Regina Wallace, 33, has been charged with murder in the pickaxe killing of her mother, 53-year-old Sharon Wallace in the Ewing home they shared
Regina Wallace is charged with killing her mother with pickaxe.
EWING – The Ewing woman charged with killing her mother with a pickaxe in the township home they shared has a history of mental illness and was not taking her medication at the time of the slaying, her defense attorney said today.
Regina Wallace, 33, is charged with murder in the death of her mother, 53-year-old Sharon Wallace on Halloween. She is being held on $1 million bail.
During a bail review hearing this morning in Superior Court, Regina Wallace's attorney Eric Underriner told the judge he planned to seek a court-ordered mental health evaluation for his client, who has been diagnosed as bipolar depressive.
“We will be making a motion for an evaluation to determine competency,” Underriner said. “She was off her meds at the time of the incident. She is in desperate need of mental health treatment.”
Superior Court Judge Gerald Council kept Wallace’s bail at $1 million, saying that Underriner is invited to make a motion for a mental health evaluation at any time.
Regina Wallace sought help in the emergency room of a Lancaster, Pa. hospital on Nov. 1 and admitted to hospital staff that she had killed her mother, Assistant Prosecutor Al Garcia said.
The house on Buttonwood Avenue where Sharon Wallace's body was found. Her daughter, Regina Wallace, apparently killed her mother with a pickaxe on Halloween night before fleeing to Pennsylvania.
“The defendant had indicated that she had killed her mother with an axe, a pickaxe,” Garcia said during today's bail hearing.
Lancaster authorities called Ewing police, who went to the Wallaces' Buttonwood Drive home, Garcia said.
“When they arrived they saw Sharon Wallace lying on the couch,” Garcia said. “They knocked on the bay window and she didn’t respond.”
Garcia said the police entered the home and found Sharon Wallace was dead, with wounds to her face and chest. Investigators determined that the killing likely happened on Halloween and recovered a pickaxe identified as the murder weapon, police said.
Underriner told the judge that Wallace has no prior convictions and had one prior charge for drug possession in 2009 that was dismissed.
“This was an anomalous situation brought on by her mental health,” Underriner said.
Previous coverage
• Ewing woman fled to Pennsylvania after murdering her mother with a pickaxe on Halloween, police say
• Bail hearing postponed for Ewing woman charged with killing her mother with a pickaxe