In 2010, John Armstrong killed his eighty year old mother, Joan Armstrong, by bashing her head in with a brick and then stabbing her body repeatedly to drain the body of blood. However, despite this gruesome crime his attorney is arguing that he should still get his part of his mother’s inheritance. He is one of five children of Ms. Armstrong, who enjoyed success as an artist before her death and included all of her children in her will. His attorney is challenging the state’s slayer rule based on mental illness and incompetence.
No one disputes that Mr. Armstrong killed his mother in 2010. On August 7, the Ocean Springs Police Department responded to a call from Ms. Armstrong friend who said that when he knocked on her door, Ms. Armstrong showed up at the door covered in blood. Ms. Armstrong was found on her back in the apartment with a large open wound to her forehead. John Armstrong told police that he killed his mother because he didn’t want her to leave and go to the pool in the complex. In his mind, he thought she was abandoning him by going to the pool.
A mental exam in 2012 found John “seriously and persistently mentally ill,” and the recommendation of the psychiatrist was that “it is not clear that, even with treatment with antipsychotic medications, Mr. Armstrong can be restored to competence to proceed legally.”