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Peters found not guilty due to mental disease

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The Clintonville man who stabbed his mother to death, will spend the rest of his life in a secure mental health facility.

After a three-day trial, a Waupaca County jury convicted Jordan D. Peters, 20, of first-degree intentional homicide on Friday, Oct. 11.

Because Peters had entered a plea of not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect, the jury reconvened on Monday, Oct. 14 to hear from witnesses and mental health experts about Peters’ state of mind.

They returned a verdict of not guilty by reason of mental disease.

Judge Vicki Clussman ordered Peters to be committed for life to a Wisconsin Department of Health Services facility.

Shortly after 12:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 4, 2023, officers were dispatched to an open-line 911 call in Olsen Park. A woman could be heard moaning. She said she had been stabbed.

On Sept. 4, 2023, Peters’s mother, Angela S. Zahn, 39, Neenah, was driving them in Clintonville.

Waupaca County communications officers could not precisely locate where the caller was located.

Sgt. Matthew Wright with the Clintonville Police Department found a man standing beside a car with its driver’s side door open.

The car was on Memorial Circle, which runs on the northwest side of the park.

A woman was lying in a fetal position down the street from the man, whom police identified as Peters.

According to the criminal complaint, Peters told Wright, “I stabbed her.”

He then threw a folding knife at Wright’s feet.

Clintonville Police Officer Anthony Arrieta began trying to save the Zahn’s life.

He turned her over on her back and saw she had sustained a 1-inch stab wound below her sternum.

When Wright asked her who stabbed her, she said it was her son, according to a probable cause court document filed by Wright.

She told Wright, “He hates me,” according to the criminal complaint.

Paramedics from Clintonville Ambulance arrived and continued treatment.

Theda Star then flew Zahn to ThedaCare Medical Center in Neenah, where she was pronounced dead at 7:29 p.m. Sept. 4.

Wright questioned Peters at the Clintonville police station.

“I guess I got really angry and was thinking about the past and got to the breaking point and just stabbed her,” Peters told Wright, according to the complaint.

Peters said he brought the knife along because he planned to hurt his mother. He said he had been thinking about it for the past year and planning for it the past week,

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