Woman, 70, sentenced to decades in prison for killing man with blade hidden in cane

NORRISTOWN, Pennsylvania (WPVI) -- A Montgomery County, Pennsylvania woman who killed a man with a weaponized cane has been sentenced to decades behind bars.

Renee DiPietro, 70, was sentenced to 20 to 40 years in prison during a hearing on Monday.

DiPietro was still defiant as she was wheeled away from the courtroom just minutes after she was sentenced.

"I apologize for what happened to him, but I did not kill him," she said. "I did not take his life. He came upon me."

DiPietro was convicted of third-degree murder in the killing of 31-year-old Michael Sides in Ardmore.

She stabbed him with a 16-inch blade that was hidden in her walking cane.

DiPietro's son sucker-punched a friend of the victim at a bar and then called his mother, who came to the bar with her husband.

While there, Sides tried to stop her son from getting in their car.

That's when DiPietro stabbed him twice with a 16-inch blade that was hidden in her walking cane that doubled as a sheath.

Video played in court showed she did not try to help him or call 911 afterward.

"Afterward, when he was lying on the ground gasping for air, bleeding out, she stood over him posturing and took another swing at him," said Deputy District Attorney Brianna Ringwood.

She maintains she was acting in self-defense.

The prosecution wasn't pushing for the maximum sentence in the case. They wanted standard sentencing, which would have been about seven to 20 years.

However, prosecutors said in court that DiPietro showed no signs of remorse, which may have led the judge to hand down the stiffer sentence.