150: Sorority Girl Spirals into Stabbing Frenzy?! The Disturbing Story of Sydney Powell
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Today's episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Now, I need to get something off of my chest, guys. I can't manage stress at all. Not for the life of me. I feel like it just weighs me down. I feel like we all carry these different stressors, big and small, and for me, it's like, I feel like it's a hundred pound weight on my chest. And when we keep them bottled up, I feel like it can start to affect us really negatively. I know for me it does. I carry it with me everywhere, into my house, into work. I mean, it's not good. It is not healthy.

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Is there anything you want to say to me at this time? Hey, true crime besties. Welcome back to an all new episode of Serialistly. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to an all new episode of Serialistly with me, Annie Elise. Guys, I am here today to break down another crazy ass true crime case for you. Now, let me recap. If you're brand new here, let me just tell you what it is we're doing over here on the pod.

Basically, I'm talking with you all things true crime. Deep dives, updates, all the things. But I like to do it in a way where it feels like we're just having a conversation. We're friends, maybe we're having a glass of wine, maybe we're having a protein shake, whatever you're into. And I'm just breaking down these cases for you like I would with my best friend, my sister, my husband, even though he tunes me out and doesn't want to hear anything about it. But you get the gist. I try to just make it more conversational. Sometimes these cases are...

so heavy and the language used is so clinical, so stiff, so flowery that you forget that these are real people. You forget that this happened to real victims. And so I feel that by, it's my opinion at least, that by

relaying these cases to you in a more conversational, friendly tone and talking with you through them, it humanizes them a bit. And maybe that's just me and that's how I perceive it, but to me, that's definitely my perception. If I'm listening to something that's stuffy, very monotone, very clinical in language,

just feels very sterile if that makes sense and I feel like you don't really get a sense of who these people were what they were all about what they truly went through what happened to them so it's my goal at least and will you tell me if it lands or not but it's my goal that by having this and more of a conversational dialogue it just kind of helps ground things again so that we all realize these are real people

These are real victims who had a real horrible horrific experiences and our goal here is of course to raise awareness, get justice, keep their voice living on and I would like to do right by that and in my mind and again you tell me what you think I feel that by doing that it's really just again humanizing their experience.

so anyways the case that we're talking about today is one that i honestly hadn't even actually heard about until i saw it all over my news feed on pretty much every single app that i use and it was all while the trial was going on i usually like to consider myself pretty in the know with what's going on in the true crime world but

This one, I really didn't know what this case was all about until the trial was going on and it was all over my feed. And then so, so many of you guys reached out and were like, hey, Annie, can you cover this? Can you break it down for me? I'm trying to figure out what's going on. So I saw bits and pieces and clips here and there, but then I did some digging. I did some digging to figure out what the case was all about and

what really happened. And guys, this is on a whole other level of truly unhinged. So you know that once I realized, oh, this case is a little unhinged, this is a little crazy, you know, I had to do a deep dive and I had to go through all of it. So to set the scene for this case, I want you to just close your eyes for a moment and just just go with me on this. Okay, just trust me, we're in the circle of trust. But imagine that you work as an associate dean of students at a university.

Next, imagine that you're on the phone and you're on a work phone call. The Dean of Students is right next to you and you're talking to a parent of one of the students from the university. Except this call, it's different.

Instead of having a conversation, on the other end of the line, you can hear something very weird. Your brain is trying to catch up to your ears so that you can make sense of what you just heard, and then you realize what it is you're truly hearing. You hear very loud thuds, one right after another. And then you hear screaming and more thudding. Then more screaming and more thudding.

Well, that's exactly what happened to Michelle Gaffney. There was sort of an expulsion. The other sound that I heard at that same time or right after was sort of an expulsion of air, like the air was knocked out of somebody. I'd always heard that expression of the air being knocked, you know, having the wind knocked out of you, but I didn't. That's actually what it sounded like. And then...

Several more repeated thuds. I don't know how to describe the sound. No, and that's okay. And you could, you and Mr. Frazier could hear this from the other end of the phone? From the other, it was on speakerphone, right? Yeah. Did you hear any communication during these thuds? Just the screaming. And so we...

we're both talking into the phone saying, you know, what's going on? What's happening? Are you okay? What's, can we, do you need help? What's going on? Yeah. Can you describe your mindset at this time? I mean, I very definitely felt like someone was being attacked. And so we weren't getting an answer. I think at some point I said, if you can't respond, we're going to call the police. If we don't hear a response, if no one can tell us what's going on,

And that's what she did next. She called the police and she sent them what she assumed was the address of the parent on the other end of the line. So who was the student and student's parent that Michelle was on the phone with in all of this? Well, it was mother and daughter Sydney and Brenda Powell.

Brenda is the mother, and Sydney is the daughter, and they live in Akron, Ohio, which is a very small Midwestern city. It's the kind of place where the vibe varies a lot from neighborhood to neighborhood. In terms of the area where Sydney and Brenda lived, their street was pretty quiet. It was the sort of block where violent crimes didn't typically occur. Now, of course, no one really had a good sense of what things were like inside the Powell household.

in part because Sidney's family didn't make much of an effort to get to know the neighbors, and they kind of kept to themselves. They weren't the sort of people to just show up, ask to borrow a cup of sugar or a glass of milk, or if that's something people even really do, I never have, but you know the saying.

They also weren't the kind of people who were hosting block parties or barbecues or really any sort of get-togethers. They also weren't greeting new families who moved into the neighborhood with casseroles. Again, if that's a thing, I did greet all of my new neighbors when I moved with a candle, but not a casserole, because if you know me, you know I live for DoorDash. But anyways, the point of it all is they kept their private lives private. Sydney and Brenda, plus Sydney's younger brother and her father Steve, all just kept to themselves.

