A Rockville, Maryland, man was sentenced to 80 years in prison for stabbing his mother to death outside her Potomac church in 2018.
Kevin McGuigan, 24, was sentenced to life in prison with all but 80 years suspended Wednesday in Montgomery County Circuit Court, the office of State’s Attorney John McCarthy said in a statement. He pleaded guilty in September to first-degree murder in the death of his mother, Jaclyn McGuigan.
Court documents say she was stabbed in front of St. Raphael Catholic Church, on Dunster Road in Potomac, Dec. 28, 2018. She died of her injuries.
Witnesses told the police at the time that they heard screaming, ran out of the church, found Jaclyn McGuigan on the ground and saw someone running through the parking lot and driving away in a car.
A witness remembered the license plate and relayed it to the police. The car was registered to Jaclyn McGuigan, and was found at Falls Grove Park soon after, with Kevin McGuigan’s phone in it.
When the police went to Jaclyn McGuigan’s house to tell her other children that she had died, one of the children asked “if Kevin killed their mother,” and said Kevin McGuigan had tried to kill him about two years earlier. The other child said her mother and brother had driven from the house to the church in the car police found later.
Kevin McGuigan was arrested the next day after he called his sister from a gas station and said he planned to surrender. Months later, he confessed to killing his mother and revealed the location of the knife he used, prosecutors said.
Judge Harry Storm found McGuigan competent to stand trial last fall.
McCarthy said in the statement, “Kevin McGuigan has continued to exhibit violent behavior, pleading guilty to first-degree assault for attacking a fellow detainee while he was in custody receiving medical treatment. We thank Judge Storm for imposing an absolutely appropriate sentence today.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
