Note: This story was updated to correct whose cellphone was used to record the beating.
A Northern Kentucky man admitted in court to beating and killing his 74-year-old grandmother in an unprovoked attack at the woman’s home in Erlanger.
Wyatt Testerman, 19, pleaded guilty but mentally ill on May 5 to murder in Kenton County Circuit Court. Under state law, the plea means that Testerman will receive access to mental health treatment while in prison.
He pleaded guilty without an agreement from prosecutors. Kenton County Commonwealth’s Attorney Rob Sanders said that his office is seeking the maximum sentence of life in prison.
Cellphone video shows NKY man beating grandmother to death
Testerman recorded a video of the October 2024 killing on his grandmother’s cellphone, prosecutors said in a court filing.
It showed him setting up the phone to record a chair where his grandmother, Cheri Oliver, was seated. Prosecutors say Testerman then shoved Oliver to the floor, beat her with his fists and stomped on her.
He stopped to check Oliver’s pulse, saying, “How the [expletive] is she still breathing?”
Prosecutors said Testerman then resumed the assault on his grandmother, this time with a metal cup. When police arrived at the home on Ridgewood Drive, they found Oliver unconscious on the living room floor in a pool of blood.
Testerman struck the woman more than 40 times and stomped her roughly 12 times, the court filing states. She died of blunt force trauma to the head.
Testerman’s mother told police that she saw her son attacking Oliver and that she hit him with a cane to get him to stop, Erlanger police Detective Tom Loos said at an earlier hearing.
Another witness heard Testerman say before the attack that Oliver was “suicidal and a terrorist” and warned her to remain in the chair, the detective said, otherwise “she would suffer the consequences.”
Testerman said in court that he was at his grandmother’s house, dealing with substance-use issues.
“I had been abusing acid for quite some time,” he said. “Without reason on that date, I attacked my grandmother, striking her numerous times and killing her.”
Testerman talks about courtroom hallucinations
Testerman’s trial was scheduled to begin on May 12. He planned to mount an insanity defense.
However, an expert witness retained for the defense changed their opinion about Testerman’s mental illness, finding that he suffers from antisocial personality disorder, said Timothy Schneider, his attorney.
In addition to the disorder, Schneider said that Testerman was “very likely under a psychotic episode based upon voluntary drug use and that together, that’s what brought this about.”
The disorder doesn’t qualify as a condition to support an insanity defense, nor does psychosis caused by substances that were voluntarily consumed.
Testerman told the judge that he was hallucinating in the courtroom, seeing colors he knew weren’t there. He acknowledged that he was fully aware of the court proceedings, saying he learned to deal with the hallucinations while in jail.
“I didn’t spend too much time thinking in reality,” Testerman said.
Sanders, the prosecutor, said that Testerman’s history of psychosis has largely occurred in the context of his use of psychedelics.
“He does get psychotic,” Sanders said. “It’s just always substance-induced psychosis.”
Testerman is facing a sentence ranging from 20 to 50 years or life in prison. He’s expected to appear before Judge Patricia Summe for sentencing on July 7.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Man admits beating grandmother to death. Officials say he recorded it
Reporting by Quinlan Bentley, Cincinnati Enquirer / Cincinnati Enquirer
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By Quinlan Bentley, Cincinnati Enquirer | USA TODAY Network
