"Miss Powell, is there anything you want to say to me at this time? " In the blink of an eye, Sydney Powell went from straight-A student—she was an All-American kid, she was never in trouble—to convicted murderer. "On count one, ma'am, I sentence you to an indefinite sentence of 15 years to life in the Ohio Department of Corrections.
" So how did this young woman's life go so off the rails that she would kill her own mother? Why did she just. .
. she's on the ground, so there—who is it? "My mom.
" Before that dark day, Sydney Powell was an honor student, a varsity soccer player, a mentor at school, and extremely close with her mom, 50-year-old Brenda, who counseled pediatric cancer patients and their families at Akron Children's Hospital. Sydney was like Brenda's mini-me, and Brenda was Sydney's best friend. On Tuesday, March 3rd, 2020, Sydney killed her best friend—her mother.
Why, once in my wildest nightmares, would it have been how it played out? That one question would become the crux of a national headline-making trial. The problem started when 19-year-old Sydney's grades slipped at the University of Mount Union in Alliance, Ohio, about an hour from her parents' home in Akron.
She was suspended in December and kicked off campus, but by the end of February, she still hadn't left and didn't tell her parents. No one knew—not even her closest friends—knew the extent of the problem she was having and her status as a student at the college. Not even her roommates.
"Like, she was laughing, she was having fun, she said she got jobs, she seemed fine. " "We received no communication from the university on the disciplinary actions or that Sydney was being suspended or expelled. Unfortunately, once you hit 18, they consider you an adult, whether who's paying the bills or not.
" Not wanting to face her parents, Sydney stayed at local hotels for about a week and told them that she'd be home after classes on March 3rd. That's the day spring break started and the day life as the Powell family knew it ended. Shock!
First, it was disbelief. That morning, Steve was trying to pay a tuition bill when he got locked out of the university's parent portal. He called the school and was shocked to learn Sydney was no longer enrolled.
"So I asked them, 'Well, how long has that been, and what was that for? '" They basically told him, "You have to ask Sydney. " Using the family's location-sharing app, Steve saw Sydney was at the house.
He left work and headed home to get some answers. "We started talking about it, and I said, 'So what's going on? ' Basically, she said, 'All of my friends have their stuff together, but I don't.
' So at that point, I called Brenda because Brenda was better at handling these things than I was. " Steve left, and Brenda came home—a fateful decision. Brenda had just gotten on the phone with university officials.
During that phone call, Brenda only got one word out before they heard what they described as thumping, shrieking, and then the phone went dead. There was a loud thud, and what we know is this: This is when Sydney had grabbed a frying pan and struck Brenda on the top of her head. As Sydney ran to the kitchen, grabbed a knife, and came back, she stabbed her mom from the waist up 30 times.
That's what the officials heard. They tried calling Brenda back twice—no answer. On the third try, someone picked up, but it wasn't Brenda; it was actually Sydney.
She's trying to say she's Brenda—her mother. The representatives from Mount Union were so familiar with Sydney that they knew it was her right away. When they said, "Sydney, is this you?
" the phone went dead. Panicked, they called the Akron police. When Akron detective Ken DeHears a dispatch, he alerts his close friend Steve Powell, Brenda's husband.
Steve immediately calls his daughter Sydney and tells her police are on the way to the house. "She snapped; it was like I was talking to a different person. She started talking about, 'Oh my God, somebody broke in the house,' and she started crying hysterically.
" When officers arrived at the house for a welfare check, no one was well. "I have a female here; she’s got minor cuts on her hands. I don’t know if she’s like hyperventilating.
" "What the hell? My wife? Okay.
. . " What these officers are about to find is gruesome: Brenda Powell lying in a pool of blood, an iron skillet and knife nearby, and 19-year-old Sydney in a state of hysteria.
"No, there’s so much. . .
wood. " [Applause] "No, she was stabbed! I believe 30—32 times.
She was hit multiple times in the head. This is one of the worst cases I've ever seen as far as trauma to a victim. " Sydney tells the police there was a break-in and her mother was savagely attacked.
"We heard a bang and she told me to get out, and then I heard screaming, so I came back and she was on the ground. She's hyperventilating; she's not making any sense. She's covered in blood.
" When she's removed out of the house by one of the officers on the scene, it's within minutes that she just falls over and goes completely catatonic. When Steve Powell arrives home, he is a witness to all the chaos unfolding right in his own driveway. "Sydney!
Sydney! Sydney! Soon as AED gets here, they're going to pronounce her, I'm sure.
Say you want to check her—I don’t think she bre—" Soon, Steve is at the Akron Police Headquarters, telling them what he knows. It's quickly clear to investigators there's been no break-in. "I don't know what she was thinking, but when she found out the police were involved.
. . " And the police were coming; she had to do something.
And what did she do? She staged a break-in. That's not a mentally ill person; that's somebody that's thinking.
The sight of Sydney, covered in blood, tells the whole story. Steve's friend, Detective Ken, is there when Steve gets the news: Brenda didn't make it. Really bad news—your wife passed away.
The look on Steve's face was something you can't describe or nothing I would ever want to see again: total despair, total shock. When Sydney's little brother arrives at the police station, his dad is now the bearer of bad news. It was heart-wrenching to tell my son what happened—probably one of the worst things you could ever imagine telling anyone, let alone your son.
Hours after the murder, Sydney still appears to be catatonic, but the next day police charge her with the murder of her mom, Brenda. Shock! I would have never, never thought it was Sydney that was being accused of it.
Sydney was released on a $25,000 bond, with the family's support. She went to live with her maternal grandparents on their farm. Leading up to trial, she underwent a battery of psychiatric evaluations, the family begging prosecutors not to try her for murder.
What the family and Brenda wanted was for Sydney to get treatment and help for her schizophrenia. Three and a half years after her mother's murder, Sydney's trial began. This case will come down to this sole question: whether or not Miss Powell, at the time of the murder, was suffering from a severe mental disease which prevented her from knowing the wrongfulness of her actions.
The brutality of this incident screams out insanity. Sydney's emotions were on display throughout the 10-day trial. In the end, after less than 10 hours of deliberation, we the jury in this case do hereby find the defendant, Sydney Powell, guilty of the offense of murder as charged in count one.
It's a tragedy; there's no doubt in my mind. It's very shocking; it's something you don't think about. I was shocked; I was disappointed; I was enraged; and I was confused.
It wasn't a fair trial. Throughout it all, Steve Powell has somehow managed to remain optimistic, still hopeful a judge will soon grant a new trial. Sydney's 24, so she has a lot of life ahead of her, and everything we're doing from this moment on is to help her realize that her life is still worth living, that there's value in what she's doing, and that her family loves her.
