Tylar Witt, 15, Pleads Insanity in Her Mother’s Murder
Tylar Witt, the lovestruck teen charged with murdering her mother because she disapproved of her 20-year-old boyfriend, entered a a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity on Monday.
Tylar’s boyfriend Steven Colver, 20, pleaded not guilty to the murder last June of 47-year-old Joanne Witt.
Witt’s attorney did not provide an explanation of the plea to the media. Colver’s defense attorney, Dain Weiner, says he’s not sure what’s going on. “I don’t know what facts they will be basing that defense on, or how those facts will mesh with our defense,” Weiner says.
Witt and Colver are accused of plotting to murder Tylar’s mother, Joanne Witt, in her El Dorado Hills home after she showed her daughter’s diary to sheriff’s deputies and accused Colver of statutory rape. Tylar was 14 at the time and Colver was a guest in the Witt home.
Prosecutors say Tylar drugged her mother and Colver stabbed her 20 times before slashing her throat with a butcher knife. The El Dorado County District Attorney’s office last week announced it would not seek the death penalty against Colver. A judge has ruled that Tylar’s apparent role in the horrific murder warrants her being tried as an adult but she is ineligible for the death penalty due to her age.
Both defendants also pled not guilty to special circumstances of lying in wait and of killing a witness – enhancements that could mean life in prison if they are convicted.
More details on the insanity plea are expected on March 26 during a hearing on several pretrial motions.
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