On the morning of Halloween — a day typically reserved for costumes, candy, and community festivities — a quiet neighborhood in Wichita, Kansas, became the scene of a chilling tragedy. Former TV news anchor Angelynn Mock, 47, has been arrested and charged with first-degree murder after allegedly stabbing her 80-year-old mother, Anita Avers, inside the family home.
Mock’s professional journey is perhaps what makes the story all the more unsettling. From 2011 to 2015 she served as a morning (and sometimes evening) anchor at KTVI (Fox 2) in St. Louis, Missouri. After leaving the anchor desk, she made a few transitions — venturing into sales roles, taking a hiatus, and later landing in a data-management company with Midwest offices. Meanwhile, her mother, Anita Avers, worked as a licensed marriage and family therapist at Wichita Counseling Professionals, according to confirmation by Avers’ husband.
Together, on the surface at least, they appeared to lead conventional, professional lives. But the events of that Halloween morning suggest a far darker underside.
At approximately 7:52 a.m. on October 31, officers from the Wichita Police Department responded to a reported “cutting” at a residence on the 1500 block of East Crowley. They found Angelynn Mock outside the home, bloodied and with visible cuts on her hands. Inside the residence lay her mother, Anita Avers — unresponsive, in her bed, with multiple stab wounds. Avers was rushed to a nearby hospital but was pronounced dead shortly afterward.
A neighbor, Alyssa Castro, provided a harrowing eyewitness account:
“There was a woman who approached our vehicle with like blood, like her hands were filled, her body was filled with blood, asking to call 911.”
Castro says Mock took her boyfriend’s phone and ran back into the house, before police arrived and booked her on first-degree murder charges.
During the phone call to dispatch, a voice reportedly declared she “stabbed [her] mother to save herself.” As of now, authorities have not publicly confirmed a concrete motive.
Mock remains held in the Sedgwick County Jail on a $1 million bond.
