Photo Courtesy of Daily Gazette/Paul Franz
A Mount Holyoke College art professor was sentenced on October 20 to spend at least a decade in prison after she pleaded guilty to beating and torturing her coworker, Lauret Savoy, for four hours with a fire poker and garden shears.
According to People, Rie Hachiyanagi was sentenced to 10 to 12 years in a Massachusetts state prison after she attacked Savoy on December 23, 2019, and left her with injuries for life.
A state police report obtained by the Daily Hampshire Gazette detailed that on December 23, 2019, Hachiyanagi, who was a professor at the college located in South Hadley, Massachusetts, decided to show up at Savoy’s home and said she wanted to “talk about her feelings.”
Once Savoy told her she did not share the same feelings, Hachiyanagi hit her with a rock and tortured her with a fire poker and garden shears for four hours.
The following day, Hachiyanagi called the cops and said she found Savoy “in a pool of blood,” “barely breathing,” and “semi-conscious and with a head injury.”
Hachiyanagi said she noted signs of struggle, but police said they didn’t see any signs of an intruder in Savoy’s house.
“She betrayed my trust, invaded my home, and tried to kill me with premeditated violence,” Savoy said in a victim impact statement at the hearing. “The cruelty she wielded with weapons and expressed in words was extreme.”
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Judge Francis Flannery said that the attack against Savoy was one of the “most horrific set of facts I’ve heard,” according to a statement from the Northwestern District Attorney’s office. “Professor Savoy is certainly a victim of a horrific crime, but that’s not what I’m going to remember.”
“I’m going to remember that she had the presence of mind and the courage to convince her attacker not to kill her,” he said. “As her body was failing her, she used her mind to save herself. That’s remarkable.”
The sentencing took place five days after Hachiyanagi pleaded guilty in Franklin Superior Court to nine charges in connection with the attack against Savoy, including three counts of armed assault with intent to murder a person over 60, and one count each of home invasion, mayhem, and entering with intent to commit a felony.