GUILTY OH - Brenda Powell, 50, stabbed to death by daughter Sydney, Akron, Mar. 3, 2020

[RickshawFan]

An attorney was appointed by the court for Sydney Powell's appeal. It is Stephen Grachanin. She apparently is indigent now. Wonder why Dad isn't paying for the appeal? He paid for the trial attorney.

I didn't know that States paid for appeal attorneys?

The State pays for that level of appeal for indigents. IMO there's an entitlement to appeal within 30 days or something. I doubt it will go anywhere: Sydney was given every possible latitude.

IIRC from the Arias case, there are other types of appeal that the State won't pay for.

 

[RickshawFan]

I wish Powell had had Shirilla's judge. There would have been a lot less murkiness in this case, and a lot less denial (which is kinda the family's hallmark). IMO the Shirilla judge (Russo) would have more clearly reflected the position of the jury, emphasized the horror, and cruelty, the deception, etc.

 

[RickshawFan]

IMO Sydney's library lie was a big "tell". She had never done anything for the community, either volunteer or work (maybe some random babysitting, but definitely not working at MacDonalds). Her life was all me, me, me, and infantilized. If I had been a clued-in mom, I would have been asking all kinds of questions about the "library job", even just to encourage, because it's such an outlier in Sydney's life.

 

[ifindedout]

Did she have a BF or guy pals? Prom date?

 

[Trebor5591]

IMO The family dynamics were all concealed under the umbrella "Sydney is schizophrenic and was insane at the time." Pointing to one member of the family (a kind of scapegoating) as being individually the cause (and then letting her off on the grounds of mental illness) blurs the context. IMO the impulse to kill was not in a vacuum.

If Sydney was insane, she coulda randomly killed someone else, but this wasn't random, and there was a preceding history of lies and denials.

Also, the family seems to have very black-and-white thinking. Sydney was a "good girl", a "good student", and therefore she couldn't be bad in any way. Brenda saw the lies, and this seemed to turn Sydney into something less than good, when, in reality people are complex and textured, and EVERYONE lies. Sometimes lying creates boundaries and distance, and young people need this!

IMO something seems very off in this case, because family claims to "speak for Brenda" as though they know what would be in Brenda's head, "Brenda and Sydney were best friends" (this gets complicated, since moms are supposed to have the duties of moms, not peer friends), the veritable STACK of lies and denials. I dunno, but the 24/7 tracking of the family members with 360 (or whatever that app is called) seems very intrusive and problematic to me.

Heck, I wouldn't have been wanting my parents to track my every movement when I was in college. There'd be no room for boundaries, privacy, exploration of the world.... And the parents kept relentlessly hounding Sydney about why she was in one place or another.

We know about the tracking because Brenda would ask Sydney why she was spending so much time at the library (SP lied and said she had a job there), and also because Dad left his phone at work so Sydney wouldn't find out he was headed home to check her out.

And why were the parents rushing home to check things out? I don't get this either.... They could easily have made the necessary phone calls to campus from work and connected with Sydney later. Why was it so urgent?

Why was 360 needed, rather than just occasional texts between family members?

Myself, I would HATE all this scrutiny and urgency. I'd be lying all the time. I would unlikely have been in denial mode internally (IMO this was a big part of Sydney's problem), but I'm sure as heck not giving out the secrets of my life to my parents!

Excellent points. Perhaps the 360 app could have been put in place when Sydney was still underage and in high school, and then just left in place by the parents as she turned 18 and Sydney was too timid to object? MOO

 

[RickshawFan]

Excellent points. Perhaps the 360 app could have been put in place when Sydney was still underage and in high school, and then just left in place by the parents as she turned 18 and Sydney was too timid to object? MOO

But the parents had the app on their phones, too. It’s all very weird.

 

[RickshawFan]

Malarcik was the defense attorney in the pizza murder:

 

[everlearning]

My family has Life360 on our phones. Our grown daughter wants us to keep an eye on it while she travels out of town. We ask her to do the same for us. "So you will know what direction to send the FBi" In town, our locations may or may not be turned on.

 

[RickshawFan]

My family has Life360 on our phones. Our grown daughter wants us to keep an eye on it while she travels out of town. We ask her to do the same for us. "So you will know what direction to send the FBi" In town, our locations may or may not be turned on.

That's the thing, though. I can see Life 360 being used when someone is going beyond their usual orbit, but to monitor a young adult that way 24/7 seems very strange to me, especially if you want your child to grow up and explore the world. I would guess something was going on with Sydney, and that she wasn't the 110% golden child they all want to portray. The habit and ease of lying really catches my attention. This facility was pointed out several times during the trial (e.g. pros psychologist), and illustrated by the university officials.

