A former television news anchor is facing the possibility of spending decades behind bars after admitting to killing her own 80-year-old mother in a brutal stabbing inside their Kansas home.

Angelynn “Angie” Mock, 48, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the death of her mother, Anita Avers, bringing the disturbing case closer to its conclusion nearly a year after the deadly encounter.

Mock entered the plea before Sedgwick County District Judge Faith Johnson. She now faces a presumptive life sentence and would not become eligible for parole until she has served at least 25 years.

Her sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 5 at 11 a.m.

The horrifying chain of events unfolded shortly before 8 a.m. on Halloween 2025, when Wichita police were dispatched to a residence in the 1500 block of East Crowley following a report of a stabbing.

When officers arrived, they encountered Mock outside the home. She had blood on her body and injuries to her hands.

Inside the residence, police found Avers lying unresponsive in her bed after suffering multiple stab wounds. She was rushed to a hospital but could not be saved.

Investigators later reported discovering multiple kitchen knives and a cheese grater on a pillow near Avers. Blood was reportedly found on the objects, while investigators documented numerous holes in the bedding that were consistent with stabbing.

But the details Mock allegedly provided investigators afterward made the case even more chilling.

Ex-TV anchor Angelynn Mock admits to stabbing own mom to death on Halloween after believing she was the devil https://t.co/wXJGnSeKrZ pic.twitter.com/jt5dKEP0LC

— New York Post (@nypost) August 26, 2026

According to a probable cause affidavit, Mock gave authorities differing accounts of what had happened inside the home.

She reportedly claimed she entered her mother’s bedroom to talk about an upcoming job interview and discovered Avers sharpening knives.

Mock alleged that her mother then attacked her with a knife and said, “I know you’re f—ing Jesus Christ.”

Mock told investigators that she fought back, managed to obtain a knife and attempted to retreat while Avers continued moving toward her.

“I had to kill her, she wasn’t going to stop,” Mock told investigators, according to the affidavit.

Court records described additional statements that appeared to indicate Mock believed the woman she was fighting was not actually her mother, but the devil.

“I’d kill that b***h to have my mom back any day. I don’t even know who she is anymore. I know, I believe she’s the devil,” Mock allegedly said.

A neighbor also described a startling encounter outside the home as the violence came to an end.

Alyssa Castro said Mock approached the vehicle where Castro was sitting with her boyfriend while covered in blood and asked them to call 911.

“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,” Castro said.

“I asked her if she was OK, and she was pretty shaken up and she seemed scared, and she just ran off,” she added.

The criminal proceedings did not immediately move forward.

Questions surrounding Mock’s competency delayed the case for months. In January, a judge determined she was incompetent to stand trial and ordered her to undergo evaluation and treatment at Larned State Hospital.

That determination eventually changed.

By July, a Sedgwick County judge concluded that Mock had regained competency and was capable of proceeding with the criminal case.

The probable cause affidavit also revealed details about Mock’s reported mental-health history.

Her stepfather told investigators that Mock had previously been diagnosed with bipolar disorder before that diagnosis was later changed to schizoaffective disorder.

He also described previous episodes in which Mock allegedly claimed that people around her were “robots” and “not real people.” He reportedly discussed previous angry outbursts and psychiatric treatment as well.

Despite those incidents, Mock’s stepfather characterized her relationship with Avers as generally close, with what he described as ordinary tensions between a mother and daughter.

The background of both women adds another tragic dimension to the case.

Avers was a licensed clinical marriage and family therapist whose professional biography stated that she worked with adults dealing with depression, anxiety, trauma and mood disorders. She also treated couples and families struggling with relationship difficulties.

Mock, meanwhile, spent years working in television journalism.

She was a morning anchor at KTVI Fox 2 in St. Louis from 2011 until 2015 and previously worked as a sports reporter at KLKN in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Following an investigation by the Wichita Police Department’s homicide unit, the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office charged Mock with first-degree murder in November 2025.

Her decision to plead guilty means there will be no jury trial.

