A 48-year-old former television news anchor has admitted to fatally stabbing her 80-year-old mother on Halloween morning in their shared Wichita, Kansas, home, claiming she believed the woman was possessed by the devil.
Angelynn "Angie" Mock pleaded guilty Friday to one count of first-degree murder for the killing of Anita Avers, the Sedgwick County District Attorney's Office announced. Mock faces life in prison with a chance at parole after 25 years. A judge has scheduled sentencing for October 5.
The plea ends a case that began on the morning of October 31, 2025, when Wichita police responded to the family's home at approximately 7:50 a.m. and found Avers dead from multiple stab wounds. Officers found Mock outside with cuts on her hands and took her into custody at the scene.
Mock told investigators she killed her mother to "save herself," insisting Avers was the devil. A probable cause affidavit filed in the case lays out a grim scene and a long trail of warning signs that went unaddressed.
Officers who entered the home found multiple kitchen knives and a cheese grater arranged on a pillow next to Avers' body on the bed. The affidavit, reported by the New York Post, described at least 12 holes in the top half of the bed sheet, consistent with wounds from a knife blade. All the utensils recovered had blood on them.
Mock was heard talking to herself when police arrived. Her words, captured in the affidavit, were chilling:
"I'd kill that b**** to have my mom back any day. I don't even know who she is anymore. I know, I believe she's the devil."
She later told investigators directly:
"I had to kill her, she wasn't going to stop."
Mock's account of the events leading up to the stabbing centered on a confrontation in her mother's room. She told investigators she went to speak with Avers about an upcoming job interview at KSN, a Wichita-area television station, and found her mother sharpening knives. Mock claimed Avers came at her with a blade, that the two fought, and that she overpowered her mother and pushed her back.
Mock said her mother then told her, "I know you're f***ing Jesus Christ," and spewed what Mock called "venom" as Mock tried to back away. Mock said she grabbed the knife, pinned her mother down, and stabbed her, claiming she had no choice.
Barry Avers, Mock's stepfather and Anita Avers' husband, was at work when the killing happened. His statements to investigators paint a picture of a household that had been living alongside serious mental illness for years, with no apparent intervention sufficient to prevent what followed.
Barry Avers told investigators Mock had been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, a condition that involves episodes of psychosis alongside mood disturbances. She suffered from delusions and depression. She was on medication, though Barry Avers said he did not know the specific type and only assumed she was taking it as prescribed.
The delusions were not subtle. Mock frequently claimed people around her were "robots" and "not real people," Barry Avers said. She described herself as spiritual, said she spoke to God, and at times called herself the Anti-Christ, growing angry when family members did not believe her. On one occasion, she told her stepfather, "I could blow everyone up if needed to."
That kind of statement, in hindsight, reads as a clear warning. But Barry Avers told investigators he never considered Mock violent and never felt threatened by her. He described her as prone to angry outbursts, and he recalled that years earlier one such outburst led to police being called and Mock being held at a psychiatric hospital for roughly two weeks. The case is one of several recent high-profile murder proceedings that have raised uncomfortable questions about how family members and institutions handle escalating threats, not unlike the questions surrounding Brian Hooker's account of his wife's disappearance in the Bahamas.
The most recent episode Barry Avers could recall before the killing was three or four weeks prior, when Mock erupted at family members during a card game. He described Mock and her mother as having a "back-and-forth relationship as most mothers and daughters but were close."
The path from arrest to guilty plea was not straightforward. In January, Judge Jeffrey Goering ruled Mock was not mentally fit to stand trial. He ordered her to a state psychiatric hospital for evaluation and treatment, putting criminal proceedings on hold. Fox News confirmed that Mock ultimately entered her guilty plea to first-degree murder, facing life in prison with parole eligibility after 25 years.
The fact that Mock was later deemed competent enough to enter a plea raises its own questions. The court documents available do not detail when or how her competency was restored, what treatment she received at the psychiatric facility, or whether a formal plea agreement governs the terms of her sentence beyond the life-with-parole framework announced by the district attorney's office.
Before her career collapsed, Mock had been a recognizable face on local television. She worked as a morning news anchor at KTVI in St. Louis from 2011 to 2015, then moved to KOKH in Oklahoma City. By the time of the killing, she had left broadcasting and was working in sales at a data management software company. She told investigators she had been preparing for a job interview at KSN, suggesting she was trying to return to television news.
Her case now joins a growing list of murder proceedings where defendants with documented mental illness and prior institutional contact nonetheless reach the point of lethal violence. Convicted killer Karmelo Anthony's recent court filings have drawn attention for different reasons, but both cases spotlight a justice system handling defendants whose stories do not fit neatly into public expectations.
What stands out in the affidavit is not just the violence of October 31 but the long accumulation of red flags beforehand. A woman diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. A prior psychiatric hospitalization after a police call. Repeated delusions about robots, the Anti-Christ, and the power to "blow everyone up." Angry outbursts at family gatherings. A stepfather who assumed she was taking her medication but did not know what it was.
And through all of it, Mock lived in the same home as her 80-year-old mother.
Barry Avers said he never considered Mock violent. Anita Avers is dead. The gap between those two facts is where the system failed, and where an elderly woman paid the price for everyone else's benefit of the doubt.
Mock will face sentencing on October 5. The plea means there will be no trial, no jury weighing the evidence, and no public reckoning beyond the facts already laid out in the affidavit. Life in prison with a shot at parole after a quarter-century is the deal.
Accountability matters most when it arrives too late to save anyone. An 80-year-old woman is gone, and every warning sign that could have changed the outcome was already on the record.
