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NORRISTOWN — An Abington Township woman accused of fatally shooting her elderly parents and then dismembering their bodies with a chainsaw suffered from a “disease of the mind” and will wage an insanity defense when she goes to trial on homicide charges, according to court documents.
Verity A. Beck, through her lawyers, filed papers in Montgomery County Court on Friday, just three weeks before her trial is set to begin, notifying a judge of her trial strategy.
“The defense intends to offer a defense of insanity at the time of trial. At the time of the alleged offense, Ms. Beck was laboring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act she was doing, or that she did not know that what she was doing was wrong,” defense lawyer Gregory Nester wrote in the court document.
Under state law, defense lawyers must notify a judge and prosecutors about an insanity defense strategy. The court filing marked the first time Beck revealed her strategy in preparation for her February trial.
In the court document, Nester, chief of the pretrial unit in the Montgomery County Public Defender’s Office, revealed Beck intends to call Dr. Susan E. Rushing, a psychiatrist, as an expert defense witness during the trial.
As a result of the defense filing, prosecutors are likely to retain a separate psychiatrist to testify at the trial on behalf of the prosecution.
Beck’s jury trial is scheduled to begin Feb. 5 before Judge William R. Carpenter. The trial is expected to last five days.
Beck, 44, previously entered not guilty pleas to two counts each of first- and third-degree murder and abuse of a corpse and two counts of possessing instruments of crime, specifically a firearm and a chainsaw, in connection with the Jan. 17, 2023, deaths of 73-year-old Reid Beck and his 72-year-old wife, Miriam.
Under state law, a person who is diagnosed as insane suffers from a mental defect that prevents them from knowing right from wrong or from realizing the nature and quality of their actions.
A person who is determined to be not guilty by reason of insanity at trial initially would be committed to a mental health facility for treatment and receive periodic evaluations. Once that person is deemed “cured” of mental illness they would be released from supervision with no requirement to serve any jail time.
After her arrest last January, Beck, who lived with her parents in the 1100 block of Beverly Road in the Jenkintown section of Abington, underwent a competency evaluation while she was housed at Norristown State Hospital.
After several mental health evaluations, Beck, last April, was determined to be competent to proceed with court proceedings on the charges.
Defense lawyer James P. Lyons, the chief homicide lawyer for the county Office of the Public Defender, will represent Beck at trial.
Assistant District Attorney Samantha Cauffman is handling the case for prosecutors.
Beck faces life imprisonment if she’s convicted of the first-degree murder charge, which is an intentional killing. A conviction of third-degree murder, a killing with malice or hardness of heart or cruelty, carries a possible maximum sentence of 20 to 40 years in prison.
Beck remains in custody without bail pending trial.
The bodies of Beck’s parents were discovered in the Abington home on Jan. 17 and Beck, who had been a teacher at the Saint Katherine School of Special Education in the Wynnewood section of Lower Merion, was arrested. At the time of the arrest, District Attorney Kevin R. Steele said, “There were signs of extreme trauma and a chainsaw was found and both Reid and Miriam were found in different stages of dismemberment.”
The autopsies revealed that Reid and Miriam, a former Lower Moreland High School nurse, each suffered a single gunshot wound to the head.
In court papers filed in November, prosecutors alleged Beck was facing financial struggles and when she was confronted by her elderly parents about stealing from them she killed them.
“She was 43 years old, bankrupt, living with her parents, and wanted their money and when she got caught taking it without their permission one too many times, she decided to kill them so she could have their money and avoid the consequences of taking it,” Cauffman wrote in court papers.
Hinting for the first time about a motive for the slayings, Cauffman and co-prosecutor Gabriella Glenning alleged in court documents that Beck had a financial motive to kill after a recent bankruptcy and “getting caught making unauthorized purchases on her father’s bank card and potentially being arrested by police.”
The investigation began on Jan. 17 after the victims’ son notified Abington police that he had gone to his parents’ home to check on them, because he hadn’t spoken to them by phone since Jan. 7, which was unusual, and he observed a deceased person lying on a floor, covered with a bloody sheet and a chainsaw near the body, according to a criminal complaint.
The son told police he spoke to his sister and when he asked if something bad had happened to their parents she responded, “Yes.” Beck allegedly told her brother that things at the home had “been bad.”
Abington police arrived at the home around 10:30 p.m. on Jan. 17 and attempted to make contact with Beck but received no answer.
At 12:10 a.m. on Jan. 18, police entered the residence through a side door.
“Officers immediately noticed a strong odor of decomposition in the residence,” county Detective Anthony Caso and Abington Detective Robert Hill Jr. wrote in the arrest affidavit.
When police announced themselves and asked Beck to make her whereabouts known she followed commands and entered the kitchen. When police asked Beck about her parents she allegedly replied, “They are dead.”
Detectives found a deceased male wrapped in a cloth sheet and determined he was decapitated, according to the criminal complaint.
“In close proximity to the male’s body detectives located a 55-gallon trash receptacle. This receptacle was filled with white trash bags and these trash bags were filled with assorted severed body parts,” Caso and Hill alleged.
“An electric-powered chainsaw with biological material in the chain portion indicated this chainsaw had been used to sever, at least some, of the body parts,” detectives added.
Detectives found additional severed body parts in a trash can in an attached garage, court documents indicate.
Newspapers, dating from Jan. 7, were found outside the home leading detectives to theorize the victims were likely killed on Jan. 7, which was when the victims’ son last had voice contact with his mother, according to the criminal complaint.
In the second-floor master bedroom detectives found a wall-mounted safe and tools nearby and drill marks on the safe indicating someone, without a key or combination, had been trying to access the safe.
Detectives found a pillow that contained powder burns and a hole, consistent with a firearm projectile having been fired through the pillow, according to court documents.
In Beck’s bedroom, detectives found two Charter Arms .38-caliber handguns, one containing one spent round and four live rounds and the other containing two spent rounds and three live rounds, according to the arrest affidavit. Both firearms were registered to Beck, detectives said.
Additionally, detectives recovered a third .38-caliber handgun, a Smith & Wesson, containing two spent rounds and three live rounds.
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