Sarra Elizabeth Gilbert was born on January 17, 1989 to Floyd Gilbert and Mari Cox Gilbert, who was raised in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, but in 1987 relocated to upstate New York with her three eldest daughters—Shannan, Sherre, and Sarra to escape Floyd Gilbert, who was struggling with heroin addiction.

Mari Gilbert took on various jobs over the years, including roles as a retail manager, teaching assistant, and Walmart employee, while continuing to grapple with personal challenges.

Sarra Elizabeth Gilbert had a turbulent childhood and survived an abusive relationship as a teenager. Sarra Gilbert was the third daughter of Floyd Gilbert and Mari Cox Gilbert . Floyd was addicted to heroin and suffered from schizophrenia.

She was in and out of foster care, and when she was living with her mother, she was molested by one of her boyfriends. 

Sarra had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder when she was 12, She spent several years in and out of mental health facilities, and her doctors finally discovered a medication that kept her stable.

By the time Sarra was 14, she’d already had an abortion. At 16, she dropped out of high school and moved in with her 22 year old boyfriend Emmanuel Martinez.

She soon got pregnant again and in 2009 gave birth to a son named Hayden. However, her relationship with Emmanuel Martinez, Hayden’s father turned abusive, and Sarra spent some time in a domestic violence shelter.

Sarra’s family helped her with Hayden when they could, including her oldest sister, Shannan. But in May 2010, Shannan vanished under suspicious circumstances while working as an escort at a client’s house on Long Island. after Shannan’s death, she was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.

In January 2014, Mari and Sherre visited Sarra at her house. Sarra announced that they both were demons and tried to attack Mari before the police came and hospitalized Sarra at Orange Regional Medical Center.

in February, 2014, and again in July, 2014 she was hospitalized again after she’d become convinced that her son was a demon. Sarra spent a summer at that hospital before being transferred to Rockland Psychiatric Center, where she stayed until December 2014.

In 2015, She was Diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and compelled by a court order, to began receiving a long-acting injectable antipsychotic medication Haldol Decanoate. Sarra was doing much better but by the end of 2015 shs started using illegal drugs, mostly pot but also ecstasy

On Feb. 19, 2016, Sarra drowned her puppy in a bathtub in front of her son because she thought it was the rapper Eminem and it wanted to harm her. Mari Gilbert reported Sarra to the police and Sarra was sent St. Mary’s Hospital by a police, but she was so combative that the police took her to Mid-Hudson Forensic Psychiatric Center, a law-enforcement facility. Hayden Srra’s son stayed with Mari.

By March 2016 The state awarded temporary custody of Hayden to Mary.

July, 2016, Sarra overdosed and transported to Albany Medical Center. The drug had brought her body temperature up to 107.1 ̊F, forcing doctors to pack her in ice. Once awake, Sarra was so delirious and combative that the staff induced a coma to prevent her from harming herself. Once Sarra was released from the hospital Mari and Sherre tried visiting Sarra at home, but Sarra wouldn’t open the door. Mari left a cup of coffee for her. Sarra believed it had been poisoned and dumped it in the trash.

On the morning of July 23, 2016, Sarra texted her sister Sherre and told her that she was hearing voices. Then, Sarra called Mari, who rushed to her apartment in Ellenville, New York. She arrived around 10:30 a.m. and sat on the couch next to Sarra.

Unbeknownst to Mari, however, Sarra had concealed a kitchen knife beneath a throw pillow — and she suddenly pulled it out and started stabbing Mari in the chest. Mari tried to fight back, but Sarra sat on top of her and continued her violent assault. She plunged the knife into her so viciously that the blade bent and the tip broke off.

After stabbing Mari hundreds of times, Sarra grabbed a fire extinguisher and bashed her mother in the head and face before spraying foam from the device in her mouth. After she was sure Mari was dead, Sarra smoked a cigarette and listened to music.

When Sherre couldn’t get in touch with Mari later that morning, she called the police and asked them to carry out a welfare check at Sarra’s apartment.

July 23, 2016, 1:45 p.m police officers performing a welfare check at the home of 27-year-old Sarra Gilbert found her mother, Mari Gilbert, lying in a pool of blood and riddled with stab wounds. As soon as the officers walked into the apartment, Sarra told them, “I am under arrest.”

Sarra suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, and voices in her head had been telling her that her mom was dangerous. So, when Mari stopped by to check on her that morning, Sarra attacked her with a kitchen knife and a fire extinguisher.

At trial, Sarra’s attorneys invoke the insanity defense. “This was not a killing of rage,” said defense attorney John Ray, “There’s a madness in this that no ordinary human being suffers.” 

It was revealed that Sarra hadn’t taken her medication for nearly two months before she stabbed her mother 227 times. “Does that sound like something that somebody is responsible for?” Ray asked the court. “If you think that, I guess you can think anything.”

However, Sarra’s own words on the witness stand harmed her chances of a successful defense. “My intention was to kill my mom,” she said. “She’s evil.”

Sarra Gilbert was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. She appealed the ruling, but in 2021, that appeal was denied.

Sarra Gilbert sentenced to 25 years to life in prison in stabbing death of mother

Senior Assistant District Attorney Emannuel Nneji called for the maximum sentence, saying Gilbert “wove a tangled web,” when she began using drugs as a young teen and misled everyone into believing drugged behavior was mental illness.

Gilbert’s youngest sister, Stevie Smith, called her sister “wicked” in a letter read by Nneji, and said Gilbert “tormented and belittled their mother for years before she killed her.”

“The way she took my mom out of this world is beyond human,” Smith wrote. “This was not a result of mental illness. This was the result of long term hate and not a mental breatkdown.”

Ray, though, asked Williams to show Gilbert mercy, saying the “circumstances surrounding the perversion of this girl’s soul, her mind, her heart, should strike a chord of courts heart.”

“We know she was raised in one of the worst families this county has ever had in its bosom,” said Ray, recalling testimony that Gilbert was sexually abused by one of her mother’s boyfriends, that her older sister was a prostitute with her mother’s blessing, and that her mother practiced “black magic,” which ultimately led Gilbert to believe her mother was a demon.

At one point, Ray called on Williams to show Gilbert the same mercy that Jesus showed to the thief on the cross.

Williams, though, said it was clear that Gilbert’s act was “not only intentional … but premeditated and planned.”

“I will never be able to put out of my mind the comments of your sister and your attorney, ‘if you’re afforded the opportunity, you will kill again,’ ” said Williams.

“This court will not permit or contribute to that terrible situation happening again,” he said, calling the sentence not an act of punishment, “but instead an overwhelming desire to protect other people by taking you off the streets for as long as I can.”

Following the sentencing, the District Attorney’s Office dropped charges pending against Gilbert for cruelty to animals and endangering the welfare of a child for drowning the family puppy in front of her young son.

Ray said he has filed a notice of intent to appeal both the conviction and the sentence.