Jiam Hart booking photo (Anderson Police Department)
In a stroke of tragic irony, Jiam Hart, a man who stabbed his mother to death after a fight over whether he should be committed to a group home, has been sentenced to spend what could be the rest of his life in prison: 55 years.
Court records reviewed by Law&Crime Tuesday confirm Hart, 29, pleaded guilty to a single count of murder when he appeared at the Madison County Courthouse in Indiana on Monday. Following his guilty plea he was immediately transferred to state prison.
Hart was arrested last September after officers from the Anderson Police Department were dispatched to a home where a woman had called cops after finding her mother, Janet Hart, bloody and lying dead on the floor with several stab wounds littering her back.
The caller was Hart’s daughter and Jiam’s sister, Jireh Hart, according to local news outlet, the Herald Bulletin.
Jireh Hart told Anderson Police her brother was not allowed to be in the house due to prior issues with his behavior but he did reside in the garage. On the day Janet Hart was killed, Jireh Hart said she saw her brother come out of the house that afternoon as she was dropping her children off with her mother so she could run errands, Indianapolis Fox affiliate WXIN reported.
After she picked her children up and took them home, Hart’s sister told authorities she later talked to her mother on the phone and learned there had been a dust-up at the house earlier that day. Janet Hart had reportedly complained to her daughter that Jiam Hart had spat on her and yelled at her. When Jireh didn’t hear from her mom for almost the entirety of the next day, she grew worried and went to the home. That’s when she found her mother.
At the time of his arrest, there were reports of a dispute over candy Janet Hart did not want her son eating, but Anderson Police said there was a larger issue at hand and it involved Janet Hart’s desire to put her son in a group home given his history of mental health issues and dangerous behavior.
Anderson Police ultimately said that a petition to commit Jiam Hart was found on a table in the home after the murder and WXIN reported that it was found right “next to the bloody spot” where Janet Hart had been stabbed over and over again.
With Jiam Hart established as the prime suspect, police were able to locate and interview him within 24 hours of the murder. He was described by police as acting strangely during his interview. He denied living at the house and said he wasn’t Janet Hart’s son.
When he complained of being tired and police asked him if it was because he had stabbed his mother to death, Jiam Hart allegedly replied that his training as a boxer would prevent him from becoming tired after doing such a thing.
He also claimed a police officer pointed a gun at him when a school bus was nearby.
As officers tried to focus him and ask him questions about the murder, WXIN reported that at one point Hart quipped: “You are a detective. If you saw you saw things and [my sister] said she saw things then what do you have? You solved it! What else do you want me to say?”
Police said Hart had his mother’s credit card in his possession and at least one piece of her jewelry when they arrested him last year.
Court records reviewed Tuesday by Law&Crime confirm Hart underwent several mental competency examinations as prosecutors sought to bring him to trial. He was finally deemed competent this October after failing one this summer and another this spring.
An attorney for Hart did not immediately return a request for comment.
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