The trial is underway in the attempted murder case of Cora Vides, the former Laguna Blanca student who in 2021 stabbed her friend in the neck during what she admitted to police was a planned attack at her family home on the Mesa.
If she is convicted, Vides, 21, faces a minimum of 11 years in state prison or a psychiatric hospital, depending on the outcome of her sentencing. Her attempted murder charge is of the first degree, meaning the stabbing was allegedly carried out with premeditation and deliberation.
Vides has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Her attorneys argue she suffers from depression and anxiety and that she experienced a dissociative episode during the incident. They previously filed a “mental health diversion” request that would have saved Vides from any prison time, but a judge denied the petition. Throughout this week’s proceedings, Vides cried often, at times covering her ears and saying loudly, “I’m sorry!” and “Please stop!”
The victim, Georgia Avery, was the first to take the stand Monday. She was accompanied by her service dog and wore an AirPod, both of which she said helped her cope with PTSD. The courtroom was filled to capacity with family members and other supporters, many of them from the Laguna Blanca community.
“It was all pretty normal,” Avery said about the night of February 13, 2021, the day before Valentine’s Day. She arrived at the Vides home just before sundown, and the two young women ― who met in art class and had been close since their sophomore year at the private Hope Ranch school ― ate dinner, watched a movie, and played video games.
But what was unusual, Avery said under questioning from prosecutor Kevin Weichbrod, was how insistent Vides had been that they spend that particular evening together to celebrate Vides’s recent 18th birthday. “She was very persistent about it, which was out of the ordinary,” said Avery, who initially declined the invitation over COVID concerns, but ultimately agreed as long as they wore masks and kept a fan nearby.
A few weeks prior, Avery had celebrated her own 18th birthday, during which Vides gave her a drawing of an angel playing violin on a backdrop of ocean and clouds. Avery had played the violin for many years, she told Weichbrod.
As the night wore on, Avery also gave Vides a drawing for her birthday, this one of a movie they both liked. Vides then showed Avery the seven-inch switchblade her parents had gifted her, before setting it aside. “It didn’t seem that weird,” Avery said. “I knew she’d asked her parents for one, and it was still in the box.”
The pair talked about their senior year, the stresses of college applications, and other topics, with Vides confiding in Avery that she’d been feeling particularly “depressed” and “out of sorts” in recent weeks. Avery consoled her and asked if there was anything she could do to help. Vides also came out as bisexual. Avery said she supported Vides and that the disclosure wouldn’t change anything about their friendship.
By that time, it had grown late, around 1 or 2 a.m., and Avery told Vides she needed to go home. Vides asked Avery to stay a little longer so she could guide Avery through a new meditation technique she’d learned. Avery agreed.
Vides told Avery to lie on her back, cover her eyes, and imagine light flowing through her body. She told her to think about the future and things she was looking forward to. As Avery breathed deeply, Vides gently tilted her chin up. “She counted down from three, then she stabbed me in the neck,” Avery said, momentarily losing her otherwise steady composure on the stand.
First there was shock, then pain. “It hurt so much,” Avery said, explaining that the impact of the blade piercing her throat “felt like a balloon deflating.” She tried screaming, but her voice was “ripped away.” Avery bolted upright and grabbed Vides’s hand. They struggled over the knife, with Vides trying to stab downward again. “Everything was happening so fast but also so slowly,” Avery said.
Unable to breathe and gasping for air, Avery held one hand over the gash in her windpipe as she used the other to keep Vides and the blade at bay. “My blood was getting everywhere, and it made everything really hot and slippery,” she said. Avery then used her own hair to entangle the knife, which allowed her to keep a firmer grip on it. She sustained deep lacerations to her scalp in the process.
“What was going through your mind?” Weichbrod asked. “A lot of things,” Avery responded. “The shock of being relaxed and thinking about the future to wondering if I would have a future.” She said she knew from movies that neck wounds were often fatal and killed the victim quickly. “I thought I was dying,” she said. “I thought I didn’t have much time left.”
Vides, unable to regain control of the knife, put Avery in a chokehold and tried to strangle her before then attempting to smother her with a blanket, Avery testified. Avery tried waking the household by throwing her shoes at the wall and knocking over a lamp, “but no one came,” she said.
At this point, Vides had Avery pinned down on her bed. They were in a stalemate. “It felt like she was waiting for me to bleed out,” Avery said. Avery also had the idea to feign like she was losing consciousness so Vides would loosen her hold.
Vides, meanwhile, was “just staring at the wall,” Avery said. “She wouldn’t look at me.” Avery found she was able to speak a few words through her damaged vocal cords, which “came out really weak and breathy.” She asked Vides why she’d done what she’d done. She begged her to get her parents and call 9-1-1. She pulled down Vides’s mask and tried to meet her eyes. “I wanted her to look at me,” Avery said.
As lucid as she was, Avery was still struggling to comprehend the moment. “It didn’t make any sense,” she said. “I understood what was happening, but I didn’t understand why it was happening. There was nothing leading up to it.”
Avery kept talking to Vides. She pleaded for her life and wiped some of her blood on Vides’s cheek. “I wanted her to feel it,” she said. Avery smiled and told Vides if she got her to a hospital right away, she’d forgive her and everything would be okay. “It felt really weird,” Avery explained. “I was reassuring her, but I didn’t have anyone to reassure me.”
Avery lost her voice again and started making “gurgling noises,” she said. Finally, slowly, Vides made eye contact. Avery saw her lip tremble. Vides let go of Avery and backed away before walking out of the room and shutting the door. Avery untangled the knife from her hair and caught a glimpse of herself in the bedroom mirror. “I looked like a zombie,” she said. “I was covered in blood and my face was completely white.”
Avery met Vides’s panicked parents in the hallway and grabbed a cloth tote bag to hold against the wound on her neck. Before they all piled into two cars, Avery heard Vides “freaking out,” she said. “I told Cora’s dad to watch her because I thought she might kill herself,” Avery said. “Those could have been my last words, because after that I couldn’t talk anymore.” Soon after they arrived at the hospital, Avery passed out.
She was “surprised” when she awoke in the ICU. “But I wasn’t lucky enough to forget what happened,” Avery said. She endured multiple emergency surgeries at Cottage and UCLA. When her lungs collapsed and doctors couldn’t find a way to insert a tube down her damaged throat, they intubated her through the wound. “That saved my life,” she said.
The following weeks were filled with “a lot of uncertainty and pain,” Avery said. Evidence photos shown to the jury depicted Avery’s hospital room and bed, where her arms were often strapped so she wouldn’t yank the tubes out of her neck. She went days without sleeping and felt perpetually anxious, thinking Vides could still “pop out of somewhere.” On a nurse’s whiteboard, she wrote: “One thing that keeps me calm is thinking of every breath as a victory.”
The trial continues this Thursday, July 11, with Avery back on the stand.
