Pennsylvania Woman Plans to Use Insanity Defense in Slaying, Dismemberment of Parents

NORRISTOWN, Pa.—A suburban Philadelphia woman accused of fatally shooting her parents and dismembering their bodies with a chain saw has notified officials that she intends to use an insanity defense. Defense attorneys say in a recent court filing that Verity Beck, 44, of Abington, “was laboring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act she was doing, or that she did not know that what she was doing was wrong,” The Mercury newspaper of Pottstown reported Monday. Ms. Beck’s trial in Montgomery County Court was originally set to begin next month but is now scheduled for April to allow prosecutors to have their own psychiatrist evaluate the defendant....