IMO we didn't hear about a lot of the lies.

 

[Tanager]

I think your take is spot-on. The parents had escalated concern about Sydney for some reason, and it did not appear to be concern for her safety or her mental health. It appears to be concern for her irresponsibility and inaccurate relaying of information and lying.

In my family, our kids have all known that our parental contract with them is simple: the reward for responsible behavior and honesty is greater and greater degrees of independence, and our goal as parents is to allow them to have the maximum level of independence they can safely and responsibly handle. Conversely, the reward for irresponsible behavior and lying is that we clamp down on privileges, freedom, and trust. I would have to be very far down the road of mistrust to rise to the level of Life 360, myself. I don't think it is appropriate in the normal course of events for parents to monitor their college-aged student's daily whereabouts. Maybe if you have data in the form of highly unsafe behaviors in the past, but I think I'd find another way to be near to them in that case.

I suspect that Brenda was the "enforcer" parent who held Sydney accountable more often than her father, and that may be why he sent Brenda to address Sydney. I think Brenda was harder to manipulate and control, and that may be one of the main reasons that Sydney was enraged. I think Sydney's mechanism for exerting control was dividing the adults and manipulating them. See the exchange with the teachers and Sydney avoiding a test for a prime example of this behavior. She did not approach the teacher who gave the test, she approached a more manipulable subject.

Sydney resented Brenda for not ceding control and falling for her manipulations. That is a very normal source of conflict during adolescent development. However, something is different here. Sydney is different in her pathological need to control.

If you are either the passenger or the driver and there are two of you vying for the driver position most people would not ragefully kill the driver... even in the haze of adolescent hormone poisoning and impulsiveness. Know what I mean?

 

[RickshawFan]

I think your take is spot-on. The parents had escalated concern about Sydney for some reason, and it did not appear to be concern for her safety or her mental health. It appears to be concern for her irresponsibility and inaccurate relaying of information and lying.

In my family, our kids have all known that our parental contract with them is simple: the reward for responsible behavior and honesty is greater and greater degrees of independence, and our goal as parents is to allow them to have the maximum level of independence they can safely and responsibly handle. Conversely, the reward for irresponsible behavior and lying is that we clamp down on privileges, freedom, and trust. I would have to be very far down the road of mistrust to rise to the level of Life 360, myself. I don't think it is appropriate in the normal course of events for parents to monitor their college-aged student's daily whereabouts. Maybe if you have data in the form of highly unsafe behaviors in the past, but I think I'd find another way to be near to them in that case.

I suspect that Brenda was the "enforcer" parent who held Sydney accountable more often than her father, and that may be why he sent Brenda to address Sydney. I think Brenda was harder to manipulate and control, and that may be one of the main reasons that Sydney was enraged. I think Sydney's mechanism for exerting control was dividing the adults and manipulating them. See the exchange with the teachers and Sydney avoiding a test for a prime example of this behavior. She did not approach the teacher who gave the test, she approached a more manipulable subject.

Sydney resented Brenda for not ceding control and falling for her manipulations. That is a very normal source of conflict during adolescent development. However, something is different here. Sydney is different in her pathological need to control.

If you are either the passenger or the driver and there are two of you vying for the driver position most people would not ragefully kill the driver... even in the haze of adolescent hormone poisoning and impulsiveness. Know what I mean?

The other piece I don't understand is why the parents went rushing home. As though Sydney going home from college was an extreme emergency. Above all, why mom would rush home when dad had been assured by Sydney that all was well at university, and Sydney was just wanting to take a break. Dad answered that quite reasonably by suggesting they could talk about it and maybe take a break for the summer. This is far from being an emergency, unless there was prior behavior that turned it into one. And I don't for a moment believe Sydney was threatening to harm herself. Barring that, they couldn't take care of it at the end of the day, after work?

Also, Sydney has startlingly little in the way of accomplishments: no intellectual talent, no AP's, average sports (not a college athlete), no volunteer work, no leadership, babysitting at games as her only work history, no musical talent, no artistic skill... There's no meat on that resume! Getting a 3.5 grade average in a non-competitive high school is nothing special: you get grade conscious (her teacher described Sydney this way) and do your homework. That's it! Even the teacher had almost nothing to say in terms of talent or special features. It's not a compliment to describe a student as "grade conscious" or "works hard": you say that when you don't have anything else to say that's specific and illuminating. It's not brilliant, bright, curious, creative, dogged, imaginative, innovative, inventive, forward thinking, mature..... And the teacher couldn't remember anything specific except the panic attack and the ski lessons?

Frankly, it makes no sense to me that Sydney had a scholarship to university, though maybe there was some hinky backstory to that, too?

