A pretty bizarre court case was resolved in the UK in 2020. In a gruesome attack, Odessa Carey was accused of bludgeoning her 73-year-old mother, also named Odessa, to death, decapitating her body, and then carrying her mother's severed head in a shopping bag around with her.
The details are even more horrendous: Not only did Odessa decapitate her mother, she removed her brain with knives and scissors. OK, then!
Because the details of the case were so distressing, the judge ordered the jury to decide simply if they believed Odessa was responsible for her mother's killing, but not to return a verdict of guilty or not guilty. The jury found Odessa responsible, and the judge sentenced her to a hospital order.
Odessa also suffers from paranoid schizophrenia and was deemed unfit to enter a plea in her defense.
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Police were only notified of the crime after Odessa visited a shopping center while her hands and arms were covered in blood. She was also carrying a shopping bag.
The judge made several important notes in the ruling. Among those are that Odessa has a form of schizophrenia and is "floridly acutely psychotic." The judge also said, "Her illness is long-standing and has proven treatment resistant. She has no insight about the nature of her illness. She doesn’t believe she is mentally unwell."
The judge added, "I’m satisfied the defendant is unable to give instructions to a solicitor and counsel, is unable to follow the evidence, is unable to make a proper defence and is unable to give evidence. Accordingly I find she is not fit to be tried on this indictment."
Doctor Matthew Langley consulted on the court case and deemed the hospital order necessary for the safety of the public and the rest of the family.
The rest of the family is feeling the loss of Odessa's mother deeply. The prosecutor, Andrew Espley, said, "It hardly needs to be said that the effect on the family and friends she had has been profound. She was much-loved and is much missed. The court will be aware her family members have spoken in witness statements of long-standing mental health problems Odessa Tammy Carey had."
The prosecutor continued, "They saw them first hand from the age of six or seven. They feared for the safety of Odessa Carey and feared that Odessa Tammy Carey might hurt her and hurt her seriously. Those fears were exacerbated because they believed Odessa Tammy Carey was inconsistent in taking her medication."
"The family have set out their feelings in a statement that was handed to the Press. The family were anxious my Lord was aware of the contents. They also reported a history of violence and aggression towards Odessa Carey, towards former partners and others in Odessa Tammy Carey’s life."
John Elvidge defended Odessa in the trial. He said that Odessa doesn't believe that the person she killed is her mom: "The defendant has a documented history of mental illness. Around the time of the act, her mental state was likely to have been highly abnormal. The defendant continues to be tormented by her belief that the body recovered from Links View was not that of her mother."
However, the judge described the killing in explicit detail and left little doubt as to whether or not Odessa did indeed kill her mother:
"While on her bed in her bedroom, at a time when you were probably in a delusional state, you attacked her with a mallet. She tried to protect herself against the blows by holding her hands up to shield her face. You continued striking her with the mallet, at least eight blows were struck to her head and face, causing catastrophic injuries – multiple facial and skull fractures, bleeding around the brain and damage to the brain itself. The severe blunt force head injuries resulted, after a short survival period, in Odessa Carey’s death."
And then, after killing her mother, Odessa went out into the town. She reportedly got money out of the bank and bought some cider. She then went back home and decapitated her mother's body before putting the head into a plastic bag that she took back out. She visited her uncle and hid the head in a friend's home before hiding herself in the loft of the same home.
The judge spoke more about Odessa's other, saying, "She was a caring, loving lady who, in turn was much-loved by her family, a close-knit family. She’s greatly missed. Her loss is all harder to bear given the tragic circumstances in which it occurred. Nothing I can say could ever begin to ease the pain suffered by Odessa Carey’s family and friends."
The younger Odessa has been ordered back to the hospital for an indeterminate amount of time. The attack has definitely rocked her community, not to mention it's had a horrific impact on the family of both Odessa Sr. and Jr. The judge said the hospital order is "necessary for the protection of the public from serious harm that you be subject to a restriction order, ie subject to special restrictions before you could ever be discharged from hospital."
