WILBURTON, Okla. (TCN) — A woman who beat her elderly mother with a vacuum cleaner and stabbed her to death has been sentenced to 60 years in federal prison.
Tracy Ann Mannon, 53, pleaded guilty in April 2025 to second-degree murder of her 75-year-old mother, Linda Barnes; the case was charged federally because it occurred within the bounds of the Choctaw Nation Reservation, according to a press release from the Department of Justice, and Law & Crime reports that both Mannon and Barnes were members of the Cherokee Nation.
According to a criminal complaint obtained by Law & Crime, neighbors called the police on Feb. 26, 2024, when they heard screaming followed by silence. First responders found Barnes on the ground and pronounced her dead at the scene; she reportedly had injuries to both her face and body, and officers described organs and tissue spilling out of her body.
They then located Mannon, who was doing the dishes; she was taken into custody and admitted that she had killed her mother and tried to dismember her to make disposal easier, but that her knife was not sharp enough for the job, according to Law & Crime. She also reportedly beat Barnes with a vacuum cleaner.
Mannon allegedly had a history of mental health issues. In a sentencing memorandum obtained by Law & Crime, she had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia in the past and had a history of sexual assault.
Mannon had reportedly recently stopped taking her medication and had quit her job on the day that the killing occurred. Her lawyers stated that she was under the delusion “that her mother had been replaced by an identical robot which was going to detonate a large explosive device under the property.”
According to KOTV, Mannon was charged in an unrelated case the previous year in which she allegedly strangled her daughter with a rope, but the case was dismissed because of the Supreme Court’s ruling on tribal jurisdiction.
Radio Oklahoma News reports that in Indian Country homicide cases, federal sentences do not allow for early release beyond good-time credits; the 60-year-sentence is effectively a life sentence.