However, Brenda's work life was a lot different. Hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds. Recently, I asked Mint Mobile's legal team if big wireless companies are allowed to raise prices due to inflation. They said yes. And then when I asked if raising prices technically violates those onerous two-year contracts, they said, what the f*** are you talking about, you insane Hollywood a**hole?

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Brenda organized events for her patients like nice dinners out at restaurants every single December or prom where residents could put on formal gowns and get their hair and their makeup done. She also organized social meetups so that kids with cancer could meet other people their own age who were dealing with the same issues. But Brenda's main talent was that she could just make people feel normal. When

Whenever she was around, the kids could just be kids. They could focus on their homework or dating or really anything else that just makes them feel ordinary. She didn't treat them like they were delicate or that they were sick. And really, everybody at this hospital saw her as a complete and total angel.

And things were great in Sydney's personal life too. In high school, she had a fantastic track record in school. She played soccer and lacrosse, and she still had time to study very, very hard. In fact, she graduated with a 3.8 GPA and got accepted to the University of Mount Union, which was just a little under an hour away from Akron, Ohio.

So when she went to college, Sydney, she wasn't too far from home. She did live on campus in the dorms and her roommate ended up being her second best friend from high school. And the reason I say second best friend is because Sydney's actual best friend was really her mom. They were so close. She and Brenda, they did everything together. Now don't get me wrong, Sydney loved college and all of this. She made a lot of friends on campus. She joined a sorority. She spent a bunch of time studying. She was always seen all around campus.

But still, sometimes it felt like a large part of her life was missing. So it really wasn't that surprising in March of 2020, right before spring break began, when Sydney told her parents that she wanted to just spend spring break at home. She wasn't going to go to Cancun or anything fun like that, what everybody else was planning. She just really wanted to be with her own family, and she wanted to sleep in her own bed. Now her parents, Brenda and Steve, seemed pretty okay with that.

But before the break could even begin, Steve, her father, had sort of, I don't know, a weird incident, if you will, involving Sydney and the school.

See, one day he logged onto the university's online portal because he knew that a tuition payment was supposed to be due soon. But the website wasn't loading for him, and it also wouldn't tell him how much he owed for his balance. And this was literally the only way that he had to pay this bill, so it was a major problem. If he lapsed on tuition, it was going to have a pretty big consequence, right?

So, Steve decided that he was going to call Sydney to ask her what was going on. Now, I don't know why he jumped straight to the conclusion that Sydney would know why a school website wasn't loading or what the problem was, but he figured maybe there was some sort of alert that went out. Maybe she knew.

But when he talked to her, Sydney didn't have an answer either. She had no clue. So she just told him that there must have been some kind of mistake in all of this. She also didn't understand why Mount Union wasn't accepting his payment. But she assured him that she would talk to somebody on campus. She was going to see what was going on. Then they would work it out later.

And for his part, I guess Steve wasn't super confident that Sydney really was going to be able to handle this on her own for some reason, even though she told him not to worry about it. Because then right after their conversation, he also called the school and left a message, asking them to help him figure things out.

So they returned his phone call on March 3rd, 2020. And this was the last day before spring break was supposed to begin. And the conversation took place early enough in the day that Steve thought that Sydney was still in class.

I believe Mountain Union called me. They called me and the conversation was that Sydney wasn't enrolled anymore. And then I asked for how long and they said you have to ask her. They wouldn't say anymore because Sydney was legally an adult, so they really couldn't explain to Steve what was going on. It was now a privacy issue. Well, Steve decided to go straight to the source to try to figure out what all of this meant.

But before he called Sydney, he looked her up on the tracker app that everybody in the family used because it would show where their phone was so they could know if somebody was at home, at work, with friends, at school, wherever else they might be. So that day when all of this was going down and he decided to look at the tracker app, he saw that Sydney wasn't home. Not the dorms, but she was home home.

where she grew up with him and her mother. And like I said before, it was way too early for her to be done with her classes. Spring break hadn't begun yet, so what was she doing at home? So when he discovered this, it really solidified for him that he did not have the full story of what was going on with his daughter. So that's when Steve called Sydney to ask what was going on. What is the deal here?

And when I tell you Sydney lost it, guys, she lost it. She got super flustered, super emotional, and she admitted that she was having a very difficult time in school, in part because it seemed like all of her friends had their shit together, but she didn't.

Now this was really upsetting because Sydney thought that she should have been doing better. She knew that she was capable of more. I mean, after all, she had been such a good student in high school, right? Graduating with a 3.8 GPA. But now her grades were slipping and she could not stay on top of her coursework, not to save her life.

Now this was all a massive shock to her dad Steve. And even weirder, Sydney admitted that she had gone from a full-time schedule down to a part-time one. She did this just to make the course load a little bit more manageable.

She added that she didn't know why Mount Union was saying that she wasn't enrolled at all. She was definitely enrolled part-time and still had classes with her friends. So she said maybe they had screwed up with the shift from part-time to full-time or full-time to part-time. In any event, she said, I'll figure it out. I'll figure out what's going on, but I'm definitely still enrolled.

So her dad Steve tried to do the supportive parent thing. He told Sydney that it was okay, it's normal to go through tough times, especially in school. He even encouraged her and said it was totally fine if she wanted to take a semester completely off.

And then Steve said that he was going to come home to talk to Sydney in person, since she was already there anyway. He wanted to be a supportive father. He wanted to come and comfort her. He also said that her mom was going to talk it over with her too. Not just because this seemed like the sort of things that both parents should handle together, but also because Steve saw his wife Brenda as a lot better at dealing with the tricky parts of parenting than he was.

