Posted on 01/05/2007 12:52:42 PM PST by Coleus
Lynn Giovanni was able to fatally bludgeon her 14-year-old daughter using a claw hammer and shovel while the girl slept only be cause she could not see her child's face. The 47-year-old Giovanni told her good friend Elise Bernardo that if her only child, Nicole Ashley Gio vanni, had been facing her, she could not have gone through with the killing.
In the early morning hours of Feb. 6, 2005, Lynn Giovanni, depressed and paranoid, sought out Nicole in her bedroom and began pummeling her in the back of the head with the hammer. When her daughter still showed signs of life, Giovanni switched to a shovel. Yesterday, Superior Court Judge Scott J. Moynihan dismissed Lynn Giovanni's defense that she is bipolar and sentenced the Roselle Park woman to 30 years in state prison, 25 1/2 years without the possibility of parole.
"Nothing allowed you to visit your demons on your daughter," said Judge Moynihan as he passed sentence in the packed Elizabeth courtroom. "Her life was not yours to take. Your job was to nurture her through her teenage years." Lynn Giovanni showed no signs of remorse and did not speak in her defense, leaving it to her lawyer, Peter Liguori, to explain that she entertained homicidal thoughts, had severe bouts of depression, suf fered from lupus and was mentally and physically unable to take care of Nicole.
"Maybe with proper treatment this tragedy, this terrible thing would not have occurred," Liguori said. "She is truly sorry. No words could possibly explain the depths of her sorrow or the void that exists in her life. She is left with a profound feeling of loss and grief." But the victim's siblings said the murder of their sister by her mother is unfathomable and unforgivable.
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Get the rope.
Can't-take-care-of-her-so-I-have-to-kill-her defense?
But the victim's siblings said the murder of their sister by her mother is unfathomable and unforgivable.
Yeah, me too.
Just keep her properly medicated so she can fully contemplate what she did. Just keep her locked up too.
She deserves sympathy -- she lost her daughter.
Isn't that how these things usually go?
The old classic, "Please have mercy on me, Your Honor, I'm an orphan" defense that the child who murdered his parents givers at his sentencing.
It used to be a joke - all too often these days, though, it's reality in our courts.
How do lawyers get such bad reputations?
It always amazes me that people do these horrible things and then claim they never realized how sick they were until they killed someone and then have to go to jail. I'm sick of hearing it...it was your own fault, your own decision, your own actions...now you can pay for it.
Just guessing:
By apologizing for their remorseless clients?
She knew that her daughter was physically large enough to retaliate against her if she tried to beat her daughter the way she wanted to.
So she decided to wait until her daughter was asleep, so she could get her revenge. And she waited for hours, then quietly crept into her daughter's room and hit her with a hammer.
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