Sydney Powell: Conviction overturned for former student accused of her mother's murder in 2020
A second trial is on the horizon for a woman who allegedly stabbed her mother to death after being kicked out of university. Did she experience a psychotic break or was she desperate to keep secrets?
When Sydney Powell returned to her parents’ home on Scudder Drive in Akron, Ohio on March 3, 2020 after being away at school, she surprised her mom and dad. She shocked them further by telling them she had dropped out from the University of Mount Union.
It was the first the Powells had heard of their daughter struggling at all in her classes. By all accounts, 19-year-old Sydney had always been a successful student. She’d graduated in 2018 from St. Vincent-St. Mary High School as an honor roll student with a 3.8 GPA, as well as being the captain of her soccer team.
She entered university in the fall of 2019 with a partial academic scholarship. Her parents saw no indication that Sydney fell behind or spiraled at all.
Confounded, Steve Powell told his daughter she would be okay before he went to work. Brenda, Sydney’s mother, called the university to discuss what had happened.
Listening to her mother talk on the phone, Sydney cried and went down to the basement. During this time, she claimed to have heard voices and experienced hallucinations. She went downstairs to try and drown out the voices, which she said were calling her “Loser,” “Worthless” and told her to “Kill Yourself.”
“The next thing she remembers is waking up in the hospital,” said her defense attorney, Don Malarcik.
Whether or not Sydney suffered from psychosis of some sort in these moments would later be a heated debate in court, but a 911 call from university officials after they got disconnected from Brenda’s call told a gruesome story.
Much of this information, unless otherwise clarified, comes from the Akron Beacon Journal, who covered this case extensively.
The 911 call
A sergeant with the Akron police informed the 911 dispatcher that someone from Mount Union called to report their concerns over Brenda Powell. While on the phone with her, university officials heard yelling and screaming, some loud thuds, then the line went dead.
“The phone cut off at some point after, I would say, somewhere in the neighborhood of six or seven of those thudding, those sort of thud sounds, and the screaming had continued,” Associate Dean of Students Michelle Gaffney testified during the trial, according to NBC.
Gaffney added that officials tried to call Brenda back but received no answer. Eventually, someone did pick up Brenda’s phone, claiming to be her.
“The voice on the other ends said, “Yes, this is Brenda. Yes, this is Brenda,’” Gaffney explained. “It was not Brenda. I was sure it was Sydney. Both Dean [of Students John] Frazier and I looked at each other and sort of shook our heads at each other and said that’s not Brenda. He then said, ‘Sydney, I think this is you, this is not Brenda.’ The phone went dead.”
Immediately, university officials called police.
The Akron Beacon Journal reported that when police arrived at the home at about 1 p.m. that day, they found 50-year-old Brenda Powell suffering from life-threatening wounds. She later died after being transported to the Cleveland Clinic Akron General. She had suffered numerous sharp force and blunt force wounds.
NBC reported that Brenda had been hit multiple times with a cast iron skillet and then was stabbed about 30 times.
When she spoke to police, Sydney told them someone had broken into the house and attacked her and mother. Police found that a window in the home had been shattered.
Later, Sydney had collapsed at the end of the driveway, with her eyes rolling back into her head and her fingers clawing at the pavement beneath her until her fingers bled. She also had minor injuries, so they took her to Summa Akron City Hospital for treatment.
Investigators discovered that the mother and daughter had argued that day leading up to the murder, according to the Journal. They also found that Sydney had been the one to break the window.
It appeared to be such a senseless crime for a daughter who people said was incredibly close with her mother. What made her snap?
More than a mother: Brenda Powell was a child life specialist who changed lives through the decades
When families entered the Akron Children’s Hospital Showers Family Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Disorders to have their children begin treatments for what would be a long, arduous road, fear and apprehension would be natural emotions. But many could come to count on one child life specialist to be by their side through the hardest moments: Brenda Powell.
Brenda was born in Salem, Ohio on March 19, 1969, according to her obituary. She graduated from the University of Akron before spending her entire career at the Children’s Hospital, dedicated to being the warm and compassionate presence to help children through a frightening time.
Outside of work, “her husband and children were the light of her life.” She and her husband, Steve, had two children: Sydney and Andrew.
“For me and so many others, she helped us patients get through the most difficult times of our lives,” Jackie Custer, a former patient, told the Journal. “And you know, not just the patients, but their families as well.”
For 28 years, Brenda’s smile and presence was a constant at the center. Beloved by patients and their families, Custer called her a second mother to many.
“It was always just so uplifting and as soon as she walked in the room her smile would brighten up the whole room,” Custer added.
