A former St. Louis television news anchor has admitted to killing the woman she lived with — her own mother. Angelynn E. Mock, 48, pleaded guilty on August 21, 2026, to one count of first-degree felony murder in the death of 80-year-old Anita L. Avers, who was stabbed on October 31, 2025, inside the south Wichita, Kan., home the two shared.
Mock entered the plea before Sedgwick County District Judge Faith Johnson, and it carries a presumptive sentence of life behind bars, with the possibility of parole only after she has served 25 years. Sentencing is set for October 5 at 11 a.m. before Johnson.
A Halloween Morning Attack
It was shortly before 8 a.m. on Halloween, and Avers was in bed when her daughter attacked her, court records show. The home stands on Wichita’s south side, in the 1500 block of East Crowley, near Hydraulic and Wassall.
Police found Mock outside the house, a towel pressed over her bloodied hands. She told them she had stabbed her mother “to save herself,” a probable cause affidavit says, and insisted that Avers had been the one to attack first. Her mother, Mock claimed, was jealous and did not want her to land a job at a local television station, according to the affidavit.
A belief that her mother was possessed has also been described as her motive. “I had to kill her, she wouldn’t stop,” she allegedly said, along with: “I would kill that b*tch to get my mom back. I believe she is the devil.” Those statements appear in an account of the case published August 27, 2026.
What officers found inside told a different story. Per the affidavit, Avers suffered multiple stab wounds to her face and torso and was found wearing only underwear and a bra. An ambulance took her to the hospital, where she later died of her injuries. On a pillow, the affidavit says, someone had arranged four bloody kitchen knives and a bloody cheese grater.
Mock’s account to investigators was that she walked into her mother’s bedroom and found Avers “sharpening knives.” Of the items left on the pillow, court documents state, “All the utensils had blood on them.” Both details were reported August 27, 2026.
Officers arrested her that same day, October 31, 2025, and booked her into the Sedgwick County Jail. On November 4, 2025, prosecutors charged her with premeditated first-degree murder — the count that became first-degree felony murder under the plea she entered on August 21, 2026.
Wichita Police Chief Joe Sullivan and Wichita Police Capt. Roderick Miller both spoke publicly about the stabbing. A family mortuary posted an obituary for Avers online.
Delusions Detailed in the Affidavit
Long before that morning, the court file shows, Mock’s life had come apart. A St. Louis television news station let her go after an alcohol-fueled blowup described in the affidavit, and she moved in with her mother and stepfather, sharing the home with them for roughly four or five years.
Her mental health deteriorated alongside her career. Mock suffered from schizoaffective disorder, a serious mental illness that brought hallucinations, angry outbursts and delusional episodes, the affidavit says. In those states, the document says, she claimed she could speak directly with God, believed the people around her were robots and threatened to blow up everyone.
Her stepfather, Barry Avers, told police she had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a diagnosis that was later revised to schizoaffective disorder. In the months that followed, those details from the affidavit would shape the case far more than anything investigators collected inside the house.
A Case Halted by Competency Rulings
Almost as soon as the prosecution began, it stalled. Mock was ordered to Larned State Hospital, the state’s psychiatric facility for defendants in the criminal justice system, for a competency evaluation and treatment.
Word came on January 18, 2026, that Mock had been found not competent to stand trial and that the case against her had been paused. Judge Jeffrey Gehring issued the incompetency finding, according to reporting published August 27, 2026. The killing of an 80-year-old woman was left in legal limbo, with no trial date and no resolution for her family.
A Sedgwick County District Court judge reversed that ruling in July 2026 and found Mock competent to stand trial. The case resumed, and it ended not with a jury, but with a plea — one the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office announced.
Prosecutors pursuing first-degree felony murder in Kansas need not prove premeditation, only that a death occurred during the commission of an inherently dangerous felony. For Mock, the distinction changes little: a life sentence, with the door to parole closed for at least a quarter-century.
Morning news was her beat — she anchored at KTVI in St. Louis and at KOKH in Oklahoma City, and in recent years she worked in software sales. Her final months of freedom were spent in a house on East Crowley, unemployed and, according to the affidavit, increasingly detached from reality. The two facts sat side by side in a courtroom on the day she pleaded guilty.
What investigators found in the bedroom undercut the explanation Mock gave officers, that her mother had turned on her. Responsibility is settled by her guilty plea. The harder question is not, and it hangs over a case in which a daughter’s documented delusions ran unchecked for years inside the home of the woman who took her in.
Relatives will have the opportunity to address the court in October, when Johnson is expected to formally impose the sentence. Mock remains in custody in Sedgwick County until then.