The killing of 80-year-old Anita Avers in her Wichita home stunned people who once knew her daughter as a polished face on local TV. Now, former anchor Angelynn Mock has been ruled mentally incompetent to stand trial, putting the murder case in limbo while she is treated in a state facility. The ruling does not clear her of the first-degree murder charge, but it does shift the focus from courtroom strategy to questions about mental illness, public safety, and what justice looks like when a defendant cannot meaningfully participate in her own defense.
Mock, who built a career as a familiar on-air presence before her life unraveled, is accused of stabbing her elderly mother to death after what investigators describe as a violent confrontation inside the family home. The decision that she is not currently fit for trial means the legal process pauses while doctors try to stabilize her, leaving relatives, former colleagues, and the wider community waiting for answers that may be a long time coming.
The crime that shattered a family and a TV persona
For viewers who remember her from morning and evening newscasts, the allegations against Angelynn Mock are jarring. She was once promoted as a rising star and is described in reports as a former St. Louis television news anchor and Former TV personality who later worked in Wichita. According to authorities in WICHITA, Kan, she is now charged with first-degree murder in the death of her mother, Anita Avers, after police say a domestic dispute inside the home turned deadly, a dramatic fall from the polished image she projected on air for Louis TV audiences and beyond.Louis TV
Investigators in Sedgwick County say Officers were called to the house after a 911 report of a disturbance, and when Officers arrived they found Mock outside the residence bleeding and holding a towel, with cuts on her hands that suggested a struggle. Inside, Avers was discovered in her bedroom with multiple stab wounds, and a bloody knife and a cheese grater were recovered as possible weapons, details that prosecutors later cited when filing the first-degree murder charge against Mock in Sedgwick County District Court.Officers
Inside the Halloween morning attack
Authorities in WICHITA, Kan say the violence unfolded on Halloween morning, after a 911 call brought police to the quiet neighborhood where Avers lived. When officers responded to the home around 7:50 a.m., they found Mock outside with cuts on her hands, injuries that officers said were consistent with using a sharp weapon, according to the Wichita Pol account of the scene. Avers, 80, was found in a bedroom and later pronounced dead at a hospital, and neighbors told investigators they had been startled by the sudden arrival of multiple patrol cars on a street that rarely saw serious crime.When…