Teenage girl who killed her mother by stabbing her 151 times and then beat her with a baseball bat AVOIDS jail after judge declares her insane

• Mother, Yun Mi Hoy was discovered stabbed 151 times in the face and neck
• Arapahoe County judge accepted the teenager's plea of not guilty by reason of insanity
• Isabella Guzman, 19, will not go to prison, but instead will be sent to the State Hospital in Pueblo for treatment
  
• She had become 'more threatening and disrespectful' towards her mother
  

By Daily Mail Reporter

Published: 18:42 GMT, 27 June 2014 | Updated: 12:50 GMT, 28 June 2014

State hospital: Isabella Guzman, pictured, will now head to the states' mental hospital for evaluation and treatment after stabbing her mother to death last August

A Colorado teenager who was accused of stabbing her mother 151 times last summer will not be going to jail after having had her insanity plea accepted by the court.

Isabella Yun-Mi Guzman, 19, is accused of killing her mother in their Aurora home in August 2013.

Last December she pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity and was sent to a state mental hospital for an evaluation.

At a court hearing on Thursday, a judge reviewed the results of that mental evaluation and ruled that Guzman is not guilty by reason of insanity.

She has been sent to the Colorado Mental Health Institute of Pueblo.

Judicial District Attorney George Brauchler said, 'Look, the job of the district attorney is to pursue justice. And at first blush, when you look at this case, you see a horrific and violent murder by a daughter towards her mother. I've never seen a person with that many stab wounds. She stabbed her over 150 times.  So you want that person to be held accountable.

'But our system is a system that is not just conviction-laden or prison-laden, but justice-bound, and you have to look at this component, which is mental health,' Brauchler stressed.

Brauchler said the State Hospital had a longer than normal opportunity to review Guzman's mental health.

'They had an opportunity to administer and tweak the drugs that might affect her psychology,' he said. 'The end conclusion was that she suffers from a mental illness that kept her from being able to form the ability to know right from wrong -- both legally and morally.'

During testimony, Dr. Richard Pounds said Guzman was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.

'There were obvious signs of hallucinating,' Pounds said. 'She was staring into space, having conversations with people who were not present, and she was laughing at herself.'

When asked how long Guzman might be at the State Hospital, Brauchler said, 'For an indeterminate period of time.'

No jail: Isabella Guzman will not go to prison, but will be sent to the State Hospital in Pueblo for treatment

'It will be until these state doctors determine that she is no longer a risk or threat to herself or the community. It could be a year, two years. It could be the remainder of her life,' Brauchler added.

'These are tough decisions on their face,' Brauchler said, 'because you have someone who committed such a violent act of murder against a completely innocent and defenseless woman. Her mother was in the shower when she stabbed her 151 times. But, we're not in the business of just locking up everybody who has transgressed the law… We punish people who make decisions to do wrong when they knew better and could have done something differently.'

Brauchler said that, in this particular case, he's convinced, based on the evidence he's seen, that Guzman did not know right from wrong.

'I was convinced of it,' he said. 'And in the interest of justice I had to take these steps.'

It was originally reported that Guzman had stabbed her mom, 47-year-old Yun Mi Hoy, 79 times in the face and neck, but court testimony indicated she actually stabbed her mother 151 times in total, including 35 times in the face and 51 times in the neck.

She then finished her off by beating her with a baseball bat.

What lurks beneath: Guzman appears like any normal teenager in this picture from her Facebook profile

How could she? In the horrifying attack, Guzman stabbed her mother in the face, neck, arms and torso on Aug. 28, 2013. She also beat her with a baseball bat

According to the affidavit, Isabella had grown 'more threatening and disrespectful' towards her mother leading up to her death.

It's still unclear what exactly her mother was worried about, but neighbors had called the police in the past when they saw men jumping over a fence into the family's backyard.

Those men were later discovered to be Isabella's boyfriends paying her a visit.

The day before her mother was killed, Isabella spit on her mother and sent her an email threatening: 'You will pay.'

Earlier on the day of the attack, Aurora police officers came to their house on a report of a family dispute. Officers said they found no hostility or rage at the house.

Hidden rage: Aurora police officers came to their house on a report of a family dispute. Officers said they found no hostility or rage at the house

They warned Guzman, who was 18 at the time, that her mother could kick her out of the house for her behavior.

It seemed to calm Guzman down and she stayed in her room most of the day, her stepfather, Ryan Hoy, said.

Mrs Hoy had grown so scared of her daughter, that she called on her ex-husband, Isabella's father Robert Guzman, to speak to the teenager.

Just three hours before Mrs Hoy way murdered, Robert Guzman paid a visit to the house his daughter lived in with his ex-wife and her new husband, Ryan Hoy.

As they sat in the backyard, he explained the importance of respecting your elders, and truly believed he had gotten through to her.

'In the conversation, I thought that I made progress,' Mr Guzman said, 'but obviously it didn't do nothing, because hours later, this thing happened.'

Then at 10:11 p.m., the stepfather called 911 to report that the teen was beating his wife in a locked bathroom.

Mrs Hoy's husband Ryan Hoy was home when the fight broke out.

He says his wife had just returned from work around 9:30pm when she went upstairs to take a shower.

Mr Hoy was eating when he heard a thumping sound upstairs and his wife calling his name.

He ran to the upstairs bathroom, but Isabella quickly shut and locked the door and he noticed blood streaming under the door.

Insane: Guzman had a contentious relationship with her mother, Yun-Mi Hoy, who had been concerned enough with the teen's threatening behavior to call police

Not guilty: A judge declared Isabella insane and she has been sent to a state mental hospital for evaluation

Soon after, Isabella emerged from the bathroom and walked out holding the knife, staring straight forward as she passed her stepfather and went downstairs.

Mr Hoy tried to revive his wife but knew she was already dead by the look in her eyes.

When police arrived they officially pronounced Mrs Hoy dead.

Aurora police officer Frank Fania described the scene as 'pretty gruesome'.

Pretty gruesome: Police arrived and found Mrs Hoy already dead, having suffered 78 stab wounds to the neck and face

Isabella had since left the scene of the crime, and wasn't tracked down until noon the next day.

After the killing, police say Guzman fled the home. She went to a woman's restroom at a nearby H Mart, washed her hair in the sink and changed her clothes.

They say she told employees that she had been raped in Denver and asked them not to call police, because they would send her back home and she was in fear of her father.

When police tracked Guzman down the next day, she told them they had the wrong person. She said she was Samantha Gonzales from Cincinnati, Ohio. Police held up her ID card, but the teen said, 'It looks like me, but it's not.'

Eventually police discovered Isabella leaving the parking garage. Witnesses watched as three police officers pulled out guns and ordered the teen to the ground, and took her into custody.

Shocked: Isabella's father Robert Guzman had spoken with his daughter just three hours before the killing, on behalf of his fearful ex-wife