Brenda even led a support group for teens with cancer in an effort to connect them with peer support to get through a scary time in their lives. Many kept coming long after their treatments and remission. Another patient, Julie Tingler, told the Journal that the group served as one place where the teens could be treated normally and not just seen for their cancer.
Tingler described how Brenda would plan events for the teens to make up for the childhoods cancer robbed them of, one being called the “Prom to Remember.”
“She just wanted us to forget an IV machine was attached to us for a minute, and try to make us feel beautiful,” Tingler said.
Dr. Jeffrey Hord served as director of the Showers Family Center for over 20 years and interacted with Brenda daily, witnessing first hand her generosity and compassion. From spending time with the kids, going bowling, or sitting with them during their treatments, Brenda would be there for her patients from the start, and often long after they were done treatment.
“I feel like she was an angel here on earth to help us through this,” Hord told the Journal.
He said Brenda impacted thousands of people during her years at the hospital, and that there is no way to measure the true impact of her career. But she never wanted to be the center the attention, even when programs she helped start found their way into news reports.
“It takes a very special person to work in our field to begin with. But she went so above and beyond on her level of dedication,” Hord said.
Tingler and other former patients who spent their journeys with Brenda at their side all agree that her love and support made them a family.
“She always told us we were her second group of children, who gave her gray hair,” Tingler said.
“I just want people to remember her as the amazing person we remember her as,” she added. “And we’ll love her forever.”
The Trial
Defense: Sydney was a student spiraling in a mental health crisis and had a psychotic break when she killed her mother
Defense attorney Don Malarcik wasted little time in zeroing in on Sydney’s state at the scene that day.
“She’s absolutely in shock — in a catatonic state — not responding to audio stimuli,” he said in court.
That catatonic state would become the foundation of the defense claiming Sydney experienced a psychotic break that day, while the prosecution would argue that she merely could have been in shock from what she had just done.
After her arrest and being charged, Sydney was taken to a hospital where she was given psychiatric treatment for two weeks.
Columbus psychologist Dr. James Reardon determined that Sydney was not guilty by reason of insanity, as he believed Sydney suffered such a severe mental disease that she hadn’t been capable of comprehending what she did when she murdered her mother.
“I have rarely, if ever, seen a situation where an individual was in such an utterly compromised psychological state as Sydney Powell was at the time of these offenses,” Reardon wrote in his report.
Malarcik also shared details of what he called Sydney’s mental spiral in the days before her mother’s murder.
Her second fall at university, in 2019, her roommates noticed that Sydney had become more withdrawn and would sleep 16 hours day. Her roommates revealed that Sydney would have blackouts where she wouldn’t remember what she did for 90 minutes at a time, but that she wasn’t taking drugs or alcohol when it happened.
Due to her absences, the university placed Sydney on academic probation before dismissing her that fall.
Sydney told no one that she had been kicked out of school. Determined to maintain normalcy, she remained on campus.
University officials told Sydney in February 2020 that she had to leave. Suddenly, the bright and successful student found a dead end in her journey and she had told no one of it. She no longer lived on campus, no longer had classes to attend, and her parents thought nothing was out of place in her life. They believed she was ever the ambitious young woman they knew and loved.
Sydney spent the next week slowly making her way back to her parents’ house. Credit card receipts and phone records show she stayed in hotels during that time. It’s a lost week for her, according to Milarcik.
“She has no real memory of this,” he said in court.
When she got to her parents’ home, she finally broke down crying and told them, “I dropped out. I can’t do this.”
It’s not entirely the truth, of course. One has to wonder if she was burned out and it made her existing mental problems worse.
While in the hospital for two weeks, doctors originally wondered if Sydney had brain damage due to some concussions she’d suffered while playing soccer. Epilepsy could also account for the blackouts and lost time.
Repeated concussions can cause Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), a brain disorder which sees the death of nerve cells in the brain due to head injuries, according to the Mayo Clinic. It is a rare disorder which cannot be diagnosed until after death. It is believed to be a secondary head injury that aggravates an already existing head injury that hasn’t healed completely.
One such famous case of this leading to murder was that of wrestler Chris Benoit, who murdered his wife and son in July 2007 before killing himself. Originally, steroid use was blamed for his sudden snapping, but he was diagnosed with CTE postmortem. “The Dark Side of the Ring” did an excellent documentary outlining what happened with Chris’s life and how it led to such a tragic ending.
It seems unlikely that one could attribute this to Sydney’s case, however, as the behavioral and emotional problems that stem from CTE are thought to emerge years after the initial damage. Benoit had been a professional wrestler for 22 years and died at 40. Sydney was only 19 when this happened. If she did have a psychotic break, it occurred in the blink of an eye in comparison to the time it took Benoit to snap.