And from the sound of it, he was kind of reeling a little bit from everything that Sydney had just told him. And he thought that Brenda might have a better sense of how to respond than he did. So right after he got off the phone with Sydney, Steve called Brenda. She was done with her shift at the hospital for the day, and she happened to be on her way home. Literally, she was just about to park in their driveway.

So Steve ran through a very broad strokes summary of this conversation that he had had with Sydney. Very simple, it was lacking in detail, just, yo, something's up, something's not right here, we need to talk to Sydney about it. He basically said, Sydney's having a problem at school, so I think that you should talk to her, let her explain for herself. I don't want to be the one relaying that message, let her be the one to tell you.

but Brenda and Sydney never had that conversation. Because that afternoon, before either one of them could have that serious talk, someone from Sydney's school actually called Brenda to follow up on what they had already told Steve.

This caller was Michelle Gaffney, who worked as the Associate Dean of Students. She was on speakerphone sitting next to the Dean of Students, John Frazier. And while they still weren't supposed to share any private information about Sidney, they also knew that the Powells had been calling and asking about tuition. Michelle and John knew that they needed to loop in Sidney's parents and they needed to work out whatever was going on here. Dean Frazier was...

was speaking and simply said, "Brenda, this is Dean Frazier. I'm sitting here with Michelle Gaffney, our Associate Dean of Students. We're returning your call." And that's about as far as we got. Did Brenda respond to that introduction at all? Yeah. Yes. I think he asked, "Is this Brenda Powell?" Oh, okay. And she said yes, and then he identified himself. And Ms. Gaffney, what happened next?

there was a very large or a very loud sort of thud sound, like a pounding or a thud, accompanied by a pretty loud scream. And

The scream might have actually been first and then the thud. Michelle said that the next sound that she heard was like the breath going out of somebody, like someone literally somehow pushed all of the air out of a person's lungs. And meanwhile, the thud sounds were still going on, one right after another. And it was nonstop. It was screaming, thudding, back and forth, maybe six or seven noisy knocks.

We're both talking into the phone saying, you know, what's going, what's happening? Are you okay? What's, can we, do you need help? What's, what's going on? Then the line went dead. It was chilling. And of course, the first thing that John and Michelle did was call Brenda back. I mean, obviously, you know, they wanted to see if she was okay. But the phone rang and rang and nobody was picking up.

So they called again and again and they didn't stop until finally somebody answered. Dean Frazier said something along the lines, Brenda is that you? Are you there? And the voice on the other end said yes this is Brenda.

Yeah, yes, this is Brenda. Now, Ms. Gaffney, did you recognize that voice on the line? Yeah. Okay, was that Brenda Powell? It was not Brenda. Who did you recognize that voice to be? I was sure it was Sydney. Both Dean Frazier and I looked at each other and sort of shook our heads at each other and said, that's not Brenda. And he then said, Sydney, I think this is you. This is not Brenda. And what happened next? The phone went dead.

Now, I cannot even imagine how I would react if something like that happened to me. How do you respond to a situation like that? Clearly, something is afoot, but you don't know what the truth is. Your mind is reeling, going to all of these places. What do you do?

But luckily, John and Michelle were really good at thinking on their feet. Now, since Michelle knew that she didn't have any time to waste in this moment, she called the department in Akron and she asked for an immediate welfare check on Brenda. However, it still took close to a half an hour for anybody to get to the scene. Then, finally, by around 1 p.m., the police got to Brenda and Steve's house. When they arrived, they found Sydney lying on the ground on the driveway.

She was sort of scratching and grabbing at the pavement, clutching so hard that her fingers were actually bleeding. And they asked her, hey, what's going on? Are you cut? I don't think so. Yeah, you're cut somewhere. I don't think so. Yeah, your hand. No, I was helping her. I grabbed her. All right, stop. Come on. I don't. Hey, keep your hands off. Come on, come on. You just need to cooperate with me, all right? I love my dad. Huh? I love my dad.

What happened? What's going on? What's going on? We heard a bang. We heard a bang. And she told me to get out. And I heard screaming. And I came back. And she was on the ground. Okay, you heard a bang. There was a bang. So we're broken. We are going to take a quick break in today's case to hear from a couple of our sponsors. PenFed Free Checking offers zero fees and zero balance requirements for zero hassle.

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Alright guys, so where was I? After that exchange, Sydney just shut down. It was like her mind went somewhere else entirely. She didn't even react when the first responders kept trying to talk to her. So then, the detectives went inside. They found Brenda alive in the bedroom, however she was completely covered in blood. She had so many injuries around her head, her neck, and even her throat area that the officers were confused about what even had happened to her.

Sydney was injured too, but not nearly as badly. She still did have to go to the hospital, but she ended up being totally fine otherwise. But as for Brenda, she later died because of her injuries. She didn't only pass away because of the trauma to her head or the stab wounds, it was a combination of everything that had been done to this poor woman. So naturally, the police, they had questions.

All they really knew at this point was that someone had presumably attacked Brenda while she was on the phone, and now she was dead. And officers didn't know what to make of all of this, but at least they could still talk to Sydney. Maybe they could get some answers from her. I mean, of course, Sydney would know what had happened, right? She would bear witness to everything. She was home at the time of the murder. She could have witnessed it. But whenever the police tried to interrogate Sydney, she still seemed really out of it.

