Trial begins for teen girls who killed adoptive mother

No one disputes that Muriel O’Connell did a noble thing by bringing two teenage girls from a Guatemalan orphanage into her home.

No on disputes that the adopted daughters killed her, either.

But on the first day of the trial Wednesday for 17-year-olds Catherine and Brenda O’Connell, prosecutors and defense attorneys painted a different picture of the events leading to Muriel O’Connell’s death on Aug. 6, 2006.

Defense attorneys say the girls killed O’Connell in self defense after she attacked Brenda with a knife. They plan to argue that O’Connell, 57, was abusive “physically and emotionally” to the girls.

“On the outside things looked great,” said Hillary Krepistman, who represents Catherine O’Connell. “Things on the inside that nobody saw were not so good.”

Prosecutors dispute the self-defense claim. They point out that it would be very difficult for the two then 15-year-old girls, both under 5 feet tall and less than 100 pounds, to overpower a 5’10”, 188-pound O’Connell.

Deputy Chief Assistant District Attorney Dawn Taylor said the evidence will show the girls actually strangled O’Connell while she was asleep in her bed.

And it wasn’t the first time they had tried to kill her, Taylor said. A few weeks earlier, the girls poisoned her vodka with a chemical solvent used in engine starter fluid, Taylor said.

After O’Connell was dead, the girls staged the scene and fabricated injuries to make it appear that a struggle had taken place, Taylor said.

When police arrived, O’Connell’s body was found on her bedroom floor with a knife near her hand. Later during police questioning, Brenda admitted she had placed the knife there, Taylor said.

O’Connell, a two-time divorcee with no children of her own, adopted Catherine at age 11. Three years later she adopted Brenda, a girl of the same age. The two girls are not blood relatives, but they lived together in the same orphanage in Guatemala prior to their separate adoptions.

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