Dorchester woman pleads guilty to fatally stabbing brother

By Globe Staff

A 44-year-old Dorchester woman pleaded guilty today to stabbing her brother to death during an argument in 2006 in their mother's home, Suffolk County prosecutors said.

Kathy Booth was convicted of second-degree murder in the June 1, 2006, death of 44-year-old Keith Payne. Judge Elizabeth Donovan handed down the mandatory sentence of life in prison, with parole eligibility after 15 years.

Prosecutors said that if the case had gone to trial, they would have shown that Booth was angry at Payne because he lived with their mother and, because of him, she could not live there.

Booth told police arriving on the night of the murder that she had stabbed her brother because he had urinated on the toilet seat. But she said at a hearing last year that they had argued over a TV remote, over her advice on how he should raise his children, and because she wanted to get him off drugs.

According to both the defense and prosecution, Booth had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and had stopped taking her medication for some time before she killed her brother in the Mallon Street home.

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