Judge disregards DHS records in stabbing murder trial

Sara Nagy Brown, 34, is charged with first-degree murder in the May 21, 2023, stabbing death of Roberta Nagy in Nagy’s Fereday Court apartment.

Brown’s attorneys asked the court to subpoena DHS reports on Brown from when she was a child. DHS officials initially denied the defense’s request to release the materials.

In an opinion filed last month, Judge Melissa Anderson-Seeber also denied the request, pointing out that the documents are confidential under Iowa law.

Brown’s attorneys also asked for Nagy’s medical and mental health records to be released as part of a proceeding in which a judge will review the documents in camera for exonerating evidence and determine what, if anything, can be disclosed to the defense.

Court records show Brown initially told police that Nagy had stabbed herself, and the defense said Nagy had previously threatened to stab or harm herself.

The judge granted the request and indicated that she found no cases in the records in which Nagy herself made statements to health care workers suggesting that she wanted to harm herself.

In another ruling in the case, Anderson-Seeber ruled that a witness in the case who was at the scene was entitled to testify even though he had given police statements that Nagy had died two other times, many years earlier.

The witness also spoke to police about the Nagy plots, which he said were signed by Tom Cruise, and the existence of other Sarah Browns. Another statement said Nagy was stabbed as part of an Interpol plot, and court records show people were ordered to kill Nagy as revenge for Edgar Allan Poe.

The witness also testified that he had a college degree, but Angelina Jolie, Robert Downy Jr. and Joe Biden erased that diploma by paying money to the University of Northern Iowa, court documents show.

No trial date has been set yet.