Jurors will return Thursday for the penalty phase after rejecting an insanity defense in the killings of Darryl and Sharon Getman.

Vickie Williams’ mind was twisted with mental illness, but did she know it was wrong to stab a retired Mount Dora couple in their home in a frenzied blood bath?

No, said Assistant Public Defender Morris Carranza, who told jurors in his closing statement Tuesday that her brain was “poisoned by psychosis.”

Yes, said Assistant State Attorney Nick Camuccio, who quoted witnesses saying she was “manipulative” and who “lied time and time again to protect herself.”

But it was the jury’s opinion that mattered, and they found her guilty of both counts of first-degree murder and theft of the couple’s car. They return on Thursday to decide if she should get the death penalty.

Assistant Public Defender Morris Carranza

Darryl and Sharon Getman were each stabbed more than 10 times in their Waterman Village home.

Jurors sat patiently through three weeks of selection, gruesome photos and hours of testimony by mental health experts.

Facts versus opinion testimony, Camuccio pointed out in his closing statement. And could the experts believe what she was telling them?

Assistant State Attorney Nick Camuccio

One of the most compelling pieces of evidence was nine minutes of video at the Savannah, Ga., police station, where she fled after killing the couple on Dec. 31, 2022.

Dressed in white jailhouse coveralls after her clothing was confiscated, she is seen in a room by herself laughing, talking to herself, pointing and gesturing with her hands. When a detective was in the room she talked about some kind of electronics that could take books off shelves, rip pages out undetected and replace them.

She would go on to claim that voices led her to the Getmans at Waterman Village to find her children who were being kidnapped, raped and killed by a white couple.

Carranza in his closing statements painted a picture of escalating psychosis in the days and hours leading up to the slayings and the theft of the couple’s 2019 Kia Soul.

Yes, she is mentally ill, Camuccio said, but not insane, and he disagreed with the notion of escalating insanity. Being schizophrenic, one of her key symptoms, does not keep her from lying. Also, her stories and accounts to the psychological experts themselves are inconsistent.

Mount Dora police officers’ first encounter with her was at the Hampton Inn, where she snuck in pretending to be a guest who was given permission for a later checkout.

She locked the door from the inside with a dead bolt and wouldn’t answer when a maid tried to get in. She gave police a fake name and date of birth when they trespassed her from the property.

That showed she knew it was wrong. It was 4 p.m., just a few hours before the murders.

She then went to a nearby home asking for a drink of water. “That’s a nice [Christmas] tree,” she told the skeptical homeowner. “Yeah, and there’s a nice gun beside it,” he said.

Recognizing the reality of the danger, she left.

Darryl and Sharon Getman

At Waterman Village she ran into residents, asking if they had seen her husband, told a man that his wife’s car belonged to her and followed him to his garage.

“She was clearly looking for transportation,” Camuccio said.

The most chilling encounter came when she rang the doorbell of a couple’s home and walked in uninvited asking to use their shower and permission to charge her cell phone.

She asked if the woman’s husband was home, and when he appeared the woman hit the security alarm, Williams said, “Did you call the police?” She fled, grabbing the couple’s keys. When the husband tried to follow, she said “Don’t try to follow me or I’ll hurt you.”

She then went to the Getmans’ home, and she killed them sometime between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., Camuccio said. She was seen driving the Kia after 2 a.m.

So many of her actions made no sense, Carranza said.

After driving out of the complex in the car, she walks back to the security office. Security officers, who knew that she had been escorted out of the complex earlier confronted her about the stolen keys. She denied it and said she came back to look for her purse.

Store video in Savannah showed her with Mrs. Getman’s purse. She was buying a wig. It was further evidence she knew the killing was wrong, Camuccio said.

When she was arrested she used a fake name, said was homeless and said the car had been given to her.

On the way back to her hometown she ran out of gas and called 911 for help.

“What person in their right mind would do that?” Carranza said.

At that point, the bodies had not been discovered and she was two states away (in South Carolina), Camuccio said. And she was using Sharon’s phone.

Photos by Frank Stanfield and provided