Renee DiPietro is escorted by police (via YouTube/WPVI). Inset top: Renee DiPietro. Inset bottom: Images of the blade and cane DiPietro used to kill Michael Sides (both via Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office).
The elderly Pennsylvania woman accused of using a blade hidden in a cane to fatally stab a man fighting with her son has been convicted of murder.
Jurors found Renee DiPietro, 70, guilty of third-degree murder and possessing an instrument of crime after several hours of deliberation on Thursday, Philadelphia ABC affiliate WPVI reported. As Law&Crime previously reported, Michael Thomas Sides, 31, died after DiPietro stabbed him with a 16-inch blade hidden in her walking cane on June 10, 2023.
DiPietro appeared to defend herself as she was led out of court after the verdict, and she told reporters that she intends to appeal.
“What would you do if it was your child?” she said from behind her hands, shielding her face, as two sheriff’s deputies escorted her into an elevator.
It was not immediately clear from court records when her sentencing will be held.
Around 1:30 a.m. on June 10, officers from the Lower Marion Township Police Department were called for a stabbing at the intersection of Cricket Avenue and Cricket Terrace, an arrest affidavit obtained by Law & Crime said. They found Sides bleeding profusely from his upper torso. He was rushed to the hospital where he died about an hour later.
Dan Rogers, one of Sides’ friends, told detectives Sides was “sucker punched” earlier in the night by a mutual friend later identified as Jason DiPietro, the affidavit says. Sides said he was “going to seek [him] out.” During the altercation, the victim was preventing Jason DiPietro from getting into a white car when his parents, Renee and Michael DiPietro, got out of the car, according to the affidavit.
Rogers saw Renee DiPietro “lunge” toward the victim, causing him to fall to the ground bleeding with what appeared to be a black cane that fell apart, the affidavit said. She then struck the victim while he was on the ground, detectives wrote in the affidavit.
“Rogers stated it was then apparent to him that the female stabbed the victim,” the affidavit said. “Following the stabbing, Rogers stated the female attempted to remove the license plate from the vehicle and the older white male, the female and Jason DiPietro departed from the scene in the white sedan, believed to be a Nissan.”
Renee DiPietro told detectives she got a call earlier in the night from her son who was “upset and crying” so she took her baseball bat and walking cane and, along with her husband, drove to his location. She told detectives when her son tried to get into a car a “big” man prevented him from doing so and was assaulting him, the affidavit said. She got out of her car to “defend her son” and said when the man came at her she “poked him” and he fell to the ground. She then drove away with her husband and son, detectives wrote.
David Harris contributed to this report.
