In a shocking and tragic case out of Oklahoma, a woman has been sentenced to a lengthy prison term after committing a brutal crime against her own mother. Tracy Mannon, aged 53, will spend the next 60 years behind bars for the murder of her 75-year-old mother, Linda Barnes. The crime unfolded in a particularly gruesome manner, with Mannon using both a portable vacuum cleaner and multiple knives to fatally attack her mother. In a chilling aftermath, she was found washing dishes at the kitchen sink by law enforcement officers who arrived on the scene.

The case, prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Oklahoma, fell under federal jurisdiction due to the location of the crime on Choctaw Nation land, and because both Mannon and her mother were members of the Cherokee Nation. In April, Mannon officially entered a guilty plea to second-degree murder in Indian country, accepting responsibility for the horrific act.

Details of the crime emerged from a criminal complaint, which described how a neighbor became alarmed and contacted the Wilburton Police Department on February 26, 2024. The neighbor reported hearing Mannon screaming at her mother, followed by an eerie silence. When police officers arrived at the scene, they knocked on the door but received no response. Their investigation led them around the back of the house, where they were met with a grisly sight through an open door.

Barnes lay on the ground, her body displaying severe injuries with organs and tissue exposed, as well as wounds to her face and arms. Tragically, medical personnel confirmed her death at the scene. Meanwhile, Mannon was discovered at the kitchen sink, seemingly engaged in the mundane activity of washing dishes, a stark contrast to the violence that had just occurred.

Upon her arrest, Mannon confessed to the murder, revealing that she had intended to dismember her mother using two knives, though her attempt was thwarted by a dull blade. Additionally, she admitted to using the vacuum cleaner as a weapon in the attack. This deeply unsettling case highlights the complexities and tragic nature of familial violence, leaving a community grappling with the aftermath.

She then took her blood-stained clothes and wrapped them in carpet before placing them in her bedroom closet.

Barnes’ daughter and Mannon’s sister spoke at the sentencing hearing. Even at 75, the victim was “the life of the party” who loved playing games while displaying a competitive edge.

“She still was [at] game night, she would fight and fuss with us, argue over rules, try to cheat. That’s just who she was. And so much fun,” her daughter Melissa Junell told local CBS affiliate KOTV.

Junell said her sister has been violent for years and has always blamed mental health problems while not seeking treatment.

“She said that if she gets out, that she would take her meds and be responsible,” said Junell. “She said that she’s learned her lesson, which I don’t believe any of that.”

In her sentencing memorandum, Mannon’s attorneys said she was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and bipolar disorder when she was in her mid-20s. She also was sexually assaulted multiple times, including once while she was in jail, which resulted in the birth of her daughter.

Mannon had been living with her mother and daughter while working at an ice factory, but she stopped taking her medication, which caused her mental health to become “increasingly uncontrolled.” She also started using drugs. On the morning of the murder she tried to quit her job and went home.

“By the afternoon she was delusional enough to kill her mother for no rational reason and in a way too bizarre to be anything but the product of her untreated mental disease,” her lawyers wrote. “Tracy killed her mother because she was having a delusion that her mother had been replaced by an identical robot which was going to detonate a large explosive device under the property.”

But Junell said mental health problems were no excuse to kill their mother.

“I know that she loves Tracy. But there is a measure of right and wrong. And today, the atrocious wrong that was committed against my mother by her own daughter, it was avenged,” Junell told KOTV.