FINAL DAYS: THE TRUE STORY

On February 12, 2023, at 7:30 AM, my boyfriend Michael called while I was at work to say that my daughter Alexis had been standing over my mom and tried to hit her. He defused the situation but Alexis said she wanted to go back to Charter Oak Hospital because she wasn’t feeling well. I would usually take her when the need arose, but we agreed that he’d do it this time.

When they arrived at the hospital at 8:30 AM, Michael spoke with the nurse. He explained that Alexis tried to hit her grandmother and wasn’t feeling well. The nurse took Alexis away and didn’t allow Michael to accompany them, as I usually did. When they returned, the nurse told Michael that Alexis was too calm to be admitted and they went home. 

The next morning, Michael drove me to work, as he always does. My son Gregory called and said Alexis had jumped out the 1st floor window and he couldn’t see where she’d gone. I said I would call the police and we were on our way back home. After I spoke to the police, I called Gregory back and asked him to give the phone to his grandmother. He told me she was on the floor, he couldn’t wake her, and she didn’t seem to be breathing. 

When we got home, the Fire Department’s EMS team had arrived and they let us into the house. Michael immediately spotted a frying pan in the dog’s bed. The emergency workers pronounced my mother dead at the scene and showed us the two hematomas on her head. Alexis was found up the street, banging on the windows of the local Wal Mart.

Alexis was arrested. The judge said she isn't currently competent to stand trial and sent her to Porterville Developmental Center. She's going through training to make her competent to stand trial, but I don't think that's possible. If she's never competent, she'll stay at Porterville or in a secure group home. If she is declared competent, she would stand trial for killing her grandmother.

Michael and I visited Alexis recently, and I asked her why she killed her grandmother. She said that Gregory - her brother, who is also mentally disabled - kept going in her room and taking her things. She was mad at him but he's too big for her to hit him.

So she took it out on her grandmother instead.