to the second-degree murder of her mum.
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