NORRISTOWN, Pa. (KYW Newsradio) — A 70-year-old Mount Airy woman will likely spend the rest of her life in prison for stabbing and killing a man in Ardmore last June with a sword hidden in her cane, after that man attacked her son.
Renee DiPietro was convicted of third-degree murder in February for killing 31-year-old Michael Sides. She told the court she is sorry for it, and she sees Sides' face every day, but Judge Wendy Rothstein gave her the maximum sentence: 20-40-years in state prison.
"Your so-called remorse is for your situation and not for what you did," Rothstein said.
In the early morning hours of June 10, 2023, DiPietro's son called her for a ride after he was kicked out of an Ardmore bar on Cricket Avenue for punching someone. About 45 minutes later, when her son opened the back door to get into the car, Sides grabbed him from behind and started hitting him.
DiPietro got out of the car and swung the cane repeatedly at Sides. The sheath covering the blade came off, and she stabbed Sides in the heart, killing him.
Prosecutors said during the trial that DiPietro had set out for retribution when she grabbed a baseball bat and that cane before leaving her East Oak Lane home with her husband.
"This defendant displayed a complete disregard of Michael's life. She made decisions and choices without a moment's hesitation that led to his death. It was only her choices, her actions that led to his death," prosecutor Brianna Ringwood said Monday.
DiPietro told the court she never set out to kill anyone. She says she was holding the blade in front of her when Sides lunged at her and impaled himself on the blade.
"He did not run into her sword," said Ringwood. "She took a 16-inch blade out of her car and injected herself and that blade into a fist fight between two adult men."
DiPietro told Sides' mother she was sorry, and she asked how she would have reacted if she had to pick up her son at 1:30 a.m. and someone grabbed him from behind and started beating him, while two other people stood and watched.
Sides' mother called DiPietro "a murderous monster with no remorse."
Asked her thoughts on the sentence as she was led from the courtroom in a wheelchair, DiPietro said, "No justice. No justice. I apologize for what happened to him, but I did not kill him. I did not take his life. He came at me. And they didn't share that. And the judge I feel like is prejudiced."
DiPietro's lawyer says they plan to appeal.