She couldn't answer the detective's questions without replying in the most vague possible way. Basically, she got across the idea that someone had broken in and attacked her mom. And her mom told her to run away, and she did. And that's what Sydney said happened. But here's the thing. Sydney couldn't describe the killer or even say whether she could guess at a motive. And at times, she even seemed to be muttering to herself under her breath.

she kept repeating, "Get out of the house. Get out of the house." It really seemed like she was seriously traumatized by her mother's murder, to the point that she had some kind of mental break with reality. That's what it appeared to be. So, because of all of this, she ended up being moved to a mental health facility.

And since she wasn't talking, the police had to scour the scene to now try to piece together the crime. But this is where it got even more puzzling. From evidence that was recovered at the scene and from Brenda's injuries, officers believed that somebody had hit Brenda in the head with an iron frying pan. Yes, you heard me. A frying pan. Now that's not all. She also had been stabbed in the neck roughly 30 times with a steak knife.

most of these injuries were to her neck and throat area, which I just have to say, using a frying pan as a murder weapon is not something we often see. So it's my belief, and we'll get into more of the specifics, but when I first heard this, it was my belief that it was used, the frying pan was used to subdue her mother. Almost as, imagine if like a burglar is coming into your home. You're not sure what to grab. You aren't thinking on your feet quick enough to grab a knife. So you grab a frying pan or whatever's on the stove. You whack them over the head, hurl,

hoping it'll stunt them long enough or even fall to the ground to where then you can think of your next move. And we know that she was then stabbed roughly 30 times. So was the frying pan just to get her off her feet? Was it to subdue her? Was it to catch her by surprise?

Now there was also a broken window. So the question here was, did somebody break in? But then what killer comes in, uses a frying pan and a steak knife to kill somebody? They're not bringing their own weapon? Also, nothing was stolen, so it didn't seem like a burglary. It was all just so bizarre, and it really did not take long for the narrative of an intruder or a burglar to really just start falling apart.

Then things took an even weirder turn when detectives began taking statements from Brenda's family members. Brenda's husband, Sidney's dad, Steve, told them about that conversation that he had with Sidney right before the murder. She had been keeping a pretty big secret from her mom and dad. And then her mom, Brenda, got murdered right before the truth was about to come out. So you have to think there's kind of motive there, right? So after a bit of time, the detectives also talked to Michelle and John from the University of Mount Union.

And it turned out, Sydney's secrets and lies went way, way, way beyond just taking a few less classes to lighten her workload. Sydney was really struggling with her grades in a way that she hadn't ever before struggled in her life.

This girl literally never got anything less than a B all the way through high school. But in college, she was constantly getting Cs or worse. By the end of her freshman year, Sydney even got put on academic suspension, which she conveniently failed to mention in that conversation with her dad, Steve.

So basically, the university admins told her that if she didn't get her act together, they were going to kick her out of school. So I'm assuming that Sydney was pretty freaked out by this whole situation, especially since she went to some pretty wild extremes to hide the fact that she was having such a difficult time. And not only from her own family, guys. She was hiding it from a lot of people. When her friends would ask her how her studies were going, how was school, Sydney would just act like everything was great, like she was doing so well.

And it's honestly pretty sad when you do think about it, but I also understand how it can feel when you're 19 years old and you haven't really gotten used to adulthood yet. Especially for somebody like Sydney, whose whole identity was tied up in this idea of being the smartest kid, the good student, the academic scholar star. Then all of the sudden, you're not the smartest person in the classroom anymore?

In fact, you're in danger of flunking out entirely? I mean, I can totally understand how you might feel some shame in that, almost like your entire personality and sense of self is just a complete lie or fabrication, that you're not who you thought you were, you're not who other people thought you were. That's a lot of pressure. So that's what was happening at the end of her freshman year. But

But then it got worse. And to make matters worse, her grades got so bad that she ended up being expelled at the end of the fall semester of her sophomore year. Now, I want to repeat that for you. She was expelled. There was no part-time load of courses in the spring. There was no going from full-time to part-time. She was full-blown not allowed to take any more classes at the university. None. Zero. Zilch.

So, she wrapped up the last of her courses in December of 2019, and this was three months before her dad eventually got on the phone and learned that Sydney wasn't enrolled. Literally three months of her keeping this massive expulsion from her parents, or anybody else for that matter, even her friends. When the school sent a certified letter to officially notify her of the university's decision to expel her, Sydney signed for it herself, and she made sure that her mom and dad did not see it.

So then when January 2020 came around and the new spring semester was about to start, Sydney now had another problem she had to deal with. Because she also wasn't allowed to live on campus anymore. Obviously. She was kicked out of school. How was she gonna live in the dorms? She couldn't take classes. She was done. There was nothing for her to come back for. But get this: she kept living her lie. I mean, listen to how wild everything became for her to perpetuate this false reality.

Let's start with the dorms. First of all, every student who lived on campus had a physical key to their actual room, and then their student ID could open the front doors. Now when students got expelled, their ID access wasn't shut off right away. The school administrators wanted to make sure that everybody had enough time to come back in, pack up their things, get moved out,

Except, instead of using her grace period to move, Sydney decided to pretend that she was just still enrolled. She slept in her dorm, she hung out with her friends, and she acted like everything was completely normal. When the administrators like Michelle, the woman who eventually called Brenda, realized that Sydney was still just like lurking around, they made sure that her ID access got cut off, got turned off. But Sydney still had a key.

And all that she had to do was hang out by the other outer doors and then wait for somebody else to come in or come out. And then she'd go in the door right after them. And then she would get back to her room, the room that she still had a physical key to and could let herself into. So because of this, she continued to live on campus for months, actual months. This was way after the expulsion. And nobody other than a handful of university employees had any idea that she had even been kicked out.

