Samantha Bevans, Palo, Iowa woman found guilty of smothering stepmom to death after bragging on Snapchat killing the woman as she slept. Conviction follows boyfriend previously being found guilty of the crime. Woman now faces mandatory life sentencing.
An Iowa jury has sentenced a woman to life in jail after finding her guilty of first degree murder after she had taken to bragging on Snapchat that she had smothered to death her stepmother with a pillow on July 14, 2022.
Samantha Bevans, 35, of Palo was found guilty unanimanously by the jury less than an hour on Monday after hearing testimony last week.
Sixth Judicial District Judge Chad Kepros set her sentencing for June 14 in Benton County District Court. She faces a life sentence without the possibility of parole, the gazette reported.
Under Iowa state law, non-juvenile defendants convicted of first-degree murder must serve a mandatory sentence of life without the possibility of parole.
Bevans last week took the stand in her own defense and said her boyfriend, Tacoa Talley, was controlling her and he was the one who killed her stepmother, Jodie Bevans, 58. Talley was convicted last year of first-degree murderin the case. Additionally, he was ordered to pay restitution of $150,000.
Samantha Bevans’s testimony contradicted some of her statements to law enforcement during the investigation, and the jury saw a Snapchat video she made after the killing — confessing to the crime.
She attempted to explain the video as a way to get a reaction out of Talley because she was angry at him. She said she didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t because he was manipulating her.
In the video, Bevans, smiling and jumping around, says, ‘I killed her. I killed her myself,’ as Talley encourages her to ‘keep going.’’
‘And I knew this would happen, so good job,’ Talley said.
‘We killed her,’ Samantha says in the video, then makes an obscene gesture to the camera.
‘Yeah we did,’ Talley says.
Samantha Bevans then appears happy as she looks directly into the camera and gives a wide, open-mouthed smile before holding up her middle finger to the camera.
Bevans, during testimony Thursday, admitted she put a pillow partially over Jodie’s face and was going to step on it to hold it down. But then Jodie threw up and she couldn’t go through with it, she said.
Jodie was still breathing when she left the bedroom, she stated, which is why she told an investigator she didn’t think Jodie was dead.
She said Talley, acting alone, held down her stepmother and suffocated her.
However, Special Agent Holly Witt of the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, in rebuttal testimony, said Bevans told her and another investigator how she placed the pillow fully over Jodie’s face. She demonstrated for the investigators on a table how she was ‘grinding’ her foot on top of the pillow over Jodie’s face.
Jodie Bevans died by a asphyxiation, the state medical examiner testified. She had abrasions on her face that were consistent with something like a pillow being held over her face, and a blunt force trauma on her left cheek that could have been made by something hitting her, such as a fist.
Prosecutors stated the victim was was already asleep when she was attacked and never had the chance to ‘put up a fight.’
Prosecutors said the stepmother was killed for ‘pay back and pay out.’ Prosecutors stated Bevans wanted retribution after Jodie kicked her out of the house after sneaking her boyfriend in the house, and things going missing.
Prosecutors also noted that Samantha Bevans had penned a to-do list and one of the listed items was ‘Kill Jodie,’ KCRG reported.
Samantha claimed she was high on meth and not in her right state of mind when she made the video along with when she wrote the ‘to do’ note.
During the trial, Samantha Bevans claimed diminished responsibility. But two experts testified Thursday she was able to premeditate, deliberate and form intent.
Rosanna Jones-Thurman, a clinical psychologist licensed in Iowa and Nebraska, testified she conducted a mental examination of Bevans in 2022 and found she didn’t have any severe or significant mental health issues.
