Hi y’all, it’s Julie Mattson, and this week on Pushing Up Lilies, we’re diving into a shocking and heartbreaking case that’s rocked both the media and the public – former news anchor Angie Mock, is accused of the unthinkable: the brutal murder of her own mother.
This 80-year-old woman, once lovingly cared for by her daughter, was allegedly stabbed to death in what investigators are calling a horrific and violent crime. The suspect? Her own daughter, a familiar face once trusted to deliver our daily news.
What pushes someone over the edge? Could this tragedy have been prevented? And what signs, if any, were missed?
Join me as we peel back the layers of this devastating case and explore the complexities of family, mental health, and the pressures that sometimes build silently behind closed doors.
* Listener discretion is advised.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
00:06
Welcome to Pushing Up Lilies. I’m your host, Julie Mattson. Pushing Up Lilies is a weekly true crime podcast with spine tingling, unusual and terrifyingly true stories from my perspective as a forensic death investigator and a sexual assault nurse examiner.
00:24
Do I have some stories for you? Are you ready? Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Pushing Up Lilies. We just got back from North Dakota, so we were there for like three days and had so much fun.
00:41
We attended a wedding. My husband’s cousin, Brendan Matson and Adriana got married and so it’s a beautiful ceremony and we always love the opportunity to go back to North Dakota and visit friends and family.
00:58
So, it was a lot of fun. There were a lot of people we didn’t get to see because apparently the weather there has been bad and a lot of people are behind combining and I don’t understand the whole farming thing, but they’re evidently trying to get soybeans combined.
01:19
So anyway, we didn’t get to see everybody that we wanted to see, but we saw quite a few people and had a great time. We like to go up there a couple of times a year. We haven’t been as frequently since my mother-in-law passed, but we love to go to Minot to the state fair and we saw Jelly Roll a couple years ago and I think he was there again this past year and so they always have really good acts.
01:46
So if you ever get a chance to go up to Minot, North Dakota to the state fair, we also got engaged in Deadwood and so around state fair time we like to hit the fair in Minot and then head up to Deadwood and are over to Deadwood.
02:02
I don’t know what direction it is but do some gambling and it’s just a cute little town. I love it. It’s really adorable little town. There’s a lot of good food, a lot of casinos, so we love to do that.
02:16
But it was a great time and we’re looking forward to fair season so we can go back. This past week, our office suffered a loss. Our chief medical examiner in Johnson County, who is also kind of under the umbrella of Tarrant County, passed away.
02:37
He had been ill and had been in the hospital. So, Gary Morris, we are praying for his family, and I know it’s hard for everyone in their office. He was such a great mentor to so many people and just an overall nice guy.
02:56
But he will be greatly missed, and I did not get to go to the funeral. I felt terrible, but I had to work that day. I was supposed to work that day, but I was actually out sick last week. So, prayers out to Gary and to his family in Johnson County.
03:14
I know it’s going to be hard to adjust to him being gone. In other news, I mean, pretty much nothing going on here. I think we had a couple of homicides while I was out. I was off yesterday because we just got home yesterday, but I always look forward to going into the office and reading some reports because they’re very interesting, as you can imagine.
03:37
So, I will do that this morning and try to catch up on the news because I have no idea what’s going on in the county. And gosh, I can’t think that there’s anything else going on. I feel like it’s so rushed like October, November, December.
03:54
I don’t know if y’all do, but I mean, I don’t sleep great all the time. And so, I guess two nights ago, I was in a hotel in Fargo and I couldn’t sleep. So, in the middle of the night, I got online and I ordered pies for Thanksgiving, and I ordered a turkey and a ham from Honey baked Ham’s.
04:13
And so, it’s kind of funny how certain things cross your mind in the middle of the night. It’s like, oh, you know, if I can do this now, lying here and not busy and not preoccupied. Although, apparently, I was half asleep, wasn’t paying too close attention because I freaking ordered two hams and two turkeys.
04:32
So, I’m going to have to call them today and let them know that I only need one. There’s not that many of us. I don’t know how I did it. And I should have known when it was $200 that something was wrong.
04:43
But of course, it was three in the morning. And so, I just paid it and went about my merry way and went back to sleep. And then when I woke up, I realized that I ordered two turkeys and two hams. I did order some delicious
04:59
pies though. So, I’m always excited. I always forget I’m not really a baker. I wish I was. I just don’t have a lot of time to cook. And I always forget around the holidays to order my pies in advance.
05:10
And so, then I’m running around on how many of you do this? I’m running around Denton County looking for a dadgum pie that’s not pumpkin or pecan. And it just never goes my way. And so, I had bought a mix to do a pumpkin cheesecake.
