RE: People v. Sarra Gilbert
Date: April 28, 2017
SARRA GILBERT CONVICTED OF MURDER FOR KILLING HER 52 YEAR OLD MOM
An Ulster County trial jury convicted 28 year old Sarra Gilbert for the murder of her mother, Mari Gilbert, of Center Street, Ellenville.
According to a press release by Ulster County DA Holley Carnright, the murder occurred in the morning of July 23, 2016, at the defendant’s apartment, 9 Warren Street, Ellenville, NY.
Attorney John Ray, representing Gilbert, did not contest the fact that Gilbert stabbed her mother to death, but argued that she was not responsible for her actions because, at the time, she suffered from a mental disease or defect (schizophrenic disorder), which caused her to lack capacity to appreciate her actions or that they were wrong. The claim of defendant’s mental illness did not fall on deaf ears, stated Ulster County District Attorney D. Holley Carnright. Clearly, Ms. Gilbert has mental health issues. Frankly, anyone who kills their mother has mental health issues. But that is not the question. The question is whether the defendant’s mental state rises to the level that she does not understand her actions and know that they are wrong.
Senior Assistant District Attorney Emmanuel Nneji and I looked carefully at the defendant’s mental health claim, but the more Emmanuel got into the case, the more I became convinced that this defense did not fit.
Our office’s involvement with Gilbert started when Ellenville PD responded to the report that Gilbert drowned her son’s puppy in February of 2016. In fact, the police body cams from that case were played by ADA Nneji to this jury. In our view, that video belied the claim that Gilbert didn’t know what she was doing and that it was wrong.
Nneji also presented to the jury that the victim in this case, Gilbert’s mother, had called the police regarding the puppy drowning, which resulted both in Gilbert’s arrest and the loss of custody of her son.
Central to our view of the case was the defendant’s systematic long term drug abuse. In addition to stating that she smoked multiple “blunts” of marijuana daily since she was 14 years old, she also admitted using LSD. Moreover, she admitted the daily use of MDMA. Nneji was able to correlate the defendant’s use of psychosomatic drugs to her hospitalizations, pointing out that, on one of her later hospital stays, the doctor’s observed that Gilberts “symptoms” were likely caused by her use of LSD. I was also very impressed by Dr. Antoniak’s careful and thoughtful evaluation. In the end, the jury apparently agreed with our evaluation.
Sarra Gilbert remains in Ulster County Jail pending her sentencing which is scheduled for August 4, 2017.