Police: California woman blames satanic practice for mom's murder
FRESNO, California -- A California woman who is accused of fatally stabbing her own mother told police she did so because of a satanic practice.
Melissa Bal, 37, called police last Wednesday to tell them she had just killed her mother and that she did not know why, but that she had a history of depression and mental breakdowns.
A witness who was on the property said he saw Bal come out of the family trailer that morning covered in blood. When he asked if she needed help, she reportedly responded, "No, I just killed my mother. I have mental issues."
Sheriff's deputies arrested Bal after they found her mother lying in a pool of blood inside of the trailer. The autopsy report showed she was stabbed 20 times.
A woman on the adjacent property said she never knew the family and that they were fairly new to the area, but she saw the police presence.
"I felt scared," Katherine Plant said. "My cousin called me at 7:30 a.m. to ask me if I knew what was going on next door, and I just happened to look out my bedroom window and I saw the police there."
When Bal was brought to the station and interviewed by detectives, she reportedly told them she sacrificed her mother. When detectives asked what she meant by that, she said it was a satanic practice and it was a calling to kill her. That is why she grabbed a kitchen knife and walked into her mother's bedroom, she said.
She said her mother was asleep, and when she went to turn her over to stab her, her mother woke up and asked what she was doing. Bal said she did not answer her and began stabbing her, and that she did not feel anything while she was doing it.
Bal's father also lived in the trailer with his wife and daughter but was at work that morning. He said he had not seen his daughter in about 10 years, and she just moved back in with them about three weeks earlier after she lost her job in San Diego. He said she was acting strangely in the days leading up to the murder.
