Attorney: No basis for appeal for Salem woman who bludgeoned mother

The new lawyer for a Salem woman serving a life prison sentence for the 2013 bludgeoning death of her mother said in court documents filed Tuesday there is no basis for her appeal.

Sarah Vercauteren, 30, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to a mandatory term of life in prison without the possibility of parole for killing 51-year-old Dawn Wagner. Police said Vercauteren on Dec. 31, 2013 hit her mother 18 times with a hammer then strangled her after she refused her request to borrow a car.

During a guilty plea hearing in 2016, Vercauteren told Westmoreland County Common Pleas Court Judge Christopher Feliciani she wanted to take responsibility for her actions.

“That was my mother,” Vercauteren said. “I feel like I should spend the rest of my life in prison because of what I did to her, and I should not get out.”

In her handwritten appeal she filed on her own behalf last year, Vercauteren claimed she received bad advice from her former lawyers, public defenders Wayne McGrew and Greg Cecchetti. She said they should have advised her to plead guilty to lesser charges.

Feliciani last year appointed defense attorney Brian Aston to investigate Vercauteren’s claims.

Aston said he reviewed court transcripts along with Vercauteren’s education and mental health records and determined there was no merit to the appeal.

“The constellation of evidence in this matter compels this counselor to conclude the defendant was competent during her plea and aware of the inherent consequences,” Aston wrote.