Instead, the case now moves directly to sentencing, where Mock is expected to receive a life sentence.

Under the presumptive punishment, the former television anchor would have to spend at least 25 years behind bars before she could even seek parole.

After years of fiery clashes, viral arguments and regularly finding herself outnumbered at the table on “The Five,” the liberal Fox News personality has secured a new three-year contract with the network.

The deal keeps one of the show’s most recognizable political counterweights in place even as “The Five” moves forward with a revamped lineup.

For Tarlov, the new agreement sends a clear message about how the network views her role.

“It’s always a great affirmation of your seat at the table,” Tarlov said of the new deal. “No matter how contentious it looks or difficult or terrible to some people, that you’re a valued element in this discourse.”

Tarlov occupies the rotating liberal seat on a program otherwise anchored by conservative personalities Jesse Watters, Greg Gutfeld and newly installed permanent co-host Emily Compagno, along with Dana Perino.

That frequently puts Tarlov in the middle of some of the show’s most contentious exchanges.

And she knows she doesn’t have much time to make her case.

Tarlov said she generally gets about 90 seconds to deliver her argument, forcing her to make every second count.

“If I’m going to get 90 seconds, I want to make the most of it,” she stated.

One strategy is to disarm the rest of the table before jumping into the disagreement.

Tarlov said she’ll sometimes open with humor or a backhanded compliment—something she describes as her “olive branch”—before making her argument.

But viewers watching the heated exchanges on television might be surprised by what happens after the cameras turn off.

According to Tarlov, her personal relationships with some of her biggest ideological opponents on the program are far warmer than their television battles suggest.

“Jesse Watters and Greg Gutfeld actually care about me as a person,” she revealed. “And that doesn’t make them soften their political opinions, even though I think that they should in some cases, especially when they’re enormously wrong.”

Those relationships aren’t limited to polite conversations in the hallway.

Tarlov said she and Gutfeld regularly exchange text messages during the week. She has visited his apartment and attended his daughter’s first birthday party.

She also communicates with Watters’ wife, Emma DiGiovine, and has socialized away from the Fox studios with Perino and Compagno.

For Tarlov, maintaining those relationships comes down to drawing a line between political disagreements and personal relationships.

“‘[It’s about] fundamentally understanding them as people and how they think about politics,” as opposed to seeing them as “a set of political opinions.”

That distinction has become an important part of Tarlov’s role on a program built around political disagreement.

The on-air battles can be intense, but Tarlov said she has learned that politics doesn’t necessarily consume the personal lives of the colleagues she debates every day.

Her time on “The Five” has also included moments far more personal than political.

Tarlov’s father died from cancer linked to 9/11 while she was pregnant with her first daughter, Cleo.

She has spoken emotionally about that loss on the air and recalled one occasion when her grief became impossible to keep contained.

“There was great relief and also discomfort,” she said, “because I had gotten to the point where it had to be addressed almost, when you’re walking around with something that’s so bottled up. …No one wants anyone to be looking at them while they’re crying. I’m also a very ugly crier, so I didn’t want that to be going on for too long.”

Tarlov said her colleagues backed off during that deeply personal moment.

Now, Fox is making clear that the political sparring will continue.

The network recently made Emily Compagno a permanent co-host of “The Five,” joining Gutfeld, Watters and Perino, while Tarlov and Harold Ford Jr. continue rotating through the show’s liberal seat.

The arrangement means Tarlov will continue walking into a television environment where she is frequently outnumbered politically.

But that is also precisely what has made her role distinctive.

The arguments, interruptions and ideological clashes aren’t pushing her out the door.

Instead, Fox has handed Tarlov another three years to keep making her case from across the table.

A 9/11 widow delivered a searing message from Ground Zero during Friday’s 25th anniversary remembrance, using the solemn ceremony to demand answers over Saudi Arabia’s alleged connections to the terrorists responsible for the deadliest attack on American soil.

Terry Strada, whose husband Tom Strada was killed inside the World Trade Center’s North Tower, stood before the crowd and made clear that a quarter-century has not ended her family’s fight for accountability.