Malarcik had Sydney evaluated by two other psychiatrists, who came to same conclusion as Reardon: despite not knowing where it came from, they also believed Sydney suffered a psychotic break and was not guilty by reason of insanity.
Officially, mental health professionals diagnosed Sydney with schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from the incident.
The Cleveland Clinic describes schizophrenia as a psychiatric condition that severely disrupts how one’s brain works in terms of memory, senses, thoughts, and behaviors. Left untreated, it can impact professional and personal relationships, cause cause someone to have trouble in organizing thoughts, act in a way that puts yourself and others in danger or at risk for illness, and struggle to function in daily living.
No one really knows what causes schizophrenia. Researchers believe it could have something to do with brain chemical signal imbalances, brain development before birth, or a loss of connections between areas of the brain. There’s no evidence currently to show that concussion or repeated head injuries could lead to someone developing schizophrenia.
Someone with the condition might experience delusions, hallucinations, disorganized or incoherent speaking, disorganized or unusual movements, or negative symptoms such as lack of movement or motivation. This in turn can cause one to experience fright or paranoia, neglect hygiene and appearance, depression or anxiety, suicidal thoughts, or use of drugs or alcohol to ease symptoms.
The condition can’t be cured, but it is possible to treat with a combination of medication (anti-psychotics), therapy, and self-management techniques.
Schizophrenia exists with a spectrum of several conditions as outlined on the Cleveland Clinic website. Psychosis can be one of the conditions experienced by someone with schizophrenia.
That being said, not everyone with schizophrenia or any psychiatric condition becomes violent or even homicidal. It’s important to acknowledge that cases where that happens are not commonplace and not the norm.
Malarcik said that by all accounts, Brenda and Sydney were as close as mother and daughter could be. Sydney’s father stood by Sydney and advocated for her to be released on bond after she pleaded not guilty. She was released on conditions that she had to remain in close contact with pretrial services and check in, in person, weekly. Sydney stayed with her maternal grandmother. Her family supported her.
“They’re advocating strongly for her release because nobody on the planet knows Sydney better than her family,” Malarcik said.
“The Powell family is overwhelmed with grief, but grateful for Sydney’s release,” he added. “Sydney’s incarceration was a tremendous source of stress for the family.”
In fact, when pretrial proceedings got underway in September 2023, Steve begged the court not to go through with charging his daughter for his wife’s murder.
“This goes against anything Brenda would want,” he said during one hearing. “I don’t know why we’re doing this. This isn’t what anyone wants here. I don’t know how she can handle it. I don’t know how I can handle it. I’m trying to keep my family together.”
Sydney’s grandmother, Betsy Brown, also spoke up. She said that Brenda and Sydney were always together. Brenda was at every soccer game and the two often went shopping.
“It was just always Brenda and Sydney,” she said.
Betsy agreed with Steve that the family didn’t want Sydney punished.
“All of this is opening things we hoped to put behind us,” she said.
But all their pleading wouldn’t stop the justice process. The court went ahead with jury selection and opening statements within Summit County Common Pleas Judge Kelly McLaughlin’s courtroom.
Prosecution: Sydney knew her secrets would be exposed and murdered her mother to keep skeletons in the closet
A psychiatrist hired by the prosecution, on the other hand, found Sydney to be sane on the day she murdered her mother. Sylvia O’Bradovich of Summit Psychological Associates testified that she did not believe Sydney experienced a psychotic episode during the moments of the murder.
O’Bradovich told the court she didn’t believe the defense’s claim that Sydney was lost in the weeks before Brenda’s death, but that Sydney does have some mental health issues, which O’Bradovich believed could be borderline personality traits, malingering and an unspecified anxiety disorder.
“If somebody is in a full-blown psychotic state and disconnected from reality, they can’t magically turn it off temporarily. You either are or you’re not,” O’Bradovich testified.
She explained that she went through over 10,000 pages of cell phone records, including text messages, Internet searches, and social media activity. Sydney browsed sites to look at makeup, actors, movies or TV shows, and played an online pool game with a friend. She had given her mother a Gmail email address, claiming she didn’t use her school one often.
“We know she’s not in school. She’s searching knock knock jokes. She was acting like a typical 18-year-old,” O’Bradovich said.
The night before Brenda’s death, Sydney went to a viewing party for “The Bachelor” with friends. On Feb. 26, O’Bradovich said Sydney looked online at Star Wars and Dunkin Donuts. Sydney also texted her mother and friends. She told Brenda that she’d be home March 4 after classes were done for spring break.
At the time Sydney sent that, she was using the WiFi at a Comfort Inn.
