A New Jersey woman is accused of killing her mother in a vicious beating inside the victim’s home in Willingboro, officials said Tuesday.
Breanna Beacham, 32, was arrested early Monday evening after police responded to a residence in the township’s Hawthorne Park neighborhood for a report of an “assault in progress,” the Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office said in a news release.
When authorities arrived at the Hopewell Lane home around 4 p.m., they found Beacham on top of her mother, 57-year-old Kim Beacham-Hanson, according to an affidavit of probable cause obtained by NJ Advance Media.
The victim was pronounced dead at 4:36 p.m. Preliminary investigation indicated she was bludgeoned to death.
The brutal slaying appeared to have unfolded in the heat of an argument, investigators say. Beacham, who had been “temporarily staying” with her mother, reportedly told investigators she struck her mother with a curtain rod and a hammer before stabbing her with a screwdriver.
According to court documents, another person at the home heard the victim screaming for help and witnessed the assault before calling 911.
An autopsy performed by Burlington County Medical Examiner Dr. Ian Hood determined the victim’s death to be “a homicide that was caused by multiple blunt injuries.”
Beacham was arrested Monday evening and charged with first-degree murder and related weapon offenses. She was booked into Burlington County Jail in Mount Holly pending a detention hearing.