A friend even actually offered Sydney a leadership position at one of these sororities. I mean, seriously, she was so convinced that Sydney was such a smart and organized student that she was capable of handling even more responsibilities. And rather than taking that moment to come clean and admit that she wasn't even a student anymore at Mount Union, Sydney was like, yeah, of course I can take that on. No problem. Sounds great. Nothing to see here. Let's do it. I'm all for it.

Now, of course, the campus administrators, they blocked it. They told the sorority that Sydney couldn't be involved because she wasn't enrolled. They didn't actually say that it was because of her grades because they wanted to respect Sydney's privacy, but they did say that she wasn't a student anymore. Which, even just that partial information, was a total shock to Sydney's friend, the one who had offered her the position in the first place. She asked Sydney what was going on, and then Sydney explained that she had, in fact, been living a lie.

However, in a true liar's fashion, even her version of explaining that she had been living a lie was not the full truth. Now you would think that something like that would force her to finally confront reality, right? But instead, Sydney kept lying to everyone else on campus, all those other friends who didn't know about her expulsion yet. When she hadn't moved out,

We, again, this time sent staff over to the residence hall because we were aware she was there at the time. I think our director of security and director of student conduct went over and asked her to come over. And Dean Frazier and I met with Sydney again and said, "You cannot be here any longer. "You're not enrolled." And again, said, "Why don't we call your parents?" And she refused.

She did not want us to, she absolutely did not want us to do that. We asked again, are you sure you told your parents? Like, we know this is difficult. We know how hard this can be. And she did not want it, absolutely did not want us to call her parents. Life is full of adventures. Do you take this man to be your husband? I do. Welcome home. We did it.

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However, she finally had to go home after a security officer escorted her out of the dorms for good. However, Sydney told her friends that she was going to be living with her parents, and then she was going to be commuting to her classes, even though she wasn't living on campus anymore, and kind of tried to position it like moving out was her idea. Again, saying she's going to classes when...

you clearly are not enrolled at the school anymore. So once she got kicked out of the dorms and escorted out, she decided to start crashing in hotel rooms, or she would couch surf with her friends, or she would sleep in her car. Why? Well, it's because she never moved home. I mean, how could she, right? Her parents thought that she was fully enrolled in school and doing great. They didn't know that anything had happened, that anything had changed. And I think that

This was especially odd because Sydney and her mom Brenda had such a close relationship before this point. But still, Sydney just could not handle telling her mom the truth. She chose to essentially be homeless rather than admit what was really going on. Now during the day when all of her friends were in class, Sydney would just hang out at the student center or really any other building that she could get into without a student ID card.

when she bumped into friends, she acted like she was still a student. and this went on. it went on and on until march of that year. and like i said before, march 3rd was supposed to be her last day of quote-unquote class before spring break started. so maybe part of the reason that sydney said that she wanted to come home was so that she could at least act normal for a week, be at home, be cozy, not be couch surfing, not be sleeping in her car, i don't know. but maybe sleeping in her own bed would be better for a change.

Maybe she could relax and enjoy her downtime. There wouldn't be any need to keep up this massive lie that she was still having a positive, productive college experience. However, I'm not really sure what she thought was going to happen after that. Because if she was going to go back to campus when classes started up again after spring break, what was she going to do? Just

loiter around campus and crash with her friends? I mean, from the sound of it, she might not have been thinking much further than what she was going to be doing for the next five minutes, but still, I mean, the jig is going to be up at some point, right? But it doesn't even matter what Sydney planned, because now we know what actually happened. Her mom Brenda was beaten, was stabbed to death while she was at home with Sydney, and she was murdered at the exact moment when she was seconds away from learning her daughter's massive secret.

I mean, the phone was literally in her hands still. So it's not too hard to guess at what the detective's theory became once they learned about all of this information. Sydney was willing to do almost anything to hide the truth about what had happened at college. She was at home, alone with her mom, about to be exposed. And she also hadn't spoken to anyone about the murders since then.

And with that, Sydney became the prime suspect number one. The police figured that she had either argued with her mother right before the University of Mount Union officials called, or that maybe she lashed out once she realized what Brenda was about to learn. Either way, she grabbed a frying pan from the kitchen, marched back into the bedroom, and then beat her mother with it. Then, she stabbed her to death with a steak knife from the kitchen.

So with this new theory, and with all motives and evidence pointing to Sydney, the day after her mom Brenda was killed, Sydney was arrested. But then, the very next day after that, Sydney's dad and some other family members paid a quarter million dollars to get her out on bail. Which I do get, it's family. But also, at the same time, I don't get that.

250 grand is a lot of money to fork over for somebody who's being accused of killing your wife, her mother, another family member. Now obviously Sydney's dad loved her, so did her other family members. They didn't want to see her rot away in prison, I understand that.

but they also loved Brenda too. And I have to say that this has to be the most gut-wrenching way that something like this can even play out, because nobody wants to feel like they have to choose between supporting their spouse or their own child. But when somebody kills a member of their own family, I can't even imagine what the other relatives must feel like and what they must be trying to grapple with.

In Steve's case, he barely even had the chance to start grieving. It had been, what, all of 48 hours since his wife died? And that's when he chose to stand by his daughter, even though she was his wife's killer? And that's all before I even get to the size of the bail payment. I mean, what a massive show of support, right? Now, by this point, guys, there wasn't any sort of lie or cover-up or anything like that. Sidney had fully admitted that she did it.

but she still pleaded not guilty at her arraignment the following day. Which, as a side note, this was a super busy week for her because she murdered her mom on a Monday, she got arrested on Tuesday, she got bailed out on Wednesday, and then she pled not guilty on Thursday. So a very, very weak, just back-to-back things. But then things slowed way down.

