Susan Biancardi

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Family

American manic-depressive mother, she shot her sleeping 16-year-old daughter Marcia to death on 2/14/1990 and attempted suicide, but failed. Her younger daughter, Audrey, heard the shot and came in to see her mom with the gun. Her husband was not home at the time. In 10/1990, murder charges were dropped because Audrey took the fifth amendment and refused to testify against her mom. The Prosecutor asked for, and was granted, a grand jury murder indictment against Susan that granted immunity to the child. She was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison on 6/12/1990. A report in 1995 stated that she was being supported emotionally by her husband and daughter, who both continued to care for her. She made an insanity plea, claiming to have no memory of the killing. "The weight of the world was on my shoulders," Biancardi said. "Everything was just collapsing. Marcia was rebelling. She had run away in September. I was very worried about Audrey. I wasn't sleeping. I lay awake all night long." In 1997, a retrial upon appeal that was about to start jury selection was closed when she pleaded guilty, and she was sentenced to life in prison. She will be eligible for parole in 15 years but could be out sooner with the credit of time served.