After reading her husband’s name, Strada asked a question that cut directly to the heart of the decades-long battle.

“How can it be 25 years and still we have no justice for the role that Saudi Arabia played in your murder?”

A 9/11 widow just rent rogue in NYC…

She read her husbands name and then called out Islamic terror and Saudi Arabia.

She called out Bush, Obama, Biden and JD Vance/Trump while they sat right in front of her. The entire crowd at ground zero cheered. pic.twitter.com/xICEZL6FOv

— Geiger Capital (@Geiger_Capital) September 11, 2026

Tom Strada was one of 658 Cantor Fitzgerald employees killed when American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower on September 11, 2001.

His widow now serves as national chair of 9/11 Families United for Justice and has spent years fighting to uncover what families allege were Saudi connections to individuals involved in the attacks.

Standing at the site where her husband was murdered, Strada accused Saudi Arabia of having “fomented a rancid culture of anti-American terrorism around the globe and then sent its agents to support radical Islamist hijackers so they could attack you and all of our loved ones.”

Fifteen of the 19 terrorists who carried out the September 11 attacks were Saudi nationals.

But Strada wasn’t finished.

She then turned her attention toward America’s own political leadership, accusing successive administrations of failing the families still searching for accountability.

“For 25 years, administration after administration, including leaders in front of us here today, chose to protect the Saudis instead of standing with the 9/11 families,” Strada continued as members of the crowd cheered.

Former Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden were among those attending the ceremony. According to the account, they showed no visible reaction to her remarks.

Strada continued with another blistering accusation.

“They broke promises, both public and private. It has been one betrayal after another,”

She then directed her message specifically toward Vice President JD Vance, who was attending the Ground Zero ceremony representing the Trump administration.

“Tell the Saudis to stop lying. Tell them that if they want to be friends with the USA, they cannot continue to deny all of this, all of the pain, all of the destruction that we have been suffering through.

“Vice President Vance, thank you for being here today,” she concluded. “Please carry that message back. Stand with the families. Stand with survivors. Stand with Americans. As my husband Tom would have said, that is always the right thing to do.”

Families’ Fight for Answers Isn’t Over

Strada’s organization has spent years pursuing litigation seeking to hold Saudi Arabia responsible for alleged assistance connected to the September 11 attacks.

Saudi Arabia has repeatedly denied playing any role in planning or supporting the attacks.

But 25 years later, the legal battle is still alive.

The dispute is expected to return to a federal appeals court in Manhattan next month, with part of the case focusing on Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi national whose interactions with two future 9/11 hijackers have received intense scrutiny.

Al-Bayoumi encountered Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar after they arrived in California and helped the men establish themselves in the San Diego area, according to the 9/11 Commission.

He departed the United States for the United Kingdom approximately a year before the September 11 attacks.

British authorities later detained and questioned al-Bayoumi at the request of the United States, but he was never charged.

Families of 9/11 victims have continued pointing to evidence they believe raises serious questions about his activities.

Among that evidence is a video recorded in 1999 and unsealed by a court in 2024.

The footage showed al-Bayoumi recording the U.S. Capitol while discussing a “plan.” Attorneys representing victims’ families have argued that the recording depicts surveillance of the building.

The 9/11 Commission identified the Capitol as one of the possible intended targets of United Airlines Flight 93.

That plane never reached its target.

Instead, it crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers fought back against the hijackers.

Another video from February 2000 showed a gathering hosted by al-Bayoumi for al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar shortly after the future hijackers arrived in San Diego.

25 Years Later, the Questions Remain

A quarter-century has passed since nearly 3,000 people were murdered in New York, at the Pentagon and near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

But for Strada and other victims’ families, the passage of time has not erased their demands for answers.

Friday’s ceremony was designed to remember the people America lost.

Strada made sure it also served as a reminder of the questions she believes America still hasn’t answered.

Her message wasn’t confined to Saudi officials thousands of miles away.

It was delivered directly to American leaders standing at Ground Zero:

Twenty-five years later, these families are still demanding accountability.