05:26
But I love coconut cream pie. And it’s hard to find a good one. So, I ordered one. But anyway, we’ll get onto this week’s episode. This week I want to talk to y’all. And this is a very popular case right now.
05:42
And I like to look at stories that are making headlines and things that are new. A lot of the old stories have just been kind of beat to death. And I like to cover some new stories if I can. This week, we’re looking at a case that shocked both the journalism world and a quiet Wichita neighborhood.
06:01
So, a former television news anchor, once a familiar face on the morning news, now faces a first-degree murder charge for allegedly stabbing and killing her 80-year-old mother inside their home. So, they shared a home together.
06:17
The suspect is 47-year-old Angela who went by Angie Mock. The victim is her mother, Anita Avers. And the question is, what drives a daughter who’s successful, educated, and once trusted to deliver the news to turn violent against her own mother?
06:41
Now, it was Halloween morning, Friday, October 31st in Wichita, Kansas. It’s not too far from where I’m at in North Texas. Around 7.50 AM, a 911 call came in reporting a cutting. Now, when officers arrived, they found a woman standing outside a residence with her hands and clothes covered in blood.
07:04
The woman was Angie Mock. Now, inside the home, her mother, 80-year-old Anita Avers, was found in bed with multiple stab wounds. Of course, what happens when medics arrive is they look to see if the person able to be revived.
07:25
And if they feel like they are, what we call work them in the field, initiate a CLS protocol and intubate and do all the things to try and save their life. And so, in this case, that’s what happened.
07:41
They rushed her to the hospital, but she did not survive. Neighbors were stunned. One told local reporters that a bloodied woman approached their vehicle pleading for help. asking for them to call 911 and then the woman ran back into the house and told dispatchers that she stabbed her mother to save herself.
08:09
So, the question is to save herself from what? Before that morning, Angie Mock was best known for her work as a TV news anchor. From 2011 to 2015, she co-anchored The Morning Show at Fox 2 in St. Louis.
08:28
She also worked at KOKH Fox 25 in Oklahoma City. Now, by all accounts, she was professional, polished, and well-liked by viewers. You can go online and look at her picture. I can tell you that her mugshot doesn’t look anything like her photos from back when she was a news anchor.
08:51
She looks very disheveled. She looks like she’s aged about 20 years, and I don’t say that to be ugly, but she looks like she’s been through it. After leaving television, she transitioned into corporate sales, and she most recently had been working for a data management software company.
09:11
So that’s quite a change going from news anchor to data software management. Her social media painted the picture of a polished professional, someone who’d like built their life on communication, credibility, and composure, and we talked about that last week.
09:29
We see that a lot. I mean, everybody’s Facebook is made to look like the dream, the dream life. And I love how a lot of these influencers are coming out now, and they’re recording without makeup, and they have their PJs on, and they talk about things that are not always perfect.
09:50
And I love that because it’s so much more realistic. We don’t want the kids now to think that everyone’s life is always perfect. Then when things go wrong, they can’t handle it. And social media, as we all know, greatly affects everybody.
10:08
But as we’ve seen before, appearances rarely tell the full story. The Sedgwick County Police Department released limited details, and I’m sure that’s all they had at the time. I mean, it hasn’t been that long ago that this happened, but officers arrived at 752.
10:28
And this just always amazes me because the 911 wall call came in at 750. Officers got there at 752. And I mean, the response is just overwhelming. And that happens here. They’ll report deaths to me, and it’s like, okay, the police got there two minutes later, and EMS pronounced four minutes later.
10:50
I’m like, were y’all in their backyard? How did you get there so fast? And these guys are earlier on every corner apparently and can respond very quickly, which is amazing They found mock inside injured and They found her mother in bed unresponsive with multiple stab wounds Now the weapon hasn’t been publicly identified But police did confirm that it was a cutting instrument.
11:21
So we’re gonna assume I mean, it could have been a lot of things could have been a knife could have been a box cutter something sharp Angie was taken to a local hospital for treatment Before being booked into the Sedgwick County Jail on a first-degree murder charge Her bond was set at one million dollars Now it is the police’s responsibility to make sure that the person Doesn’t have a medical emergency prior to transporting them to jail So that’s the reason for that.
11:56
Apparently, she had injuries, I don’t know how bad they were. I’m not finding any details on what her injuries were or where they were. If she was covered in blood like the initial report said, it was probably hard to know until they did some cleaning.
12:13
But from an investigator standpoint, there’s a lot of red flags and a lot of unanswered questions. So, the location of the attack in the victim’s bed very much suggests surprise or vulnerability. Doesn’t sound like Angie was being threatened at all if her mother was in bed.
