DEMONS, DRUGS, CELEBS FILL GILBERT TESTIMONY
Murder suspect, who has pleaded insanity, also claims body switch with missing sister
Taking the stand in her own defense, murder defendant Sarra Gilbert calmly told jurors Friday of living in foster homes, being molested by a boyfriend of her mother, her older sister disappearing, her drug use and her repeated institutionalizations in psychiatric facilities.
And in the same measured and even tone, the Ellenville woman talked about demons and “seeing black in people’s eyes”; writing the first verse of “Let It Go” from the musical “Frozen” and the lyrics to Beyonce’s “Pretty Hurt”; being dissed by rapper Eminem, with whom she claimed to have a musical relationship; and switching bodies with her missing sister, Shannan.
Gilbert, 28, spent much of the day on the witness stand in the fourth day of her trial in Ulster County Court. She has been charged with second-degree murder for the brutal stabbing death of her mother Mari, 52, on July 23, 2016, in the younger
woman’s apartment. She has pleaded not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect.
Under questioning by her attorney, John Ray, Gilbert spoke matter-of-factly about her stays in psychiatric facilities, writing songs for Beyonce, Rihanna and Eminem in her ninth-grade earth science class, and seeing demons in the eyes of her sister and mother.
It was the same tone she used during a roughly hourlong interrogation by police, shown in court on Friday, during which she said “I murdered my mother” and told investigators she stripped her mom of her clothes after stabbing her “because I thought that her laying in her blood was giving my mom power.”
Gilbert’s lawyer has said his client stabbed her mother 227 times, bludgeoned her with a fire extinguisher, sprayed her with foam from the device and tried to cut off her head because she thought the older woman was an “evil god.”
In the video recording of Gilbert’s interrogation by police, played in court by Ulster County Assistant District Attorney Emmanuel Nneji, Gilbert repeatedly admitted killing her mother but also talked about being possessed and controlled by others.
She said she had been hearing voices for days and that the day before the killing, there was “rain coming down from the ceiling,” which she believed her mother, a self-proclaimed witch, was causing.
“I did it,” she told police of killing her mother. “I feel really, really bad because I loved my mom.” But she said she believed her mother was trying to hurt her.
At times during the police interview, Gilbert seemed to babble, talking about cockroaches and being possessed, about Eminem, and about her sister Shannan, a sex worker who was found dead on Long Island in 2011 amid a police search for missing prostitutes.
Gilbert, in the video, repeatedly asked investigators for a cell phone so she could play for them the Eminem song “That’s All She Wrote,” which she told them has the words Sarah and Gilbert in the lyrics. (The song does mention a woman named Sarah, but there is no reference to Gilbert.)
Gilbert is expected to return to the witness stand when the trial resumes Monday. The Freeman will live tweet the proceedings.