Devizes woman admits manslaughter in mother's Christmas Day death

A Devizes woman has admitted killing her 86-year-old mother on Christmas Day after years of lone caregiving that culminated in a fatal crisis at their home on Keepers Road. Stefania Glowka, 64, pleaded guilty to manslaughter by diminished responsibility at Bristol Crown Court after denying murder.

The court heard that Tamara Glowka died at the family home in Wiltshire on Christmas Day 2025, with prosecutors saying she was strangled with a belt in what they described as a deliberate act of violence. Glowka had been her mother’s sole carer for 17 years, and the case has exposed the strain that can build when one relative carries round-the-clock responsibility with little support and no relief.

Jurors were told Glowka had told police, “I just killed my mother.” The defence said her depression substantially impaired her ability to make rational judgements that night, while the prosecution argued the manslaughter plea did not go far enough. The court also heard that the plan had been for Glowka to kill herself after her mother’s death, including attempts to stab herself in the stomach and neck.

The case has laid bare the pressure points inside family caregiving: the isolation of a single unpaid carer, the loss of boundaries between duty and exhaustion, and the way untreated mental illness can turn a private collapse into a fatal one. In court, that backdrop sat alongside the hard facts of the killing, with the prosecution maintaining that the violence was intentional and the defence pointing to a severely compromised state of mind.

Glowka was remanded in custody during the trial, which was scheduled to last seven days. She had been charged after her arrest and treatment by ambulance following the incident. The guilty plea ends the murder allegation, but the case remains a stark account of what can happen when years of care, depression and desperation converge without enough support to stop the spiral.