Kieva Hooks admitted to police that she cut her mother 37 times, inflicting 21 stab wounds during an early-morning argument inside their Columbia Heights apartment.
Tajuana Hooks, according to testimony heard Monday, called out, “no Kie, no,” as it happened.
Judge Robert Richter used that piece of information, which came from a post-arrest interview with Kieva Hooks, to find probable cause that the 30-year-old woman killed her mother on July 31.
Police found Tajuana Hooks, 54, dead in the apartment after Kieva Hooks caught the attention of officers near the intersection of 13th street and Columbia Road Northwest shortly after 5 a.m.
Defense attorney Kia Sears argued her client acted in self-defense that morning. She asked MPD Detective Hosam Nasr, testifying for the prosecution, if there were signs of a struggle in the apartment where police found Tajuana. Nasr said the apartment was in disarray, but that he couldn’t say if this was due to a fight.
One officer described Hooks’ behavior at the time as “highly disoriented,” while another said she was in a state of shock while she was at Howard University Hospital, Nasr said Monday.
At the hospital, Hooks told a nurse that she and her mother both had knives, though Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathryn Rakoczy suggested Hooks’ could have been referring to a previous incident involving Hooks and the father of her child.
A nurse did identify cuts to Hooks’ body and a police officer saw a cut on Hooks’ neck after the murder, according to Nasr. But Hooks told Nasr she made the wounds herself and never said anyone else caused them.
Judge Richter ordered Hooks held, despite her otherwise clear record, because of the past drug use she alluded to, as well as the severity of the crime.
Hooks is scheduled for a felony status conference on October 10.
