Daytona Beach, FL – A 53-year-old woman gets life in prison for stabbing another woman to death in her Daytona Beach home.
Brenda Ann Reynolds learned her fate on Monday during a hearing in front of Volusia County Judge Leah Case.
Reynolds was convicted by a jury in September for 2nd-degree murder after they took just 13 minutes to deliberate.
A 911 call sent officers to Reynolds’ North Street home on the night of July 11th, where officers say they found Reynolds with blood literally on her hands and on her right slipper.
Investigators found Emma Sue Willams dead in a bedroom with a knife in her right hand and a stab wound in on the upper left part of her chest. DBPD believes Williams pulled the knife out of her chest before she died.
Spencer Hathaway – a spokesman for 7th Circuit State Attorney RJ Larizza’s office – says it appears that Reynolds murdered Williams over an argument about some of Reynolds’ possessions.
“Witnesses testified that Reynolds – after stabbing Williams – yelled from her front porch that she had committed a murder,” Hathaway added.
According to the arrest report, Williams’ cousin told police Reynolds asked her earlier that day to come by her home later on with some water because her water had been turned off. When Young did that, she claims she saw Reynolds with a silver knife in hand at the front door, yelling that she was going to kill someone. Young says Williams was in the home then and didn’t tell her anything.
Young added that she left after giving Reynolds the water and then rode back near Reynolds’ home soon afterward on her bicycle. That’s when she said she saw Reynolds on the front porch telling other neighbors that she had killed someone, but they didn’t believe her because Reynolds always says those kinds of things.
Another witness told DBPD she was riding her bicycle near Reynolds’ home around the time of the 911 call when she noticed that her front door was open and Reynolds was on the phone with someone. According to that witness, Reynolds invited her inside the home and that’s when she found Williams dead and face-down on the floor. She claims Reynolds told her that Williams committed suicide.
Investigators say that Reynolds agreed to be questioned and that she denied killing Williams or threatening to kill anyone else with a knife. Reynolds claims she was with her cousin and that she came back home to find Williams dead, at which point she called 911 after her neighbors wouldn’t come over to help.
DBPD says they weren’t able to track down Reynolds’ cousin to verify that end of the story and that her story didn’t match the evidence they found in her home.
Prosecutors say Reynolds has several prior felony convictions, including aggravated battery, aggravated assault and several drug-related convictions.
Brenda Ann Reynolds (picture courtesy Volusia County Jail)
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