And it took another two years for Sydney to update her plea. And during that time, she stayed with her grandparents on a farm where she could be around animals, which apparently she loved. She also spent time talking to mental health counselors, different psychologists, and all of this treatment really helped shape her defense strategy.

So then in 2022, which was still before her trial began, she updated her plea. Now, she said that she was not guilty by reason of insanity. She did this for a couple of reasons. First, Sydney's therapist thought that she suffered from schizophrenia. And to make matters worse, Sydney had a bunch of concussions from all of those years that she played sports like soccer.

Her therapist said that the concussions made her schizophrenia symptoms even worse, so bad that it was to a degree that Sydney could not be held responsible for the murder that she had committed. And I know, it always seems a little convenient when somebody gets arrested and then suddenly they decide that they have this undiagnosed mental health issue that they're not responsible for their own actions, all of these things. But in Sydney's case, was there any merit to that? That

That is, if it wasn't already obvious by her super bizarre behavior after she got kicked out of school, that something isn't exactly right here. But apparently, according to her therapist, for a while before Sydney snapped and committed the murder, she had been hallucinating.

She saw flames coming out of her hands, or cartoon characters would start popping up in real life. She also heard voices that said terrible, terrible things to her. There was this constant stream of insults in her head as well. The voices were telling Sydney she was a loser, she was worthless, nobody liked her. And as for the murder itself? Sydney said she didn't even remember it. The whole attack had been completely blacked out from her memory. Wiped clean.

Over time, with therapy, she eventually got some of her memories back, but they were still just little flashes here and there. She remembered walking down the stairs or sitting on the couch with her mom, but there wasn't enough for her to piece together what had actually happened, which according to her doctors, that was consistent with the symptoms of a psychotic episode. So during her murder trial, which was in September of 2023, it lasted about three weeks.

and the defense called expert after expert to talk about Sidney's mental state. And my opinion with regard to that is that, yes, she did have at the time of the offense and does have at present a severe mental disease. At the time of the offense, my diagnosis was schizophrenia.

first episode, currently an acute episode, meaning kind of complete manifestation of a schizophrenic diagnosis and a schizophrenic condition. Certainly looking back at things, we can see early signs of this that would be

difficult to detect in the absence of the extreme situation that occurred on March 3rd, 2020. I also diagnosed her with major depressive disorder, single episode, severe, with psychotic features. And it was my opinion that at the time of the offenses charged, Sydney Powell, as a result of this severe mental disease,

was unable to appreciate the wrongfulness of her acts. And then I added that she was in a psychotic state, out of touch with reality and unable to know the wrongfulness of her acts. - We are gonna take one final break in today's case to hear from the final sponsors of today's episode. All right, so back to the case. Her therapist also thought that this fit with the fact that Sydney was so out of it when the police arrived, like she was technically in a catatonic state or something.

And what's even crazier is that the counselors weren't trying to argue that Sydney had suddenly developed these mental health issues right in the lead up to the day that she killed her mom. They believed that she had these symptoms all the way back to when she was in high school. In fact, they believed that she may have had one of her first breakdowns when she was overwhelmed by a particular chemistry project

that she needed to do in her junior year of high school. One of her teachers even testified about this in court. - I didn't have a class, so it must've been when I had a planning period and I was,

alone in my room and the two of them came in and Sydney was crying and she was, I would say, distraught. And I said, "What's wrong?" And she said that she had a test or I think it was a presentation for a chemistry class and she said, "I can't see the numbers." And I said, "What? What do you mean you can't see the numbers?" She's like, "I can't see the numbers. I can't present. I can't see what's in front of me." And I said,

"Okay." I said, "How can I help you? What do you want me to do?" She was really upset.

Yeah, she was pretty upset about it. So I said, "Well, what do you want me to do? Do you want to go down and talk to the teacher or do you want me to?" And she asked me to go. So I went down and I talked to our teacher and I said, "Look, Sydney's really upset. She says she can't see the numbers. She's asking if she could take the test in another day." And the teacher said, "Yes, of course." And so I went up and told Sydney and so I

i assume she took the test on another day it wasn't you know i wasn't the person in charge of that test at the time the teacher didn't think too much of the whole incident she didn't even tell sydney's parents about what had happened and she didn't tell any school administrators she just figured that sydney was freaked out because of the stress it was only after the fact once sydney had committed the murder that anybody thought to even look back and try to point at this incident as a sign that she could mentally crack under pressure so sydney's lawyers argued this point as well

that when she was under a little academic stress, working on a chemistry project, she had comparatively more minor symptoms, in the form of not being able to read numbers anymore. But when she was under the much, much higher pressure of adapting to college life, her break was significantly bigger, and it was significantly more violent. On the other hand, though, I mean, the prosecutors, they just called complete bullshit on all of that.

They argued that Sydney was a lot more in control of her actions than she seemed, and they even implied that she was playing up her symptoms specifically so that she wouldn't have to face any consequences. For example, when the police first responded to that wellness check at Brenda's home, they found the broken window. Now, I touched on that a little bit ago. It made it seem like somebody might have broken in, right? And that the killer could have been some random stranger, a burglar maybe, maybe it was targeted. Except Sydney was the one who shattered the glass.

and it was done sometime before the detectives arrived. and then afterwards she lied and said that somebody broke into their house and killed her mother. she also told the police that while her mom was being stabbed by this, you know, random intruder, brenda had told her to run away, which was why she was outside, bloody, laying on the ground when the police arrived.

