NORRISTOWN — Next week’s trial for the Abington Township woman accused of fatally shooting her elderly parents and then dismembering their bodies with a chainsaw has been postponed to October.
The trial for Verity A. Beck, originally set to begin April 1 in Montgomery County Court, will now begin on Oct. 21 with jury selection. The new trial date was approved by Judge William R. Carpenter after a brief hearing on Thursday.
Deputy Chief Public Defender Josh Camson requested the postponement, explaining that Beck’s lawyer, James P. Lyons, the chief homicide lawyer in the public defender’s office, is unavailable to proceed next week due to a medical issue. Camson maintained that no other lawyers in the office would be able to get up to speed on the case by April 1 in order to fairly represent Beck.
Assistant District Attorney Samantha Cauffman indicated she was prepared to go to trial next week but given the circumstances cited by Camson she did not object to the defense request for a postponement.
Carpenter pressed the lawyers about why the case couldn’t be tried before October. Camson and Cauffman each explained that the psychiatric experts that each side had lined up to testify in the case next week have prior commitments and would not be available again to testify until October.
Beck did not speak during the hearing and did not offer a comment about the delay as she was escorted to and from the courtroom by sheriff’s deputies.
It’s the second time Beck’s trial was delayed. A previous February trial date was postponed to April 1 after Beck filed court papers indicating she intends to wage an insanity defense at trial.
Defense lawyers claimed Beck “was laboring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act she was doing, or that she did not know that what she was doing was wrong.”
As a result of the defense filing, prosecutors needed time to retain a separate psychiatrist to evaluate Beck.
Beck, 44, previously entered not guilty pleas to two counts each of first- and third-degree murder and abuse of corpse and two counts of possessing instruments of crime, specifically a firearm and a chainsaw, in connection with the Jan. 17, 2023, deaths of her parents, 73-year-old Reid Beck and his wife, Miriam, 72, in the home they all shared in the 1100 block of Beverly Road in the Jenkintown section of Abington.
Beck faces life imprisonment if she’s convicted of the first-degree murder charge, which is an intentional killing. A conviction of third-degree murder, a killing with malice or hardness of heart or cruelty, carries a possible maximum sentence of 20 to 40 years in prison.
Beck remains in custody without bail pending trial.
Under state law, a person who is diagnosed as insane suffers from a mental defect that prevents them from knowing right from wrong or from realizing the nature and quality of their actions.
A person who is determined to be not guilty by reason of insanity at trial initially would be committed to a mental health facility for treatment and receive periodic evaluations. Once that person is deemed “cured” of mental illness they would be released from supervision with no requirement to serve any jail time.
The bodies of Beck’s parents were discovered in the Abington home on Jan. 17 and Beck, who had been a teacher at the Saint Katherine School of Special Education in the Wynnewood section of Lower Merion, was arrested.
The autopsies revealed that Reid and Miriam, a former Lower Moreland High School nurse, each suffered a single gunshot wound to the head. Prosecutorss alleged Beck then used a chainsaw to dismember the bodies.
Hinting at a motive for the slayings, Cauffman and co-prosecutor Gabriella Glenning, in court papers filed in November, alleged Beck was facing financial struggles and when she was confronted by her elderly parents about stealing from them she killed them.
![Roger Lee Hanks has a long history with firearms. He was “born with a fishing rod and a gun in his hands,” the 76-year-old who state police allege shot and killed his wife and daughter in his East Marlborough home on Thursday, declared. He was familiar with gunsmithing, owned several firearms, hunted at the Bear Lodge Resort in rural Wyoming, and had even made his own ammunition. An Air Force veteran, Hanks served two tours in Vietnam and worked as a DuPont engineer before becoming a school teacher. “I am the best of the best,” he said in an interview […]](https://www.pottsmerc.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PoliceTapeWebstock-1-2.jpg?w=620 "Roger Lee Hanks has a long history with firearms. He was “born with a fishing rod and a gun in his hands,” the 76-year-old who state police allege shot and killed his wife and daughter in his East Marlborough home on Thursday, declared. He was familiar with gunsmithing, owned several firearms, hunted at the Bear Lodge Resort in rural Wyoming, and had even made his own ammunition. An Air Force veteran, Hanks served two tours in Vietnam and worked as a DuPont engineer before becoming a school teacher. “I am the best of the best,” he said in an interview […]")
