NORRISTOWN, Pa. (KYW Newsradio) — A Philadelphia woman is on trial for murder in Montgomery County, accused of stabbing and killing a man outside a bar in Ardmore last June. Her lawyer argues it was self-defense.
In opening statements, prosecutor Bradley Deckel said 70-year-old Renee DiPietro turned what should have been a fist fight between two adults into a deadly stabbing with her “cane-sword.”
Deckel says around midnight, June 9 into June 10, DiPietro got a phone call from her son, who said he needed a ride home after he was kicked out of an Ardmore pub for punching a man. Deckle notes DiPietro grabbed a baseball bat and a cane with a concealed 16-inch blade before she and her husband left their East Oak Lane home.
As her son was getting in their car on Cricket Avenue near Lancaster Avenue, 31-year-old Michael Sides, a friend of the man who was punched in the bar, grabbed her son and challenged him to a fight.
Prosecutors showed video of the incident. DiPietro can be seen hitting Sides with the cane. The sheath covering the blade is seen sliding off, and she then stabs him in the chest.
Before they drove off, Deckel says she went to the back of the car and folded her license plate up to hide it.
Sides died from the injuries.
DiPietro’s lawyer, Lou Busico, says the facts of the case aren’t in dispute, but his client is not a murderer. Rather, he says, DiPietro was acting in self defense — noting that she is a 5-foot-1, 70-year-old woman, and Sides was 6 feet tall and weighed 254 lbs. — and protecting her son and her husband.