So the argument was that if Sidney really was catatonic, if she really did black out the entire murder, why would she stage the scene in such a dramatic way? Why break a window and make up this story about a break-in if she didn't even remember what had happened or she didn't even realize what she had done?

It seemed more like a lot of planning had gone into that. A lot of planning for the cover-up, I should say. I mean, she wouldn't need to cover her tracks unless she knew that she was the killer, right? And they also brought up one minor detail, which of course the defense left out in their arguments. Mainly because it would really blow up the whole idea that Sydney was catatonic and in shock during the murder. And this one came from her dad, Steve.

He called home right after the murder happened, before Sidney got outside or before the police arrived. And when Sidney answered, he asked where Brenda was because he wanted to talk to her. And get this, Sidney said that her mom couldn't come to the phone right now because she was on the other line talking to people from the university. Again, this was a very calm, very savvy attempt to cover her track.

If she really did come out of a blackout and find her mom stabbed to death bloody on the floor, why not say that? Why not ask her dad for help? Say, hurry home, rush, call the police. The lies just kept coming even when Sidney was in the hospital too right after the murder.

she kept mumbling, get out of the house, get out of the house, remember? According to the prosecutors, she'd only say that if she was trying to keep up the cover story about a home intruder stabbing her mom. They also had experts of their own who argued that Sydney might have been, if not faking everything, at least exaggerating some of her symptoms all in order to fool the police. When we're trying to determine somebody's knowledge of wrongfulness, there's some classic things that we're paying attention to. It's a lying, concealing.

avoiding detection, fleeing, and trying to implicate another perpetrator. Those would be some clear signs that somebody understands what they're doing is wrong. And Brenda's autopsy results also made it seem like Sydney might have really known what she was doing because her stab wounds were all concentrated around the neck and the throat.

To hear the prosecutors tell it, this was evidence of intention on Sydney's part. She didn't try to just grab the phone from her mom and then hang up. She didn't freak out and start slashing wildly all over the place. She didn't slice her arm or cut her leg. She purposely targeted her own mother in a very vulnerable part of her body because she wanted her dead. Now, interestingly, the prosecution didn't push back against the idea that Sydney definitely had some mental issues at play here.

They just didn't believe that this made her not guilty by reason of insanity. But in all honesty, all of Sydney's psychological examinations happened after the murder. In some cases, even years later. The counselors could only speak to her mental stability after her arrest.

And they added that...

Sydney was hallucinating, that still didn't explain why she did it. Unless those hallucinations were specifically that she was in some kind of danger and that she had to kill her mother for that very reason, they seemed totally irrelevant to the real homicide, which Sydney never tried to argue that she had any delusions of that nature anyway.

So while the prosecutors did agree that Sydney was truly, genuinely suffering from some kind of mental health problem, they also thought that she knew right from wrong. Which, in the eyes of the law, that's the main criteria that determines whether or not somebody is criminally insane. It's not about whether or not you're hallucinating, or you're anxious, or you lose your sense of identity, or anything like that.

it's simple it's black and white do you know that what you were doing is wrong and then you choose to do it anyway if so you're guilty no matter what else is going on inside your head so that was the key question in this case now of course i'm not a psychologist guys i don't have a background in this field and i don't know who's in the right here but if it's true that sydney was trying to cover up her crime on purpose i mean

I've got to say that that sounds like someone who knows that what they did was wrong. And I think that the prosecution has a good point there, right? I will also say that Sydney spent the entire trial crying nonstop. Again, it was close to three weeks of testimony. And I mean, the tears, they never stopped flowing.

You can make up your own mind about if she was a really good actor, or if she was feeling genuine remorse. I have my opinion. Tell me what yours is. But what's also interesting is that Sydney had the freedom to leave the courtroom whenever the testimony got to be too much for her. Which, let me just say, I'm not a fan of that at all, because I believe if you commit a violent crime,

at the absolute bare minimum, you can hear other people talk about what you did. So again, the fact that Sidney didn't have to hear the goriest, bloodiest parts of the testimony could go one of two ways. You might say that she really was in this very mentally fragile state, and that the judge was in the right to give her that special treatment. Or, if she was a master manipulator, this just showed how well Sidney had the court wrapped around her little finger.

The tears, the waterworks just were flowing the entire time. So maybe it was true remorse and she just didn't want to leave the courtroom, but it feels to me at least a little icky and a little bit performative. So ultimately, even the jury was apparently pretty split on the question of whether Sidney was legally insane or if she was a cold-blooded killer. In the end, Sidney was found guilty for murder, for a felonious assault, and tampering with evidence.

Now, that last charge was specifically about the broken window and the faked break-in. Because of that, it was tampering with evidence and also a crime scene, which was evidence. And even though it took a long time, close to three days, to reach that decision, one juror gave an interview afterward where he said that the verdict was pretty clear to him. I mean, to him at least. Take a listen. She knows that she did something wrong. She might have been insane when she did that, maybe, but...

But we have to have these two things be true. And the second part was, does she know the wrongfulness of her actions? And we said, we think she does because she was willing to go ahead and make up this huge story about this whole thing. And that meant she knew she was wrong and going to be in trouble. She had to figure a way out. At her sentencing, Sidney's lawyer still tried to argue that she should get off easy because of her mental health. And they brought up that during the three years that she had been out on bond, Sidney had been getting treatment.

On count one, ma'am, I sentence you to an indefinite sentence of 15 years to life in the Ohio Department of Corrections. On count four of the indictment, I sentence you to three years in the Ohio Department of Corrections. Those two sentences to be run concurrent with and not consecutive to each other.

