Woman says she blacked out during fatal clash with brother
Judge disallows her guilty plea
Kathy Booth said she became angry when she argued with her brother over a television remote. Booth said she became furious when her brother spurned her advice on how he should raise his children.
She said she became fearful when her brother's hands closed around her throat. And she said she was in a blackout when her brother dropped his makeshift weapon, a large curtain rod, on the floor of their Dorchester home.
"That's when I stabbed him," the 43-year-old said in Suffolk Superior Court yesterday. "He was like staggering. . . . That's when I snapped out of it and realized what I had did. . . . He was lying in a pool of blood, face down."
But even though Booth admitted under oath that she killed 44-year-old Keith Payne on June 1, 2006, a Superior Court judge refused yesterday to let the Dorchester woman plead guilty to second-degree murder, which carries a life sentence with possibility of parole after 15 years.
Booth was indicted on a charge of first-degree murder, and prosecutors say she deliberately and brutally murdered her brother.
Judge Thomas Connolly did not explain his action yesterday, but Booth's defense lawyer and a spokesman for Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said the judge was concerned about Booth's mental status, since she testified that she was in a blackout when her brother died.
Booth, according to both the defense and prosecution, has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and had stopped taking her medications for some time before she killed her brother in the family home on Mallon Street.
Her lawyer, William M. White Jr., and Jake Wark, spokesman for prosecutors, said that neither side had any inkling that Booth was going to testify she was out of touch with reality during the killing.
"I did not anticipate that being an issue," said White, who added that Booth has been examined by a forensic mental health professional.
He declined to disclose the results.
Booth was arrested inside the family home standing over her brother's body, naked, with a butcher knife with an 8-inch blade lying nearby, court records stated.
She told arriving police she had stabbed her brother because he had urinated on the toilet seat, but yesterday she said that they argued over a remote and that she wanted to get her brother off drugs.
After stabbing her brother, Booth asked her elderly mother, who was in the house along with an 8-year-old niece, to call police. Booth had boasted before the killing that her mental illness would let her commit a murder and avoid imprisonment, according to court records.
Four of her sisters, who came prepared to deliver victim impact statements on behalf of their brother, fought back tears in court as they heard Booth describe the killing.
White, who has interviewed the relatives, said that at the time of the murder, Booth's family tried to get her back on her medications. "It just didn't happen in time," he said.
The sisters declined to comment extensively after the hearing. One sister, Connie, was asked if she thought Connolly's refusal to accept the plea was a good or bad outcome.
"I'm not sure," she said.
Connolly's action means Booth could now be tried for first-degree murder, which carries a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
A hearing is set for Aug. 29. 