Associated Press
CENTENNIAL, Colo. — A Colorado man convicted of killing his mother and storing her dismembered remains in boxes in the back of her car was sentenced Friday to life in prison without parole.
Ari Liggett was convicted last week of first-degree murder in the 2012 death of Beverly Liggett, 56. He pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, but a court-ordered evaluation found him to be sane.
Prosecutors said Liggett poisoned his mother with a cyanide mixture and spent the next 24 hours getting rid of the evidence by dismembering her body in the bathtub before placing her remains in plastic tubs full of olive oil.
Both were reported missing in mid-October 2012. Two days later, police in the Denver suburb of Greenwood Village spotted Liggett driving his mother’s SUV and stopped him. Her remains were found in two plastic storage bins in the back of the vehicle.
During the trial, The Denver Post reported that prosecutors argued Liggett had an obsessive, yearslong plan to kill his mother. They acknowledged Liggett’s long history of mental health issues, but they said that did not mean he was insane. They said he maintained a “method to his madness” as he spent years buying chemicals and practicing his mixtures in the Centennial home he shared with his mother.
Liggett repeatedly told officers they could not prove he was sane. He said he believed people were demons and that he didn’t know the difference between right and wrong.
Public defender Natalie Girard repeatedly described Liggett’s actions as “completely psychotic” and argued Liggett’s mental illness was too severe for him to plan his mother’s murder.