3-Judge Panel Sentenced Orange Man for Beating, Stabbing Mother to Death

A three-judge panel committed Timothy Granata to 60 years in a state's mental health facility after he was found not guilty of killing his mother at their home in Orange, according to court officials.

Granata, 23, who was charged with the murder of his mother, Claudia, 58, at their house on Wild Rose Drive in July 2014, was placed on suicide watch and underwent a mental health evaluation in the months following his arrest.

On Wednesday, he was sentenced to 60 years at the Whiting Forensic Institute in Middletown.

He pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, according to court officials, and a three-judge panel found him not guilty of the crime because of a mental disease or deficit.

His attorney previously said Granata was a heavyweight wrestler during his freshman year at Lehigh University and might have taken time off from college to be hospitalized. He would not elaborate on the circumstances.

Police originally said Granata called 911 to report having killed someone the afternoon of July 24, 2014. Investigators arrived to find his mother beaten and stabbed to death. Granata was 22 years old at the time.

Granata's father, Dr. Attilio Granata, has taught at the Yale School of Medicine and practiced medicine at hospitals along the Connecticut shoreline.

Attilio Granata and his wife, born Claudia Dinan, both graduated from the Yale School of Medicine, according to a 1984 wedding announcement in The New York Times.

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