Moment woman tells 999 operator 'I just killed my mother' after strangling her with a belt and trying to take her own life when she could 'no longer cope' as her sole carer

By JON BRADY, SENIOR NEWS REPORTER Published: 11:15, 3 June 2026 | Updated: 11:22, 3 June 2026 The moment a woman calmly told police 'I just killed my mother' after failing to take her own life on Christmas Day has been played to a jury in court. Stefania Glowka, 64, has gone on trial accused of murdering her 86-year-old mother Tamara Glowka, who she strangled with a belt in what prosecutors described as a 'very deliberate act of violence'. The court heard the defendant had been a sole carer for her mother for 17 years, 'could no longer cope', and had also sought to take her own life by stabbing herself in the stomach and the neck. But her attempts to end her life failed and she was later arrested for murder while being treated in an ambulance outside her home in Keepers Road, Devizes, Wiltshire. Glowka has admitted the killing and pleaded guilty to manslaughter - but denies murder on the grounds of diminished responsibility. In audio played to Bristol Crown Court, Glowka told a 999 operator: 'Good morning - I just killed my mother.' The call continues with her calmly telling the operator exactly how to locate her upstairs flat, telling her: 'It's difficult to find.' She adds: 'I tried to harm myself as well - I am very weak... please help me. I strangulated her... yes, strangled. I am a retired vet so I know for sure she's dead.' 'I was going to kill myself but I didn't succeed... I was at the end of my road.' Stefania Glowka strangled her mother Tamara with a belt before jabbing herself in the neck with a scalpel in a bid to take her own life She calmly told emergency services, 'I just killed my mother' after phoning 999 when it became clear she wasn't dying She was arrested on suspicion of murder while she lay in an ambulance being treated for her neck wounds Emergency services rushed to the upstairs flat and confronted the waiting killer, who could be heard asking on bodyworn footage: 'Is mum alive?' as she presses gauze to her neck, a blank expression on her face.  CPR was given to her mother within the flat, but medics were unable to revive her.  The footage goes on to show Glowka sat in the stairwell, with a bandage wrapped around her neck and under her armpit, as she tells paramedics: 'I killed my mother', adding that she feels a 'failure' and 'would have preferred to die.' And as she later lies in an ambulance, police tell her she is being arrested on suspicion of murder. She asks: 'Does this mean that my mother is dead?' As the arresting officer attempts to explain around the situation, a paramedic leans in and tells her: 'She's gone, my lovely.'  Opening the case for the prosecution, Simon Jones said there was 'no dispute' Glowka had unlawfully killed her mother due what she had said and done. When asked why she had done it, she said her mother had recently been diagnosed with Schizophrenia, and she had been a sole carer for 17 years.  But he said of her reduced guilty plea to manslaughter: 'That guilty plea does not go far enough. It does not properly reflect the defendant's true level of responsibility. 'The prosecution say that however desperate the situation was that the defendant felt she was in, there is no lawful justification for what she did.' The court heard Glowka waited for her mother to get out of bed to go to the toilet with the belt prepared.  As she looped it around her mother's neck the elderly Ms Glowka fell to the floor, whereupon the killer pushed her into the floor while tugging on the belt's loose end. Prosecutors say Glowka described her mother trying to grab at the belt in order to loosen it: 'She acknowledged in that moment, that her mother had made efforts to stop herself from dying.' After her mother fell limp, Glowka moved her to a 'nicer position', folding the belt and placing it next to her to 'make life easier' for police. She would later tell police during an interview: 'I felt awful but felt our story would be over and thought it would be nice to die on the same day.'  She then sought to stab herself in the stomach - giving herself two superficial wounds - and jabbed herself in the neck with a scalpel blade, creating a cut two inches deep, before lying down waiting to die. However, when she realised she had not wounded herself sufficiently, she called the police. Police cars on Keepers Road in Devizes, Wiltshire, where Glowka had lived with her mother as her sole carer for 17 years Stefania Glowka was later treated by paramedics in the stairwell of the block of flats, where she said she would have 'preferred to die' The trial heard Glowka directed officers to a folder of 'important' documents inside the flat including a letter addressed to 'My dearest Malla', a close friend that was dated 25th December 2025. It read: 'I killed my mum as I cannot continue to look after her and I love her too much to put her into an institutionalised care. I also cannot envisage life on my own, old age and inevitable health issues.' She then outlines how the state will benefit from her inheritance as well as her funeral wishes. Mr Jones told the court this provided a 'significant insight' into her thinking and plan.  He continued: 'It would seem from this letter that the defendant was getting her affairs in order prior to carrying out the killing.  'We say that thought process is important when it comes to considering the defendant's state of mind at the time.' A post mortem later concluded the victim died from injuries that were 'consistent with the account of there having been a period of neck compression prior to death.' During police interview, Glowka told cops she was an only child to a single mother and told officers: 'It was always just the two of us.' The defendant had moved to the UK from Poland in December 1994, where she studied for small animal veterinary and then worked as a self-employed vet in Devizes, Wiltshire. Her mother visited the UK regularly from 1992 before moving permanently in 2004 when Poland joined the EU. Mr Jones added: 'Whilst [Glowka] had always just kept going, she said that she just could not do so any longer. She described it as a spur of the moment decision to end it all and felt the easiest way to "let her go" was using a belt to strangle her and sharp objects to then hurt herself.' Prosecutors have urged the jury to convict her of murder on the grounds that she was in full control of her actions.  'You may feel sympathy for the defendant. You may conclude that she was struggling, overwhelmed, depressed and unable to cope with the pressures of caring for her mother and seeing her health decline,' Mr Jones said. 'But sympathy is not the test as to whether this was a murder. The question for you will not be whether this was tragic: plainly it was.  'This was not an uncontrollable act carried out by someone deprived of meaningful judgment or self-control. It was a deliberate act. 'We say those planned actions, together with the careful means by which the defendant sought to put her affairs in order, after this, show that she was in fact fully capable of understanding what she was doing.' Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article.