Woman to serve 18 years for fatally shooting mother in their Chesapeake home
Susan Lee Hutson didn’t think her daughter was serious when she lifted the shotgun.
She told Rachel she was crazy, that she would tell her dad about this when he got home, Rachel Hutson testified.
Then Hutson pulled the trigger.
Circuit Judge Marjorie Taylor Arrington on Tuesday sentenced Hutson to serve 18 years for first-degree murder and use of a firearm.
On Nov. 29, 2013, Hutson called her father and said she shot her mother inside their Indian River home, according to court documents. He thought she was joking and hung up. Hutson then texted him a photo of her mother’s body.
She had been a caregiver for her 58-year-old mother, who had been ill for years and was dying, Donald Hutson testified. He said he never knew his daughter was suicidal, but in court, Rachel Hutson, 21, testified she felt depressed on and off for as long as she could remember.
She said she planned to kill herself that morning and that her mother’s death was more of an afterthought. She thought her suicide would be too hard on her mom, and she didn’t want her mom to discover her body, she said.
http://www.pilotonline.com/news/local/crime/woman-to-serve-years-for-fatally-shooting-mother-in-their/article_14c50bb3-4ae3-5166-95fa-d0fcda6f72d2.html
I understand the mental illness issues, but damn that's light for a state that sends more folks to death row aside from Texas...
And then there's this bit of silliness to compare it to: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024125449 (Update: his sentence was commuted to "only" 40 years)