So this must have been why the judge went with the minimum sentence that came with those charges. Now through all of this, the trial, the sentence, and the aftermath, Sydney's family stood by her side. They lost a wife, a mother, a force for good who had spent her whole life taking care of vulnerable kids with cancer.

and they still stood with her killer, stood by her side. And I just feel like that is such a terrible situation to be in because again, how do you choose a family member over another one? You don't wanna lose two family members, so I suppose that's what makes you stick with them.

Or is it blind faith? I mean, not to loop in Chad Dumbbell in this episode, but it makes me wonder. I think it was, what, four out of five of his kids are testifying in his trial that their mom Tammy truly was sick and that they don't believe that their dad had anything to do with her death, even though it was proven to be death by asphyxiation. So, and think of Barry Morphew. His daughters are standing by his side, not thinking he had anything to do with their mother Suzanne's disappearance and murder. So...

what is it that makes family members stick by their sides? Is it that they don't want to grieve the loss of two family members? Is it that they truly have blind faith? Is it that they believe in rehabilitation? What is it? And I do think that this case is kind of sticky, because from the sounds of it, Sydney's family really truly believed that she did have a mental health break, and that she should not have been found guilty.

They didn't even want Sydney to go to trial at all. They asked the prosecutors to drop the charges. And since they were also Brenda's family, you'd think that would count for something, right? But the state went forward with the hearing anyway. And the jurors obviously felt differently from Sydney's family. Still, there's a lot of room to debate about whether justice was served or not, because it does seem like Sydney's own father, brother, and grandparents would know about her mental state better than anybody else. If she was

criminally insane. They'd get it, right? The fact that they stood with her after everything, it does seem like maybe a point in her favor. Or maybe the fact that they knew her so well meant that they couldn't be unbiased. I mean, perfect example, just look at how long she got away with lying about the expulsion. Maybe Sydney was this heartless liar who took a life, then tried to play the mental health card.

or she could have been unfortunate enough to suffer a psychotic break, and then get thrown into prison for something that happened when she wasn't fully in control of her own body or actions. I mean, your take on this case really depends on where you're coming from. What evidence do you see?

And even though she's gotten her verdict, I do think that there's still a lot that's left to uncover here. It doesn't sound like all of the information has totally come out yet, and I'm not sure if it ever will, but I do want to know what you guys think about this case. I feel like there's a lot of divide out there, especially after seeing the clips from the trial, and once I did my research,

A lot of people think that she did have a mental breakdown, that she just snapped, and that it was the pressure of school, the pressure of failing, while others are saying, no, she's this entitled little spoiled girl who got caught in all of her lies, and instead of getting caught, she decided to murder so that she wouldn't get caught.

which isn't really forward thinking because you're going to get caught for that then and then all of your lies ultimately will be exposed as well. But I'm wondering where you guys sit with this. What do you think? Maybe I'll throw a poll up over on Spotify, but either way, let me know in the Q&A section on Spotify or in the review section if you're listening on Apple.

In any event, Brenda definitely should not have been murdered. She should still be with us. And I also have to just point this out too. Psychotic break or not, 30 stab wounds is overkill and is, I don't want to say a crime of passion. Maybe it is, but it is definitely overkill.

Because I've mentioned this in other cases I've covered, anytime there's a stabbing, when you're stabbing somebody, it's double the effort for however many stab wounds. Meaning she had to lift her arm up and down 60 times to stab her mother those 30 times. That is a lot of force, a lot of adrenaline, and in my opinion, a lot of hate behind it.

behind that. That is very difficult. Honestly, try it right now if you're at home, not if you're driving, and exercise. Bring a pillow by you. Just lift your arm up and down 60 times without even having a lot of force. Your arm will start to get tired. I mean, mine does for sure. I know I'm weak, guys. I don't work out, but like, it's a lot. Now imagine you're also clenching

clenching onto that knife super hard. You're using an incredible amount of force. You're throwing your whole body weight into it. You're also stabbing and penetrating through neck, through muscle, through tissue, all of these things. And you're going up and down 60 times. I don't know. To me, that feels like it's driven more by hate and I

I don't know, maybe a psychotic break, but let me know what you guys think. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of Serialistly with me, Annie Elise. I hope you appreciated the case coverage today. I appreciate you hearing Brenda's story. And let me know any other cases that you guys want me to talk about.

I love getting requests from all of you. So let me know your case requests either in the Q&A section, again, over on Apple in the review section, or you can go to my website and you can submit them through there. My website's AnnieElise.com. And let me know because I want to cater this podcast to the content that you guys want to hear about. All right, guys, and don't forget to get all of the amazing deals from today's sponsors. I will have it all in the show notes below. Don't miss out on them. Get them before they're gone.

on. All right, guys, thank you so much. And if you are listening on Apple and you have an extra 30 seconds in your day and you are enjoying the podcast, please take a moment to just leave a quick rating and review. It's a free way to support the podcast. It helps the algorithm. It helps push it out to more people. And if you want to make sure you don't miss future episodes, make sure you're subscribed to the podcast or not subscribed, but following so that you see when new episodes get posted.

All right, other than that, I will be back on the mic with you guys. First thing Thursday morning with everything going on in the true crime world this week, all the breaking cases, all the case updates, everything, everything. And then if you still need a little bit of a true crime fix to get you through your week and into your weekend, I also put out Friday ad-free bonus episodes. They're exclusive every single Friday.

You can get access to those either through Apple on the app or through Patreon, which I will link in the show notes. It's patreon.com slash Annie Elise. All right, guys. Thanks again. And until the next one, be nice. Don't kill people. All right, guys. Bye.