Her Dissociative State

Betty Frieberg, 43, lived with her husband, Harold, 59, on a farm near Libertyville in Jefferson County, Iowa. Her teenage daughter, Heather, lived with them. At trial, witnesses described years of abuse inside the marriage, and a psychiatrist testified that trauma going back to Betty’s childhood had put her in a dissociative state during the aftermath of the shooting.

On September 30, 1991, Betty shot Harold. She later said he had pointed a gun at her and she feared he would kill her. What followed turned a domestic shooting into a case people still discuss: she cut up his body with knives and a circular saw and left the pieces across the farmstead. Searchers found his scattered remains in early October, and Betty admitted both the shooting and the dismemberment.

She was charged with murder and tried in Fairfield in March 1992. Her lawyers argued that she had fired in self-defense and that what she did to the body afterward came from a dissociative state, not from a plan to kill. After about seven hours of deliberation spread over two days, the jury acquitted her on March 20, 1992. She broke down in tears and told reporters the system worked, while the county attorney said he was disappointed with the result.