12:39
Don’t know her mother’s health status, so I’m not quite sure. All the reports kinda lead us to believe that Angie was her caregiver. But the suspect’s self-inflicted injuries are often seen in defensive or post-assault panic.
12:57
They try to make it look like it was self-defense or try to hurt themselves to make it look like there was some form of a struggle. So that’s not completely unusual. The statement about saving herself shows the possibility of delusion or emotional distress.
13:20
Now, investigators will definitely, as they should, be looking at Angie’s mental health history, her use of medication, her use of drugs and alcohol, and relationship patterns to see if they can find what may have triggered this.
13:42
These factors often surface in cases involving family violence among adult children and elderly parents. And we’ve talked about this before. This form of domestic violence is sometimes overlooked. We often see the husband abuse the wife or the wife abuse the husband, but it’s not too common to see children abuse the parents as much as it is to see parents abuse the children.
14:13
So, it’s kind of an interesting case because it’s a little bit different. Now, neighbors describe Anita as kind, quiet, and fiercely independent. So, at 80, she apparently still lived in her own home.
14:29
I believe I saw somewhere on a Facebook comment that she was still working. So, I’m not 100% sure again of her health status or her mental status, but she raised her daughter, supported her education, and celebrated her daughter’s media career.
14:47
So. There are photos online of them smiling together at holidays and family events, but behind closed doors there was tension, strain, health issues, like something was going on. Now investigators are going to examine whether there were caregiver stressors or dementia related behavioral changes or financial disputes.
15:16
Of course, they’re going to look into all that because all those are possibilities. Family murders often stem from a combination of situational pressure and emotional pressures, but no single motive has been released at this time, so we’re not 100% sure.
15:36
Cases like this raise a lot of critical questions about mental health and middle-aged adults caring for aging parents. It’s difficult. It’s a situation that I guess we all know eventually is probably going to happen to us.
15:54
We never look forward to it. I always thought as you got older you mellowed out a little bit, but sometimes I think that some people get more aggressive. Of course especially we’re going to see that in dementia because they eventually will become slightly aggressive, but I just remember as my parents grew older you know I would hear them like threatening one another and I never really thought that they would hurt one another or that anything would happen.
16:24
I just would hear it and I’d be like you know seriously y’all been married for however many years 40 something before they both passed. I can remember my mom telling my dad one time that he was going to kill her and of course you know I take it seriously because of what I do for a living and the things that I see.
16:45
I mean we all watch tv too, so we know what the possibilities are. even though we don’t really want to believe that that would happen, especially in our family. But, you know, I go over there and I remove every sharp object.
16:59
I mean, I took every knife, every pair of scissors, every box cutter. I mean, even the forks. I mean, anything that you can, like, stab anybody with or hurt anybody with, I took. We took all of the weapons out of the house.
17:14
She would have had to, like, stab him with a fingernail because that’s all that was left. I mean, there was nothing left in that house that anybody could have hurt anybody with that was sharp. You have to take it seriously because you just don’t know.
17:28
People snap, people get angry, there are financial issues, people get emotional. And then many times, I’m sure, as with my parents, there were situations that I was completely unaware of going on between the two of them.
17:41
Caring for parents is hard. The CDC reports that nearly one in five caregivers experience major depressive symptoms. So, in high stress relationships, especially between adults and children and elderly parents, there’s resentment and there’s isolation and mental illness can quickly escalate.
18:05
Now if Angie’s claim of self-defense was genuine, investigators are gonna need to determine whether it aligns with physical evidence. Were there any signs of a struggle in the bedroom? And did the mother have any defensive wounds?
18:20
Cause if not, we know like mom was asleep, she snuck up on her. Forensic nursing is about connecting the physical findings to the psychological state. Every wound tells a story. So, at this point, investigators are still piecing together the timeline.
18:39
Was there an argument that morning? Did neighbors hear anything? Was there a 911 call from inside the house before the stabbing? So, the autopsy results are gonna be key. The pathologist will determine how many wounds there were, their locations, and whether they were inflicted rapidly or over time.
19:05
Toxicology screens on mom and daughter could reveal medication interactions, sedatives, or other substances that may have played a role. Was Angie drinking? Was Angie under the influence of drugs? If she was caring for her mother, and her mother was bed bound, did she over medicate her mother.
19:26
There’s a lot of things that toxicology could tell us in cases like this. So, if charges hold, prosecutors are gonna likely argue premeditation, supported by the number of wounds and the victim’s vulnerable position.
19:41
Because of the fact she was in bed, it’s like shooting somebody in the back. They’re obviously running from you. They weren’t coming at you. That never looks good when you’re trying to defend yourself.
