Woman gets 50 years in prison for murder

A 59-year-old Chicago grandmother was sentenced to 50 years in prison in the stabbing death of a neighbor in a crime she says she doesn’t remember.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported Phyllis Carpenter was sentenced Monday in the death of 60-year-old Benjamin Cole. Carpenter claims the man tried to rape her on the morning of Aug. 2, 2006.

Defense attorney Julie Koehler says Carpenter doesn’t remember hurting Cole because she went into a dissociative state due to trauma suffered when she was raped as a child.

However, prosecutors told jurors Carpenter knew what she was doing and may have killed Cole to get money to feed a drug habit.

Koehler says Carpenter, who suffers a variety of ailments, will probably die in prison, adding the women’s conviction will be appealed.