KINGSTON – The Appellate Division of State Supreme Court, Third Judicial Department, has rejected the appeal by Sarra Gilbert, who brutally murdered her mother in her Ellenville home on July 23, 2016.
Gilbert, now 33, killed her mother, Mari Gilbert, who was 52, by stabbing her 227 times with a 15-inch knife, bludgeoning her with a fire extinguisher and spraying fire extinguisher foam into her mouth. She told police her mother was a “bad God.”
Sarra Gilbert was convicted of murder and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
In her appeal, she maintained she lacked criminal responsibility by reason of mental disease and she contended that the Ulster County Court jury improperly rejected her defense.
During her trial, it was determined that Gilbert was schizophrenic and had been hospitalized at least seven times prior to the murder. In one instance, in 2014, she referred to herself as “God” and in a February 2016 incident, she drowned a puppy in front of her son based on the belief that the puppy was the rap singer Eminem and wanted to hurt her.
During trial testimony, a psychiatrist who examined her, Dr. Sandra Antoniak, said with 97 percent accuracy that Gilbert was malingering, meaning she was intentionally faking or exaggerating psychiatric symptoms for the purpose of being absolved of criminal responsibility.
Antoniak also testified that Gilbert said when police arrived on the scene, she knew they were going to find [the victim] so she got up, went down the hall, felt that her jogging pants had soaked up too much of the blood, so she shed them, [and] went into the bathroom where she washed her hands and sat in the bathtub,” according to the appeal.
The appellate decision said that “Independent evidence also supports the proposition that defendant possessed more than a surface understanding that her conduct was wrong, including that she hid in the bathroom when police initially arrived at the scene, requested that her family be moved away, stated to detectives that she felt bad about her actions, agreed with detectives that stabbing the victim would still have been wrong even if the voices {she said she heard} had ceased thereafter.”
The conclusion of the 14-page appellate decision affirmed the Ulster County Court verdict of murder and prison sentence.
