Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - 3 Shocking Twists in 'Spell Casting' Woman's Dismembered Mom Murder Case

Episode Date: October 30, 2024

Torilena Fields, 32, is accused of murdering and dismembering her mother, Trudy Fields, and cooking her body parts. Torilena is also accused of torturing and killing a dog in the same night. Following Torilena's arrest, her sister went to court and made explosive allegations about their brother. A judge heard those allegations this week. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy looks at the new details and what the judge decided in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.Host:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guest: Curt Hartman https://x.com/HartmanOH27 CRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this law and crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. New details in the case of a Kentucky woman murdered and dismembered. Prosecutors say by her own daughter. Her family members go to court with explosive allegations, and I have the details and the fallout. Welcome to Crime Fix.

I'm Anjanette Levy. The murder of Trudy Fields in Robertson County, Kentucky stunned anyone who read about it or watched the news about the case. Fields' 32-year-old daughter, Toralina Fields, is accused of shooting her, stabbing her, and then dismembering her. The details are absolutely gruesome and graphic, and if you think it couldn't get worse, it does. The prosecutor says Toralina cooked her mother's body parts in a pot in the oven. The case unfolded back on October 9th. It was a Wednesday. A contractor doing work on Fields' home called Kentucky State Police after finding what he thought was Trudy Fields' dismembered body in the backyard. The contractor told police he and a coworker were at the home the day before and Toralina Fields was casting spells on them and being confrontational.

Troopers said the contractor said he last saw Trudy Fields the evening before around 6.30 p.m. and he said that she went with him and his partner to the gate and appeared to lock it behind them as they left. They returned the next day and found what appeared to be Trudy Fields' body in the backyard and called 911. Troopers found an absolutely grisly scene. According to a citation, troopers observed a dismembered body lying in the grass behind the residence. In close proximity of the body is a blood-stained mattress. Troopers observed blood on the back porch in the threshold of the back door. Also on the back porch, troopers

observed a blood-stained wooden stick and another blood-stained mattress. Drag marks in the grass leading from the residence to the body were observed. Here's Trooper David Jones of the Kentucky State Police. and responded to the scene to execute the search warrant due to the circumstances with the body in the backyard that was obviously deceased. They, after getting the search warrant, attempted several times to make contact via PA to anyone inside the residence. They did not have any luck with that.

They did see somebody in the residence. Eventually, after quite a while attempting to get the person to come out on their own, made entry, did find a female in the residence and took her into custody without incident and removed her. A citation offers more details about efforts to get Toralina to actually come out of the house. Upon making entry into the residence, the female subject, Toralina Mayfields, was the only individual located inside. Toralina refused to exit the residence when multiple commands were given. CS gas was deployed by SRT. After multiple volleys of CS gas and conversing with Toralina using a robot,

Toralina was removed from the residence without further incident. Toralina appeared to have blood on her face, hands, and clothing. The indictment actually offers more details about how Trudy Fields died in its graphic, let me warn you. It states, Toralina caused the death of Trudy Fields by shooting her in the head with a firearm and stabbing her multiple times, that at the time she was not acting under the influence of extreme emotional disturbance for which there was a reasonable explanation or excuse and the force that the defendant used was unlawful. Toralina Fields is also charged with abuse of a corpse when she intentionally treated

the corpse of Trudy Fields in a way that would outrage ordinary family sensibilities by mutilating, decapitating, dismembering, and eviscerating the corpse of Trudy Fields and placing her head, hands, feet, and forearms in a pot in the oven and heating them until they were charred. Toralina Fields is the only person charged in her mom's murder, and she's also accused of torturing and killing a dog. Now, after Toralina Fields was charged, her sister went to court and filed documents that were very shocking. She claimed that their brother actually orchestrated the murder of their mother. My mother, according to the documents,

was butchered by my sister under his advisement. He has threatened my mother. My mother, according to the documents, was butchered by my sister under his advisement. He has threatened my mother, my sister, the whole family. He has called, made threats to kill me to claim his, quote, birthright as the firstborn. He is on his way, as I write this, to kill me and take everything he thinks is his. At the bottom of the page, the sister wrote, when my body is found, Truett Fields murdered me. The judge in the case held a hearing this week and denied the request for a protective order while acknowledging threats had been made in the past. The judge wrote, petitioner stated that her brother has threatened her, says that mom was terrified of her son. It is absolutely clear Talby and other family members are fearful and

that there have been acts of threats of violence in the past. However, they were in the distant past and Talby and family members have had no recent contact with Truett. There is no proof that Truett had anything to do with the death of Trudy, the mother. Being in the military and being mobile are simply not enough to connect Truett to any current threat. The scratched up photo does appear to be a particularly menacing threat, but again, there is no evidence to connect Truett to the death or to even being in Kentucky after 2021. The bank records do not establish that he wasn't there. Now, it certainly appears that there have been threats made in the past. Now, some family members told local media that they wasn't there. Now, it certainly appears that there have been threats made in the past. Now, some family members told local media that they didn't even know that Toralina Fields

