CENTENNIAL | An 18-year-old Aurora woman who killed her mother last summer — hitting her with a baseball bat and stabbing the woman 79 times — was insane at the time of the slaying, prosecutors and defense attorneys agree.
Isabella Guzman was found not guilty by reason of insanity during a court hearing Thursday and sentenced to the state mental hospital for an undetermined length of time. The judge on Thursday reviewed the results Guzman’s mental evaluation and ruled she is not guilty by reason of insanity. She will be sent to the state mental hospital in Pueblo indefinitely, until she is deemed to no longer be a threat to the public or herself.
Prosecutors said in court Thursday that after doctors evaluated Guzman, prosecutors believe she was insane when she killed Yun-Mi Hoy, 47, on Aug. 29 in the bathroom of the family’s home near East Yale Avenue and Parker Road.
“We are conceding that the defendant was insane at the time,” Chief Deputy District Attorney Ann Tomsic said.
Police and the doctor who evaluated Guzman are set to testify during Thursday’s hearing.
Guzman appeared in court Thursday wearing an orange jail jumpsuit with her hands and feet shackled. She rocked side-to-side and spoke often with her lawyers before the hearing started.
In the days before the slaying Guzman’s mental state seemed to deteriorate rapidly. She started calling her mom “Cecilia” and speaking about an “astral being.” She told her mother she had been “cursed for all eternity” for trying to kill the “astral being and her caretaker.”
Her boyfriend also said she attacked him with a golf club a few days prior, something that was out of character for her.
The boyfriend also told police she spoke about a character named “Sam” who she said hated him.
Dr. Richard Pounds, the forensic psychiatrist at the state mental hospital who diagnosed Guzman, said she had “profound psychotic symptoms” when she arrived at the hospital for evaluation last fall.
Starting about a month before the slaying, Guzman started hearing voices, he said, and she believed she had to kill her mom to save the world. After just a few weeks on medication, Pounds said Guzman’s condition dramatically improved.
Prosecutors could have opted to take the case to trial, but District Attorney George Brauchler said that with overwhelming evidence pointing to Guzman’s insanity, it made the most sense accept the not guilty by reason of insanity plea.
“She didn’t know right from wrong,” Brauchler said.