70-year-old Irvine woman gets life sentence for killing 92-year-old mother in Huntington Beach

A 70-year-old woman who attacked and drowned her 92-year-old mother at a Huntington Beach home in a killing prosecutors allege was driven by greed was sentenced Thursday to 25 years to life in prison.

An Orange County Superior Court in late June convicted Cynthia Roberta Strange of first-degree murder for the Sept. 4, 2018 slaying of her mother, Ruth Strange, during an early morning attack at the mother’s home on Vista Del Sol Drive. But jurors rejected a special-circumstances allegation that the murder was for financial gain, sparing Strange from a potential life without the possibility of parole sentence.

Earlier this week, Orange County Superior Court Judge Lewis W. Clapp found that jurors in the case engaged in misconduct by discussing Strange’s decision not to testify, something jurors are explicitly advised not to consider. But the judge declined to overturn the verdict, with the jurors contending that the discussion did not impact their ultimate decision.

Three jurors, while being questioned about their deliberations in open court, acknowledged still having doubts about whether they reached the right verdict.

Ruth, Strange’s mother, had been paying Cynthia money each month after Cynthia told the mother that she had divorced her husband, according to court filings. But when Ruth learned that Cynthia was still married and had received a significant amount of money from selling an Oceanside home, prosecutors wrote, the mother decided to financially cut Cynthia off.

Prosecutors allege that Cynthia began to plan for her mother’s murder, searching online for “How do you break a neck?” and “What is the difference between a bruise from a fall or a hit,” along with “Signs of being smothered,” “Effects of air in needle to the human body” and “how long before the deepest sleep occurs.”

Around 5 a.m. on Sept. 4, 2018, Strange drove from her home in Irvine to her mother’s home in Huntington Beach, stopping on the way at a Walgreens where prosecutors allege she bought latex gloves. She was seen leaving the mother’s home around 8 a.m., according to court filings.

Strange’s sister, Amy Hamilton, arrived at the mother’s home around 9:40 a.m., saw a garage door open and when her mother didn’t answer called police. Officers found a bathroom covered in blood, bloody footprints to a blood-spattered recliner near a sliding-glass door and outside in a swimming pool the body of Ruth Strange. Ruth had cuts and lacerations on her head, but authorities determined she died by drowning.

“This is someone who sat, planned, thought and carefully orchestrated this murder,” Senior Deputy District Attorney Nick Thomo told the judge during the sentencing hearing.

During the trial, Strange’s attorney, Sara Ross, denied that her client killed her mother. The defense attorney instead raised suspicion of Hamilton, Strange’s sister.

Months before her death, the mother had made changes to her trust that left Hamilton — who was unemployed and in financial trouble — the sole owner of around $1 million in stocks, the defense attorney argued in court filings. Hamilton was also receiving as much — if not more — as her sister had been on a monthly basis, the defense attorney wrote, and was completely in charge of their mother’s finances leading up to the killing.

Rather than a prison sentence, the defense attorney asked the judge to put Strange on probation. Strange has a host of physical ailments, is confined to a wheelchair and suffers from mental disorders including schizophrenia, according to court records.

“This is someone who will do well on probation, who will thrive, who will be rehabilitated,” Ross said.

Judge Clapp indicated he was sympathetic to the defense argument, at one point asking the prosecutor “I think the question comes down to, is she really a danger to the community?”

“Releasing someone in the community who has a track record of unpredictability and violence puts everyone in danger,” Thomo responded.

The judge ultimately decided that due to her first-degree murder conviction, he could not release Strange on probation. Strange was given credit for the more than six years she has spent in local lockup awaiting trial.

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