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Narjes Modarresi

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(HOUSTON) — A jury found a Houston woman who admitted killing her infant son by burying him face-down in the mud guilty of capital murder.

The jury reached its decision after about two hours of deliberations Thursday.

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A standing-room-only crowd packed the courtroom Thursday for closing arguments in the trial of Narjes Modarresi.

The defense argued that Modarresi was guilty, but not of the most serious charge of capital murder.  They said death was not her intent because she could not form those kinds of thoughts.

Defense attorneys told jurors, “this would never have happened if not for her mental illness,” and said she had “grand delusions that she or her doctors as if she or her doctors were descendants of Jesus.”

The psychiatrist who evaluated Narjes Modarresi following her arrest testified about her hallucinations, bipolar disorder and psychotic episodes.

“We’re telling you she is guilty,” defense attorney Dee McWilliams told the jury. “We are not asking for the world here. We are not asking you to set her free or put her on the street. We are asking you to recognize that these cases are different. We are asking you to find her guilty of felony murder.”

A judge agreed and allowed the jury to consider the lesser charge, but they ended up convicting her of capital murder.

Prosecutors argued that bipolar disorder shouldn’t give you a free pass to commit a crime like this.

“She thought about it, she planned it, she did it and then she lied about it,” they said.

Being found guilty of capital murder means Moderresi receives automatic life without parole.

Her husband faults his in-laws for not telling him about his wife’s psychological problems.  The two were married in Iran in an arraigned marriage, and he says  he would not have agreed to marry her had he known about her condition.

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GUILTY: Mother Who Buried Baby Alive Convicted of Capital Murder  was originally published on news92fm.com