Abington woman pleads guilty but mentally ill to killing, dismembering parents in 2023

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Pa. (KYW Newsradio) — A 45-year-old Abington woman accused of killing and dismembering her parents last year has pleaded guilty but mentally ill .

Verity Ann Beck will spend the rest of her life in prison without the possibility of parole for shooting her parents — 73-year-old Reid Beck and 72-year-old Miriam Beck — in the head and then dismembering their bodies using a chainsaw in January 2023.

Prosecutors say before the murders, Verity’s parents accused her of making unauthorized charges from their accounts. They say she received angry texts from them when they noticed a missing check and unauthorized charges.
Verity pleaded guilty to charges including murder and abuse of corpse, but mentally ill.

Defense lawyer James Lyons is chief homicide lawyer for the Montgomery County Office of Public Defender.

“The sentence is going to be the same she would have got,” he said, “what’s going to be different is how she is housed, the quality of her life from day to day because of her classification.”

Montgomery County Assistant District Attorney Samantha Cauffman says she will get any mental health treatment she may need while she is in prison.

“But rest assured, she is going to jail for the rest of her life and this family was saved from having to go through the pain of reliving it through trial,” Cauffman said.