After mom tells reporter she killed her kids, what's next?
A woman accused of killing her two children gave an interview to a TV news station that stunned some because of her clear admission of guilt.
"I gave them a choice," said Amber Pasztor, speaking about her children in the interview with a reporter from WANE-TV, Fort Wayne, Ind. "They could live, traumatized like their mom, or they can go to heaven with God and be better off."
Speaking by phone from the Elkhart County Jail, Pasztor told reporter Brett Thomas that she first smothered her 7-year-old daughter, Liliana Hernandez, and then her 6-year-old son, Rene Pastzor, because she didn't have the heart to shoot them. She said on camera that she killed her neighbor, Frank Macomber.
The interview, which aired Monday, left many viewers who commented on the segment wondering what happens now in her criminal case?
The interview likely will be admissible in court, said Jack Crawford, an Indianapolis defense attorney and former Lake County prosecutor. If police had questioned Pasztor, she would have a right to have a lawyer present, but no such requirement exists when talking to the media.
"It almost forces the defense to go with insanity," Crawford said.
Pasztor gave the interview so soon after her arrest that not much has moved forward.
Elkhart County prosecutors Sept. 30 charged the 29-year-old Fort Wayne woman with two counts of murder. A judge scheduled a trial date for Jan. 23, a date that is likely to be rescheduled multiple times.
Pasztor's lawyer has not filed a notice for an insanity defense.
On Sept. 26 Pasztor drove behind the Elkhart Police Department and told an officer she smothered her two children, police said. A statewide Amber Alert had been issued after the children were abducted from their grandfather's home.
Pasztor did not have custody of the children. She also is considered a suspect in Macomber's death though she has not been charged in connection with that crime.
Pasztor's public defender in Elkhart County, Cliff Williams, did not return a message left at his office.
If Williams decides to pursue an insanity defense, he would have to notify the court. A judge then would appoint two doctors, at least one a psychiatrist, to examine Pasztor.
Her defense team also could hire additional doctors.
The defense then would try to convince a jury that at the time of the killings she suffered a severe mental disease or defect that caused her to not know right from wrong. The jury would decide if she is responsible for the killings.
"It's a very difficult defense," Crawford said, noting that successful insanity defenses in Indiana are unusual.
In 1977, a jury found Tony Kiritsis not responsible by reason of insanity after he wired the barrel of a shotgun to the neck of a mortgage loan officer, and marched him around downtown Indianapolis on a busy weekday. He spent a decade in custody while the court worked to determine whether he was still insane, and posed a danger to others.
He was released in 1988 and died in 2005.
Lawmakers made such a verdict more difficult after the Kiritsis case by adding an option for jurors to find a defendant "guilty but mentally ill." It's a controversial amendment because such a verdict does not guarantee that a defendant receives mental health care in the Indiana Department of Correction, Crawford said.
Cody Cousins in 2014 pleaded guilty but mentally ill after he fatally stabbed a fellow student in Purdue's Electrical Engineering Building. Cousins committed suicide in his cell in a state prison two months later.
If a jury does find a defendant not responsible because of insanity, a judge then would set a hearing to determine whether the defendant now is insane and dangerous, Crawford said.
Often, the judge will order a 90-day commitment so doctors can evaluate the defendant.
Then, the defendant could be released from custody if he or she is not deemed insane anymore. Otherwise, the court could commit the individual to a state psychiatric hospital for six months before the defendant returned for another evaluation.
After that, the defendant would return for an evaluation each year to revisit whether he or she should remain in the hospital.
"It's rare, but it does happen," Crawford said.
Follow Madeline Buckley on Twitter: @Mabuckley88