Court records say an actress accused of killing her mom in suburban Kansas City told 911 operators and police that she was acting in self-defense
By
HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH Associated Press
January 15, 2020, 3:43 PM
3 min read
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- An actress charged with fatally stabbing her mother last month in suburban Kansas City told 911 operators and police that her mom was trying to kill her when she took away the knife, according to court records, but medical examiners found no signs to support her self-defense claim.
The records were released Tuesday, the same day that a judge ordered that Mollie Fitzgerald, 38, undergo a mental competency evaluation before the second-degree murder case against her progresses further.
Fitzgerald, who had a small role in the movie “Captain America: The First Avenger," had been staying with her mom since June when she called 911 just before noon on Dec. 20 to report the stabbing. Responding officers found her mother, 68-year-old Patricia Fitzgerald, in the entryway of the family's Olathe, Kansas, home with a knife in her back, according to the affidavit.
Fitzgerald's father, whose name is blacked out from court documents, said their daughter had been displaying “aggressive behaviors" that had been “escalating."
Mollie Fitzgerald told police that her mother was coming at her with a knife, so she took the weapon away and stabbed her. She said she then bit her mother and stabbed her again. She said she also used a vacuum attachment to hit her.
She told police “her mother just would not stop trying to take the knife to kill her, so she had to kill her mom,” the affidavit said.
An autopsy found that Patricia Fitzgerald had four stab wounds in her back, “defensive injuries” to her hands, bruising consistent with attempted choking, and a mark on her neck that was a possible bite. The medical examiner found no injuries “consistent with Patricia having delivered any strikes or having been in control of the involved knife."
Mollie Fitzgerald was treated at a hospital for minor cuts and a bite mark on her arm, the records say. She is jailed on $500,000 bond and is seeking to represent herself.
Her father told authorities that he did not believe his wife would ever attempt to physically restrain their daughter because of the size and age difference between the women.
According to IMDb.com, Mollie Fitzgerald is a movie director and producer as well as actress. She worked on mostly low-budget films, including “The Lawful Truth" in 2014 and “The Creeps" in 2017.
In “Captain America,” she played Stark Girl and worked as an assistant to the director.
