A former Fox morning show anchor in Missouri is accused of killing her elderly mother on Halloween and then told dispatchers she did it “to save herself.”
Residents of a peaceful neighborhood in Wichita, Kansas, say they were shocked when 47-year-old Angelynn Mock staggered outside just before 8 a.m. on Friday, covered in blood.
“There was a woman who approached our vehicle with like blood, like her hands were filled, her body was filled with blood, asking to call 911,” neighbor Alyssa Castro said.
Castro said Mock grabbed her phone and dashed back into the home, where she reportedly called authorities and declared she “stabbed [her] mother to save herself,” Sedgwick County dispatchers told the outlet.
Wichita police found Mock outside the house with serious cuts on her hands. Inside, authorities found Anita Avers, 80, “unresponsive in her bed with multiple stab wounds.” Police said she died about 30 minutes later at a hospital nearby.
Mock was taken into custody and charged with first-degree murder at Sedgwick County Jail. The sheriff’s office said she is being held on a $1 million bond.
Later, the police returned Castro’s boyfriend’s phone to him. Castro told the newspaper that she was just glad they could help.
“Like, we never know what anyone is going through. This happened randomly, but as long as we were able to get 911 and see what we can do, that’s all I really care about,” she said.
Her spouse told KAKE that Avers worked as a marriage and family therapist for Wichita Counseling Professionals.
According to her LinkedIn profile, Mock worked as a fill-in anchor for KTVI Fox 2 in St. Louis from 2011 to 2015. She then worked in sales in the area for a while, but took a two-year break.
She finally joined a data management company with operations in several Midwest cities, including Wichita.
“News of Avers shocking death comes as the mother and daughter portrayed a happy relationship on social media. The 80-year-old’s Facebook profile picture is an image of Mock reporting live on air at a baseball game,” the Daily Mail reported.
“Another image showed the pair together, hugging and smiling. The details surrounding the stabbing remain unclear. The Daily Mail contacted the Wichita Police Department for more information,” the outlet added.
Mock’s motive for the alleged crime is not clear at this time. Information about her initial court appearance is currently unavailable.
Missouri was in the headlines late last week after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the state’s effort to reinstate a Republican-backed state law that sought to block enforcement of certain federal gun regulations.
By rejecting the appeal, the justices left in place a lower court ruling that struck down the measure as unconstitutional under the Supremacy Clause, which establishes that federal law overrides conflicting state laws.
The 2021 law, known as the Second Amendment Preservation Act, aimed to prohibit state and local officials from enforcing federal firearms restrictions.
Lower courts ruled that the law violated the Constitution by interfering with the federal government’s authority to regulate firearms.
The measure, known as the Second Amendment Preservation Act, was passed by Missouri’s Republican-controlled legislature and signed into law in 2021 by then-Governor Mike Parson. The law asserts that several federal firearms restrictions violate the Second Amendment’s guarantee of the right “to keep and bear arms.”
The U.S. Justice Department, under President Joe Biden, sued the state, arguing that the law violated the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, which establishes that federal law takes precedence over state law.