Homeless woman found not guilty by reason of insanity in stabbing death of 82-year-old
By Kimberly King
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HENDERSONVILLE, N.C. (WLOS) — A homeless North Carolina woman charged with murder was found not guilty by reason of insanity after a judge reviewed her lengthy psychiatric history.
In July 2023, Amber Nelson was arrested and charged after the body of Patricia Moniz, an 82-year-old Henderson County woman, was discovered. Multiple sources close to the investigation confirmed shortly after Moniz’s death that Nelson is homeless and Moniz had been letting her sleep in her home.
Authorities said that at the time of her arrest, Nelson had a long record, including charges of assault with a deadly weapon and theft.
On Friday, Dec. 19, 2025, a judge found Nelson not guilty by reason of insanity, citing numerous hospitalizations, episodes of extreme hallucinations, paranoia, bipolar disorder and self-harm.
While the ruling was not a surprise, it was a huge disappointment for the family of Patricia Moniz.
“I’m very distraught,” said Rebecca White, Moniz’s adult daughter. “We didn’t have a trial.”
White said her mother was kind to a fault, and she felt her mother had been coerced by a friend to take Nelson in because she had nowhere to stay. After two years waiting for justice, White said the ending is heartbreaking for her.
“She’s not going to be incarcerated. She’s going to be put into a mental hospital, but she could be out in 50 days.” Dr. Jill Volin, a forensic psychiatrist who works at Central Regional Hospital in Raleigh, testified Friday in detail before the judge about Nelson and her severe mental illness.
Volin talked about an episode in which Nelson stabbed her stomach three times to get “acid out of her body because she believed the acid would eat her organs from the inside.”
Volin told the judge that Nelson had a lengthy history of hallucinations and paranoia, including thoughts that robots were taking over her body at different points in her life. Volin testified at the time that Nelson killed Moniz that she was having a paranoid break and thought Moniz, who invited her into her home, was going to kill her.
But Moniz’s daughter said detectives told her they had a strong case.
“They said she knew what she was doing. There was evidence, by getting the knife and pulling the shades down, and then taking off in my mother’s car to Black Mountain,” said White.
“We are angry,” said Brittany Wallers, Moniz’s granddaughter. “We feel like the ball was dropped.”
“We don’t feel like there was justice, and no one deserved it more than my grandmother,” said Heather Parker, also Moniz’s granddaughter.
“They were not aggressive in the case.”
Several months before Nelson stabbed Moniz to death, Dr. Volin testified that she was having severe hallucinations that included a belief “Satan has taken her over.”
Volin testified that over the years, Nelson had been hospitalized and taken to emergency rooms but released prematurely, ultimately ending up on the streets and also becoming heavily addicted to drugs.
Volin also testified, however, that she believed Nelson had no drugs in her system at the time she stabbed Moniz to death.
According to Volin, Nelson was prescribed a range of anti-psychotics over the years, including Lemictal, a mood stabilizer to treat bipolar disorder.
When interviewing Nelson, Volin said, she acknowledged that she knew she had done wrong and that she had killed someone. But Volin maintained to the judge that her expert professional opinion was that at the time she stabbed Patricia Moniz to death, she was insane.
Volin said Nelson did express regret for her actions and told her she knew Moniz had tried to help her when no one else would. But for Patricia Moniz’s family, it’s little consolation to lose their beloved mother and grandmother, hoping North Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services will continue to keep Nelson in custody for decades to come.
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