I'm betting there's some serious pathology here, and the parents had a whiff of it, and were in denial or thought they could head it off. Even all the malingering for 3 years is OUT there. The defense psychologists didn't seem to bring themselves to recognizing it; I'll bet they'd never seen a version that extreme. Note: in her mugshot her hair is neat and tidy, no matter she's in a straight jacket. So much for the malingering crazy bird's nest mess she concocted for trial....

 

[BeginnerSleuther]

The other piece I don't understand is why the parents went rushing home. As though Sydney going home from college was an extreme emergency. Above all, why mom would rush home when dad had been assured by Sydney that all was well at university, and Sydney was just wanting to take a break. Dad answered that quite reasonably by suggesting they could talk about it and maybe take a break for the summer. This is far from being an emergency, unless there was prior behavior that turned it into one. And I don't for a moment believe Sydney was threatening to harm herself. Barring that, they couldn't take care of it at the end of the day, after work?

Also, Sydney has startlingly little in the way of accomplishments: no intellectual talent, no AP's, average sports (not a college athlete), no volunteer work, no leadership, babysitting at games as her only work history, no musical talent, no artistic skill... There's no meat on that resume! Getting a 3.5 grade average in a non-competitive high school is nothing special: you get grade conscious (her teacher described Sydney this way) and do your homework. That's it! Even the teacher had almost nothing to say in terms of talent or special features. It's not a compliment to describe a student as "grade conscious" or "works hard": you say that when you don't have anything else to say that's specific and illuminating. It's not brilliant, bright, curious, creative, dogged, imaginative, innovative, inventive, forward thinking, mature..... And the teacher couldn't remember anything specific except the panic attack and the ski lessons?

Frankly, it makes no sense to me that Sydney had a scholarship to university, though maybe there was some hinky backstory to that, too?

I'm betting there's some serious pathology here, and the parents had a whiff of it, and were in denial or thought they could head it off. Even all the malingering for 3 years is OUT there. The defense psychologists didn't seem to bring themselves to recognizing it; I'll bet they'd never seen a version that extreme. Note: in her mugshot her hair is neat and tidy, no matter she's in a straight jacket. So much for the malingering crazy bird's nest mess she concocted for trial....

Honestly, that sounds like an average student. I'm not seeing glaring pathology in what you listed here. Obviously, knowing how this ended, we know there's some pathology, but her academic history that you listed doesn't suggest any red flags to me.

Scholarships can be given for any number of reasons. It doesn't have to be about grades or activities/citizenship in school.

MOO

 

[RickshawFan]

Honestly, that sounds like an average student. I'm not seeing glaring pathology in what you listed here. Obviously, knowing how this ended, we know there's some pathology, but her academic history that you listed doesn't suggest any red flags to me.

Scholarships can be given for any number of reasons. It doesn't have to be about grades or activities/citizenship in school.

MOO

Yes, exactly. Very average. But that's not what the family is projecting.

I'm not arguing for pathology in the school record. I do think it's very strange that Sydney returning home was treated like a major emergency, requiring both parents to leave their jobs.

I believe Sydney was on an academic scholarship to university, but I don't know how much it was for. However, we do know it was partial, not full, since that's what set the murder in motion (Dad wanted to write a check). I have trouble reconciling what I know about her from the witness stand (i.e. how "average" she is, with no outstanding accomplishments) with getting an academic scholarship.

 

[BeginnerSleuther]

Yes, exactly. Very average. But that's not what the family is projecting.

I'm not arguing for pathology in the school record. I do think it's very strange that Sydney returning home was treated like a major emergency, requiring both parents to leave their jobs.

I believe Sydney was on an academic scholarship to university, but I don't know how much it was for. However, we do know it was partial, not full, since that's what set the murder in motion (Dad wanted to write a check). I have trouble reconciling what I know about her from the witness stand (i.e. how "average" she is, with no outstanding accomplishments) with getting an academic scholarship.

I haven't really kept up with the trial so you could be right. Just commenting on what I read when it happened and what I'm reading here. Agree with what you write above. I wonder if her scholarship wasn't purely academic.

 

[Irishknit]

I haven't really kept up with the trial so you could be right. Just commenting on what I read when it happened and what I'm reading here. Agree with what you write above. I wonder if her scholarship wasn't purely academic.

I wonder if it might have been a "legacy" scholarship. Alumni family members, civic groups that support family members, that sort.