19:54
Now, the defense may explore diminished capacity, or they may try to say that Angie was suffering a mental health crisis. This case spread quickly across news outlets, not only because the suspect was a former anchor, but because it exposes the sharp contrast between public image and private reality.
20:18
And we all know that, we see stories of famous people who look like everything’s great, and then all of a sudden, they’re being arrested for something, or all of a sudden, this big, major issue happens in their family.
20:34
Former colleagues of Angie’s expressed shock. They say that she was kind and steady. Others admitted that she had become a little bit distant after she left the TV world. So, after she quit being a news anchor, she changed a little bit.
20:51
It’s a reminder that mental health struggles often hide behind the most composed faces. And we’ve always known that. There are a lot of people out in public who are struggling, and we would never know.
21:02
We’ve been literally never know. So as a forensic death investigator, I’ve seen hundreds of family tragedies like this and they don’t always make national news, but they do happen more often than people realize.
21:16
So, caregivers can reach a breaking point when untreated mental illness mixes with emotional strain. The results can be fatal. I know that when I did home health, I visited the homes of people who were bed bound and needed like wound care or IV antibiotics.
21:35
And I saw the struggles that the family members were going through. Having to care for someone day in and day out. I know a couple of times I got bit by little ladies that were bedridden and I thought, man, I mean, over time, if you were stuck in a house with somebody that required your 100% attention, it could start to get to you, especially if you felt like you were being like, you know, if you’re being bit and things like that,
22:07
those people need the opportunity to get away. Home health is always nice. I think we had an aide or two that would go out to houses and do dishes or, you know, give the family a little bit of a break.
22:19
And that is necessary. I mean, I know it might be expensive and it might be a cost a lot of families don’t want to take on, but oh my gosh, you’ve got to have a break. So, this case forces us to look beyond the surface, beyond the smiling anchor and the loving daughter and the quiet neighborhood.
22:40
Behind it all, there is a mother gone and a daughter who now faces life in prison and then a community left with questions that may never have clear answers. I’m kind of anxious to see how this plays out, what her defense attorneys come up with, you know, whether they’re going to have a press conference or talk about it.
23:03
Yeah, so it’s all pretty new. They haven’t released a lot of information. Obviously, we do feel like she was stabbed with a sharp object. We don’t know when it was, but we don’t know any other details about why or even when.
23:17
I mean, it could have happened the day before and she could have just come running out of the house at that specific time. So, we’ll see. We’ll have to keep an eye on this one. I just want to encourage everybody, please share the podcast, share with your friends.
23:31
Subscribe, like my Facebook page, like my Instagram, go to my murder merch store. There’s one. in person at the McCart Street Mercantile in Crumb, Texas. Or you can shop online on my website, PushingUpLilies.com.
23:48
Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook for updates on this case and others that we’re covering. And you can also listen to past episodes wherever you stream your podcasts. So don’t forget. Looking forward to a busy week.
24:04
I have a ton of homework. I think I’m in week four, maybe, of my class for NP school. So, I have one more class that lasts eight weeks that will be finished, I think, at the end of the year. And then I’ve got a little bit of a break, and I will start my clinical in May of next year.
24:25
And then I’ll have about 10 months of clinical. God, I didn’t realize it would take so long. I guess I thought it would be a little bit easier than it is. I don’t know why. I guess because I know a lot of people who have their NP that don’t seem extremely intelligent and I’ve always thought it may not be that difficult, but gosh, kudos to everybody who’s done it because it’s a butt kicker.
24:48
I’m ready to get out of school and I do not want my PhD. I can tell you that right now. I’ve always liked school, but I’ve never loved school. I mean, it’ll be fine. I’m fine. It’s just, whew, ready for it to be over.
25:02
Anyway, I’m doing my first clinical at the office of Dr. Thomas Fleedner, who is my medical director for my med spa. So, he is an OB-GYN in Lewisville, Texas, and I’m super excited about that and so appreciative.
25:14
And then I will be doing my second and third clinical at, if all goes as planned, with Dr. J.C. Walden at the health department for Denton County in Lewisville. So, it’ll give me a good array of pediatrics, OB-GYN, women’s health, and family practice.
25:33
And that’s exactly what I need to get my degree. So really looking forward to that. I hope y’all have a… amazing week, try to stay out of trouble. Just remember to stay curious, stay safe, and I’ll see you next week.
25:49
Bye y’all. Thank you so much for joining me today on Pushing Up Lily’s. If you like this podcast and would like to share with others, please do me a quick favor and leave a review on Apple Podcast. This helps to make the podcast more visible to the public.
26:06
Thanks again for spending your time with me and be sure to visit me at PushingUpLilies.com for merchandise and past episodes.