was back in Kentucky. She had actually been living in California for a while and had appeared in a couple of films acting. She went by the name Naomi Navarre and had an IMDB page. Photos from her Instagram page show she looked much different then with long flame red hair and a lot of dramatic makeup. I want to bring in Kurt Hartman. He's a former judge in the Cincinnati area. Kurt, since we last talked about this case, a lot of new developments. I mean, it's horrific, but what I want to talk to you about is this interesting kind of twist where we have the sister of Toralina Fields going to court and saying, I need a protective order. I need protection because I believe my brother is

orchestrated my mother's murder and that he wants to kill me. So there's something really strange going on with this family. So as a former judge, your thoughts on the sister going to court and saying this? Yeah, as you indicated, I think, yeah, even from the initial facts of the case, the dynamics in this family were strange or questionable. And this just kind of adds to the story of unfortunately what appears to be a dysfunctional family. Yeah, you know, the brother, you know, the sister goes and says, yeah, my brother's threatening me.

I need a protective order, et cetera. And the judge initially granted what's called an ex parte protection order. Basically, the sister came in and based solely upon what she was saying, the judge concluded, yes, I'll give you a protection order, but in order for due process to be served,

we're going to have a hearing. Your brother your brothers go get notice, opportunity to be heard, cross-examine witnesses. And that hearing, that full hearing occurred earlier this week. And the judge at the conclusion of it basically said, I'm not seeing an immediate threat to you or any family member. The judge's decision really suggested that a lot of this is old history family history of squabbling disputes and who knows what's going on in the dynamics of the family but the judge basically said there's no immediate indication of a threat he's been out of town and they've kind of been estranged he said there's no direct evidence that the brother had any involvement in the murder of the mother.

And so the judge ultimately said, no, you're not getting a protective order. But there have been threats, he conceded. It sounded like distant past, he said. But there have been some threats. So, I mean, there's something really strange going on here. Do you think law enforcement takes the step of actually looking into this to see whether or not there was maybe some communication between Toralina and her brother? I mean, she had lived out in California for a time. Sounds like the brother might have been out in California as well. Do you think law enforcement maybe looks into this to see if there is any meat on the bone there,

if there is anything to this? Yeah, law enforcement clearly is going to pull the string to kind of figure out the entirety of what happened. It's not just going to be simply Toralina killed and dismembered her mother and end of inquiry. They're going to want to figure out why that happened. And part of it also, we kind of talked previously just about a mental evaluation of Toralina. Is she going to be competent to stand trial? And I think part of that investigation and part of that assessment will also get into these family dynamics and undue influence, et cetera, that may have taken place. The prosecution, it sounded like in the indictment, they kind of said, look, there was no disturbance with this woman when she did this. It sounds like they're trying to head off any possible mental illness defense here. In the indictment, they were saying, you know,

there's no showing or it doesn't appear there was any issue with her. You know, they used some very specific language. Obviously, I think there will be some mental health evaluation here. The police believe drugs were involved. They said that in the initial paperwork when they filed these charges. I mean, my God. I mean, they arrive and it's like this horrific, I mean, awful Hannibal Lecter-esque scene. It's disgusting.

This poor woman, I can't even imagine what she went through. Plus you add to it now, we have a dog that was tortured and killed. I mean, it sounds like the contractors leave for the night and they come back and there's just, God only knows what went on throughout the evening in this home. So, I mean, yikes. I can't imagine that there wasn't a mental health component. It doesn't mean you didn't know what you were doing was wrong, but there's got to be something going on here. It's almost like makes me think about meth or something else. No, exactly. And that's the distinguishing point in the law is, was the person at the time of the offense appreciative or knowledgeable of

right from wrong? Could they appreciate the wrongfulness of what they were doing, independent of any other mental health issues a person may have, including brought on voluntarily by drug use or other intoxicants? So it clearly is going to go down that path. The judge, I think the defense attorney clearly are going to say, we want that mental evaluation just to make sure the I's are dotted and the T's are crossed. And so I think the family history

and the dynamics of the family will come out as part of that evaluation. Again, does it provide any legal justification for what events took place? Probably not. But I think it does go into the calculus, both in terms of competency and ultimately in terms of sentencing, assuming there's a guilty verdict or a guilty plea in this case. There's another interesting thing about this case. I mean, Toralina, her family members have said she was like out in California trying to make it as an actress. I mean, we have these pictures. She looks very flamboyant, flame red

hair. She's made up. A stark juxtaposition when you put it next to her mugshot where she's a mess and she's in the turtle suit, you know, and she's just she's just like, her eyes are closed. I mean, she, she's, she's a mess. So she, at one point in time had it somewhat together. So something has gone really wrong with her. And she came back from California and she's with mom and contractors are showing up for work and she's apparently casting spells on them and doing all kinds of crazy stuff. Yeah. No, you know, that dichotomy of her history of looking great, looking very beautiful, and then what you got on the mugshot and kind of how she has developed here really, to me, suggests the strong possibility of drugs being involved both historically and possibly with the events that gave rise to this murder. Well, it will be interesting to see how it plays out. And if the brother eventually does somehow get dragged into this, but they're saying there's no evidence of that at this point,

but we'll continue to follow the case. Toralina will be back in court next month. Kurt Hartman, thank you so much for coming back on. I appreciate it. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.