O’Bradovich added that before someone enters a psychotic episode, there are usually signs, such as sleep disturbance, becoming totally withdrawn, not interacting with people, and doing things that make no sense.
“I looked through everything to try to find evidence of that and there wasn’t any,” O’Bradovich claimed.
Assistant Summit County Prosecutor Brian Stano questioned O’Bradovich on the stand as to Sydney’s behavior at the crime scene. Had she been catatonic or merely in shock?
“I think it’s mostly reflective of shock and a trauma response caused by actions she just engaged in,” O’Bradovich replied.
Stanos also asked if Sydney questioning whether her mother was OK showed empathy and if it aligned with someone in a psychotic break.
“It is consistent with someone in touch with reality and aware of what’s going on,” O’Bradovich said.
O’Bradovich stated that the three experts hired by the defense to evaluate Sydney came a little too late. They couldn’t definitively determine Sydney’s state of mind during the crime a few years after the fact.
“If I was here today to speak about how Sydney Powell was doing today, all of the tests you mentioned would be a great tool,” she said. “Those tests do not apply two years ago. It is the same reason your doctor wants updated blood work.”
All of that, Stanos declared, proved that Sydney was sane at the time of her mother’s murder.
“Sydney stopped attacking with the pan, presumably went to the kitchen with a knife. She had to switch weapons and keep attacking her,” he said during his closing statement. “Just the knife just in the neck multiple times? That is purposeful. That is trying to end someone.”
Stanos stood by the prosecution’s belief that Sydney could have faked or exaggerated her psychotic episode, and that she snapped upon realizing her secrets were about to be exposed to her family. A broken illusion she couldn’t uphold any longer.
Malarcik, in his closing statements, pointed out that Sydney would have to be quite the actress to fool three medical experts who evaluated her mental condition.
But Stanos retorted by pointing out that not every brutal crime is attributable to insanity.
“If Sydney was on the verge of a psychotic break,” Stano said, “she had 45 minutes with Brenda. Why not kill her in those 45 minutes? She only attacks her when she’s on the phone with Mount Union: right when her secrets are about to be discovered. I submit to you, that’s when that happened. I don’t even think in that moment she wanted her mother dead. She just wanted to prevent her secret from coming out.”
On Sept. 20, 2023, a jury found Sydney Powell guilty of two counts of murder (purposely causing a death and causing a death as a result of a felonious assault), felonious assault, and tampering with evidence.
Sydney learned of her fate on Sept. 28, 2023 when the judge sentenced her to 15 years to life in prison, meaning she would be eligible for parole after serving 15 years, according to an NBC report.
Sydney cried as she was escorted from the court room. A few mere moments of whatever she had experienced that day — psychosis? Rage? The impulse to keep her secrets? A break in reality? — meant this young woman would spend a great deal of time in prison.
The Appeal
This story doesn’t end there. Sydney wasted little time in filing for an appeal, which focused on four arguments. However, Court TV reports that the appeals court honed in on one: that the court made an error when they preemptively barred the defense from presenting a surrebuttal case.
At the close of the state’s rebuttal case during the trial, the defense requested to bring in more witnesses to testify on Sydney’s behalf. The judge denied this, stating that there had been numerous experts who testified during the trial already.
Even the prosecution agreed that while there is no guaranteed right to such a surrebuttal, Sydney’s attorneys had the right to one in this case. Because she entered a not guilty by reason of insanity plea, the burden of proof fell to the defense to prove that Sydney was not sane at the time of her mother’s murder. When the judge denied them the request to bring in more witnesses, it effectively prevented them from presenting this burden of proof.
In Dec. 2024, the conviction was overturned. Sydney Powell will face a second trial.
If she is found to be not guilty by reason of insanity, she will likely be sent to a mental health facility for treatment for a short period of time. According to Richard Banta Law:
“If the person is found to be in need of mental health treatment, they will then be committed to the custody of a state mental health facility for an indeterminate period of time, which could continue for the rest of the person’s life. Often times these hearings are held in the probate court or other court which deals with guardianship proceedings.”
If a person is compliant with treatment, they could eventually be released with no criminal record. Many states have a tiered process in which the person will be sent to lower security facilities, then an adult foster care facility, before being released completely.
The girl who had been almost inseparable from her mother would now see life from behind bars, even if only for a time. But those actions have no framed sentence. There is no taking a life back once it’s taken. Regardless of reason, Sydney murdered the woman who not only loved her, but spread her love and compassion to thousands of others. A woman who changed lives and walked with her patients on their most frightening journeys through childhood cancer, and even gave them pieces of a lost childhood back.
Mere minutes of action last a lifetime, as will the grief of the many people who knew, loved, and lost Brenda Powell.
