More than 13 years after a Greenwood woman brutally murdered the woman she called “mom,” a judge sentenced her to 55 years in prison.
Following a week-long trial last month, a jury convicted Stephanie Ann Bryant, 58, of murdering Stella Morgan, 83 at the time, on or around Christmas Eve 2006, at Morgan’s home in downtown Greenwood. Bryant received a credit of 26 years for the 13 years she’s already served, mostly at a psychiatric hospital in Indianapolis. She has been at the Johnson County jail since October 2018.
If Bryant doesn’t commit any additional infractions, she could be released from prison in about 14 1/2 years, which is half of the remaining sentence. Bryant will serve the remainder of her sentence in state prison, although which prison she will serve that time in has yet to be determined, Johnson County Prosecutor Joe Villanueva said Thursday.
Due to old sentencing guidelines that applied when Bryant committed the murder, she got credit for twice the 13 years she served at the hospital and jail.
Bryant was found guilty but mentally ill on Jan. 31, meaning there was evidence of a psychiatric disorder, but she would be held responsible for her actions. During the trial, two mental health experts said Bryant had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, a serious mental health disorder that causes hallucinations, delusions, extremely disordered thinking and behavior that impairs daily functioning, according to the Mayo Clinic.
During the trial, prosecutors said Bryant killed Morgan by hitting her in the head with a hammer 15 times.
Prosecutors believe Bryant dragged Morgan into a shed by her forearms and locked her inside. Morgan then tried to escape the shed, after which Bryant returned with the hammer. They based this theory on where blood was located inside and outside the home, the condition of the bottom of Morgan’s feet and the angle of her body when she was found.
Police later found Bryant covered in blood at Union Station in downtown Indianapolis early Christmas morning 2006. She was charged with murder four days later, but deemed incompetent to stand trial. Bryant spent more than a decade at Larue D. Carter Memorial Hospital, a psychiatric hospital on the west side of Indianapolis. She was released in late 2018, after hospital officials said Bryant’s competency was restored.
During the sentencing, Johnson County Circuit Court Judge Andrew S. Roesener, who presided over the trial, said there were a number of factors that caused the sentence to fall in the middle of the 45- to 65-year sentencing range that is recommended for murder.
When given the chance to speak, Bryant asked the judge multiple times to be lenient on her because she had no prior offenses.
Bryant’s history of mental illness and lack of prior convictions resulted in a shorter sentence than the maximum, Roesener said. But the fact that Morgan was elderly, trusted Bryant as a close family member and the brutal nature of the murder resulted in a lengthier sentence than the minimum, he said.
One of Bryant’s two attorneys, Jennifer Wilson Reagan of the Wilson and Wilson law firm in Whiteland, told Roesener she intends to file an appeal under the Indiana Court of Appeals, a process that will likely take several months, Villanueva said.
Under an appeal, a sentence can be either affirmed, reduced or reversed, the latter two options occurring if an appeals court finds errors in the trial proceedings that are serious enough to warrant a change in sentencing, he said.
The sentence is a victory for the family, he said.
“I’m glad this is finally over for the family; they’ve been waiting almost 14 years for some closure,” Villanueva said. “I’m glad we were able to achieve that for them.”