 

[NeverPersonal]

The other piece I don't understand is why the parents went rushing home. As though Sydney going home from college was an extreme emergency. Above all, why mom would rush home when dad had been assured by Sydney that all was well at university, and Sydney was just wanting to take a break. Dad answered that quite reasonably by suggesting they could talk about it and maybe take a break for the summer. This is far from being an emergency, unless there was prior behavior that turned it into one. And I don't for a moment believe Sydney was threatening to harm herself. Barring that, they couldn't take care of it at the end of the day, after work?

Also, Sydney has startlingly little in the way of accomplishments: no intellectual talent, no AP's, average sports (not a college athlete), no volunteer work, no leadership, babysitting at games as her only work history, no musical talent, no artistic skill... There's no meat on that resume! Getting a 3.5 grade average in a non-competitive high school is nothing special: you get grade conscious (her teacher described Sydney this way) and do your homework. That's it! Even the teacher had almost nothing to say in terms of talent or special features. It's not a compliment to describe a student as "grade conscious" or "works hard": you say that when you don't have anything else to say that's specific and illuminating. It's not brilliant, bright, curious, creative, dogged, imaginative, innovative, inventive, forward thinking, mature..... And the teacher couldn't remember anything specific except the panic attack and the ski lessons?

Frankly, it makes no sense to me that Sydney had a scholarship to university, though maybe there was some hinky backstory to that, too?

I'm betting there's some serious pathology here, and the parents had a whiff of it, and were in denial or thought they could head it off. Even all the malingering for 3 years is OUT there. The defense psychologists didn't seem to bring themselves to recognizing it; I'll bet they'd never seen a version that extreme. Note: in her mugshot her hair is neat and tidy, no matter she's in a straight jacket. So much for the malingering crazy bird's nest mess she concocted for trial....

they seem pretty helicopter-y to me, and i dont think quitting college was "acceptable" to her family (i get it - they spent tons of money and time on this) and that's part of why she flipped out so brutally and aggressively. i feel like sydney is the kind of person where even therapy wouldnt help her bc she'd just desperately try to manipulate the therapist.

 

[NeverPersonal]

Yes, exactly. Very average. But that's not what the family is projecting.

I'm not arguing for pathology in the school record. I do think it's very strange that Sydney returning home was treated like a major emergency, requiring both parents to leave their jobs.

I believe Sydney was on an academic scholarship to university, but I don't know how much it was for. However, we do know it was partial, not full, since that's what set the murder in motion (Dad wanted to write a check). I have trouble reconciling what I know about her from the witness stand (i.e. how "average" she is, with no outstanding accomplishments) with getting an academic scholarship.

heck where i'm from there's an academic scholarship for having the best duck call.

 

[ifindedout]

I wonder if it might have been a "legacy" scholarship. Alumni family members, civic groups that support family members, that sort.

Mount Union's scholarships
Scholarships and Grants | University of Mount Union

 

[RickshawFan]

I haven't really kept up with the trial so you could be right. Just commenting on what I read when it happened and what I'm reading here. Agree with what you write above. I wonder if her scholarship wasn't purely academic.

IIRC it was academic, but she just doesn't seem especially academic to me. I'm saying this from my professional experience in academics and college recruitment. When all a recommender pretty much says "she works hard and is conscientious about grades" that candidate is not going in a "special pile". A 3.5 high school grade average doesn't grab me at all (especially if there are no AP's or college-level classes), since there are hundreds of thousands of students in that category in each year's crop. This type of student would not be a student I'd recommend myself if I was asked to write a recommendation, and from what I know of Sydney's record, she would not have been admitted to the college I recruited for. I need to see memorable qualities that separate a young person from the pack of 3.5-ers; even a sparkle would work for me.

Cf that English teacher who didn't even remember the incident she was supposed to be testifying about: defense attorneys reminded her after Sydney wanted to use it as evidence of her malingered schizophrenia. And then all she could say when evaluating her was pretty much "she worked hard, was grade conscious, and was nice to teachers".

My students that I write recommendations for I can remember for DECADES. The last batch of students—I would have gladly written recommendations for all 70 of them, and I can remember every single one.

It didn't sound like Sydney was offered scholarships at the State-level universities: this is quite telling for me. States have been eager in the last couple of decades to retain their home-grown bright young people.

No doubt I'm flogging a dead horse, but it irks me how much undeserved molly-coddling Sydney has had over the years. Having a scholarship at a nice university (I was VERY impressed by their administrators) seems out-of-line with what I observe about her, and as for being out on bond, getting a minimal sentence, and getting pampered all through trial on the basis of "she's an honors student" presses all my buttons. And with all the malingering, lying, crazy-acting going on, I see all kinds of red flags.

 

[RickshawFan]

heck where i'm from there's an academic scholarship for having the best duck call.

Truth.

But FWIW I doubt Sydney has a good duck call. It would be unremarkable, and that's kinda my point.