by Steve Han
Eighteen-year-old Isabella Yun-Mi Guzman was arrested last Thursday for allegedly killing her mother by stabbing her 79 times in her face and neck in the bathroom of their Aurora, Colo., home Wednesday evening. As of Friday, she is being held without bond on investigation of first-degree murder.
According to the arrest affidavit obtained by ABC 7NEWS in Denver, the mother, 47-year-old Yun-Mi Hoy, was attacked as she went to take a shower in an upstairs bathroom on Wednesday night. Isabella’s stepfather, Ryan Hoy, was eating dinner downstairs when he heard a thumping sound upstairs and his wife calling his name.
When he rushed upstairs, he caught a glimpse of Isabella, who pushed the door shut and locked it. Hoy said he ran to get his cellphone and dial 911 when he saw blood seeping from under the bathroom door, telling the operator that he believed his wife was being attacked. When he went back to the bathroom, the door opened and Isabella walked out, holding a knife. Hoy said she never said a word as she walked past him and went downstairs.
Hoy found the naked body of his wife in the bathroom on the floor and covered in blood. He told police her throat had been slashed, and a baseball bat was ling under her body. Yun-Mi Hoy was later pronounced dead at the scene.
Officers detained Guzman Thursday after someone called 911 that morning to report a “body” inside a car in a parking garage. Officers found the car, but no body was inside. They did find items that “let them to believe these items were related to the earlier homicide,” according to the Aurora police spokesman.
Undercover officers and a K-9 team joined the search, and Guzman was detained after she was spotted walking out of the garage.
Ryan Hoy said Guzman clashed with her mother since a young age and was sent to live with her father when she was 7 years old for an unspecified period of time. Hoy said Guzman had become increasingly “threatening and disrespectful” towards her mother recently, which including yelling at her and spitting in her face two days before the alleged attack.
The day before the murder, Yun-Mi Hoy showed her husband an email she had received that morning from her daughter that said “you will pay,” which prompted her to call the police. Officers responding to the call spoke with both the mother and daughter, cautioning Isabella that her mother could throw her out of the house for her behavior.
Aurora Police undercover officers surround homicide suspect Isabella Guzman, 18 (red circle) in a parking lot on 8/29/2013. Image via ABC 10 News
Later, Robert Guzman, Yun-Mi Hoy’s ex-husband and Isabella’s father, spoke with Isabella just three hours before the killing when he visited her at the home where she lived with her mother. He said his ex-wife was concerned about her teenage rebelliousness, and he thought he had “made progress” with her.
Guzman said he and the family were “stunned” and “heartbroken” over the killing, saying that he “[didn’t] know what could’ve happened … to provoke this kind of reaction.”
This article was originally published by iamKoreAm.com.
