Tashia Stuart is a killer from Washington State who would be convicted of the murder of her mother Judy Hebert
According to court documents Tashia Stuart would get into an argument with her mother Judy Hebert that ended with Tashia shooting Judy three times causing her death
Someone in the household called 911 but would hang up. Officers believed they could hear gunshots in the background. Also neighbors would tell Officers that Judy Hebert had told them that she thought her daughter was trying to kill her. Two weeks before the murder a heavy tub full of books would fall from a high height and Hebert thought her daughter had pushed the tub over the edge on purpose
Tashia Stuart would be arrested for her mothers murder. Tashia during her trial attempted to convince the jury that the murder was in self defense however at the end of the day she would be convicted of murder and sentenced to forty five years in prison and must serve twenty five years before she is eligible for parole
Tashia Stuart Case
A Pasco, Washington woman called 911 on March 3, 2011 asking for help, but the phone call disconnected.
“We went back, and we listened to the 911 call,” Brad Gregory, Pasco Police Detective Sergeant, said on Snapped, airing Sundays at 6/5c on Oxygen. “At the beginning of the 911 call you can hear what appears to be a gunshot. And then you hear some talking, but words are really unintelligible.”
“Something to the effect of, ‘Stop. Gimme that. Help.’ And then the phone line goes dead,” prosecutor Shawn Sant added on Snappe
Dispatchers called back, and a woman answered as smoke detectors were going off in the background. She claimed the call was a mistake, and she was just trying to change the detector batteries. But, following protocol, an officer was dispatched to check on the house. As the officer was waiting to be let inside, a neighbor approached him.
“I heard a shot from across the street,” Ryan Rhodes said on Snapped. “And I heard another shot. I saw the window pulse and shake. And I heard the smoke detectors ringing from inside.”
Rhodes told the officer that three people lived in the home: 58-year-old Judy Hebert, her 37-year-old daughter, Tashia Stuart, and Stuart’s 7-year-old daughter.
“He pushed his way through [the front door], and I could see Judy on the ground in the hallway,” Rhodes said.
Keep reading to learn how Judy Hebert died, and why her daughter was convicted of killing her.
Judy Hebert and Tashia Stuart’s tumultuous relationship leads to a deadly fight
20-year-old Judy Hebert began raising Tashia after her twin sister became pregnant.
“Judy’s sister turned to Judy, asking her would she raise Tashia as her own,” Sant said.
Judy and her husband, Rolfe, agreed to adopt Tashia, but raising her proved difficult.
“Tashia was a handful growing up,” Gregory said. “One that they had to be on top of all the time. She was always taking off with her boyfriend or whoever she was running with at the time.”
In 2004, Tashia Stuart had a child of her own and married Todd Stuart. When Judy and Rolphe divorced, Judy moved alone to Pasco, Washington, in March 2007. She was soon joined by Tashia, Todd, and their daughter in January 2011, but they had no jobs and no money. Two months later, Judy was dead.
When police questioned Tashia, she said she shot her mother in self-defense because her mother was coming at her with an axe after an argument. Tashia Stuart claimed her mother was convinced she and her husband were stealing from her through a debit card they’d been given to buy food.
“Tashia said she took the card and used it on several occasions after that without Judy’s knowledge, which led to the big argument about the money,” Gregory said. “So, she says that that’s why this happened
But when police interviewed her 7-year-old daughter, who was home at the time, they began to believe Tashia Stuart planned her attack on her mother.
“The 7-year-old daughter said that her mother and her nana had been fighting all day,” Gregory said. “There was a point where Tashia took her into their bedroom, and she turned up the TV full blast and told her that she needed to stay in the bedroom. And then after that is when she heard the pop…it was obvious to all of us that this was a homicide.”
Officers find evidence Judy Hebert’s death was a murder
Tashia Stuart painted a picture to police of a frantic fight around the house with her mother with weapons. But evidence soon discredited her story.
“When I was walking through the residence, you would think that there would have been some kind of a struggle, but there’s not,” Jeff Harpster, Pasco police captain, said on Snapped. “The house is still very orderly.”
Judy Hebert was not only holding a cordless phone, but a file folder when she died.
“So, she was holding a file folder that the bullet went through and into her chest cavity,” Harpster said. “If Tashia’s story was true — that Judy was coming at her with an axe — how is she going to be holding a file folder and a cordless phone as well as a hatchet
The contents of the file folder also painted a damning picture for Tashia.
“It looked like Judy was holding documents that proved that Tashia was stealing from her,” Gregory said. “I believe she was making the 911 call to report that Tashia was stealing from her, and she wanted her arrested.”
The final piece of evidence: police determined Judy had been hit in the head with the hatchet after she died.
“I believe that after Tashia shot her mother, she retrieved the axe, went to make sure that her mother was dead, and placed the hatchet conveniently close to her body,” Sant said.
When police spoke to Judy Hebert’s neighbors and friends, they learned Judy was so afraid of her daughter and son-in-law, she’d even come up with a code word to use if she was in danger. She was also convinced her daughter had tried to kill her in the weeks before her death, after a bin filled with books fell off a shelf in the garage and landed on her.
“She never believed that the books just fell on top of her head,” Deb Severin, Judy’s neighbor, said on Snapped. “She believed that both of them — that was the first attempted murder on her.”
Police found evidence of this attempt in the garage in patterns of disturbed dust. And in Judy’s closet, a camera showed Judy herself had documented the evidence.
“I believe that Judy investigated her own crime,” Gregory said. “Judy was talking to us from the grave that this is what happened to her. And she wanted to make sure we knew it.”
The motive for Judy Hebert’s murder was money. She had recently changed her will, leaving her assets to her granddaughter over her daughter — but Tashia Stuart was trying to change it back. To do so, Tashia needed to get into Judy’s safe. Rolfe Hebert told police that a few days before the murder, Tashia called him and asked him for the safe code — but he didn’t know it. Tashia also made another attempt to get in the safe.
“There was a video we found on Tashia’s phone where she planted this phone, hid it in the closet, to capture the combination being entered on this key coded safe,” Sant said.
Todd Stuart was charged with attempted murder, but he was acquitted at trial. In May 2013, Tashia Stuart went on trial, and a jury found her guilty of first-degree murder and first-degree attempted murder. She was sentenced to 45 years in prison.
“I think Tashia snapped because she realized she was cut out of the will. And that she got caught stealing. And Judy called the police,” Gregory said.
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/dead-mother-leaves-clues-help-230056349.html