Former area woman sentenced for stabbing death
An Irwin woman, who pleaded guilty but mentally ill in the 2004 stabbing death of her father as he sat on the porch of his North Union Township home, will spend 10 to 20 years in prison. Kim Straughters, 30, admitted to stabbing her father, Robert Davis, in the neck at 355 Cleveland Ave. Extension in North Union Township on May 7, 2004.
However, Straughters was also able to plead she was mentally ill at the time of the incident.
Friday, Fayette County Judge John F. Wagner imposed the sentence and remanded Straughters to a state treatment facility for a minimum of 90 days before being imprisoned at the State Correctional Institution at Muncie, noting, “the court has determined that the defendant is severely mentally disabled.”
Last March, Straughters was admitted to Mayview State Hospital in Bridgeville after a psychological examination revealed auditory and visual hallucinations, psychosis and mild mental retardation.
During a brief hearing last month before Judge Steve P. Leskinen, District Attorney Nancy D. Vernon and Assistant Public Defender David Kaiser agreed that a doctor at Mayview deemed Straughters competent in November 2006.
In testimony last March, it was revealed that Straughters, a former nurse’s aide, told psychologist Adam C. Sedlock Jr. that her father visits her weekly at the prison. She also whispered to people in the room who were not there and tried to kill herself, according to testimony.
Friday, Straughters begged her family in attendance at the sentencing hearing for forgiveness.
“I’m very sorry for what I’ve done,” Straughters said. “I didn’t mean to do it. I hope you can forgive me. I loved my daddy.”
Wagner said Straughters will be given credit for time already served in prison, where she has been housed since May 2004.
Straughters was serving a term of probation for a simple assault charge in Westmoreland County at the time of the stabbing death.