Prosecutors say they won’t be seeking the death penalty for a Pennsylvania woman charged with killing and dismembering her elderly parents earlier this year.
“The required legal factors are not present in this case,” Montgomery County assistant prosecutor Samantha Cauffman told the judge in a hearing on Thursday, according to The Associated Press.
The son of 73-year-old Reid Beck and 72-year-old Miriam Beck called police on January 17 when he arrived at his parents home to deliver soup to his sister, who had said she wasn’t feeling well. But when he used his key to get into the house, he found a body — later identified as his father — under a bloody blanket.
He called for his sister, 44-year-old Verity Beck, who came to the room and told him things had “been bad” at home and that she needed “more time” before she called police. Instead, he called police, who found Reid Beck shot once in the forehead and decapitated and Miriam Beck shot in the back of the head, cut into eight pieces, and put into garbage bags in a garbage can in the garage.
Verity Beck told officers her parents “are dead” when they asked what happened to them.
Verity Beck reportedly used a chainsaw in the crime, as CrimeOnline reported. She pleaded not guilty on Thursday to two counts each of first- and third-degree murder, corpse abuse, and possessing instruments of crime and is being held without bail, the AP said.
Read Related Also: ‘Socialite Shover’ Pleads Guilty in Death of Beloved New York Vocal Coach
Investigators said Beck likely killed her parents about 10 days earlier, based their son’s last communication with them and unread newspapers found outside the home. Police also found a “strong odor” of decomposition in the home.
They have not publicly speculated on a motive, although they did say that it appeared someone had tried to drill into an upstairs safe in the home.
For the latest true crime and justice news, subscribe to the ‘Crime Stories with Nancy Grace’ podcast.
[Featured image: Verity Beck/Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office]
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;
n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,
document,’script’,’
fbq(‘init’, ‘249856382045099’);
fbq(‘track’, “PageView”);
