Cedar Rapids man sentenced to 50 years in prison for murder of 71-year-old mother

CEDAR RAPIDS — The sister of a Cedar Rapids man convicted in March of killing their 71-year-old mother asked a judge Monday to hand down the harshest possible sentence for second-degree murder.

“He has no heart…I will never, ever forgive him,” Deborah Deason, sister of George Deason, wrote in a victim impact statement that was read at his sentencing Monday. “I only have one brother now, not two.”

George Deason, 53, was sentenced Monday to 50 years in prison for beating his mother, Elsie Mae Deason, to death in her southwest Cedar Rapids home. Sixth Judicial District Judge Sean McPartland found Deason guilty of second-degree murder following a non-jury trial in November last year.

According to trial testimony, George Deason was living with his mother on June 30, 2020 when he attacked her while trying to steal approximately $50.

Deborah Deason testified that she found her mother's house “ransacked” and that her mother was scared and lying in bed with a quilt over her head on July 1, 2020. Deborah Deason testified that Elsie Deason gave her said she covered herself so George Deason would stop beating her. .

George Deason told his sister that people had broken into the house and attacked their mother. When Deborah called 911 to report the assault, George ran out the back door toward an alley.

Elsie Deason died from her injuries about a month later on July 23, 2020. She suffered severe brain damage from blunt force trauma.

The defense admitted that Deason had assaulted his mother, but argued that her death was caused by “an intervening and superseding cause of pneumonia and pulmonary embolism resulting from the assault” and that his condition developed after that she refused medical treatment, food and physical therapy.

Dr. Dennis Klein, the state's chief medical examiner, testified at trial that Elsie Deason died from head trauma, leading to a pulmonary embolism in her right lung. Contributing factors to his death were cardiovascular disease and emphysema, he said.

Klein testified that medical intervention to stop the brain hemorrhage meant taking him off a previously prescribed blood thinner. This, in turn, caused the pulmonary embolism and his death, he concluded. Elsie Deason could have had a heart attack, but if she took a blood thinner it would be less likely, he added.

“He’s an animal and a monster.”

On Monday, McPartland sentenced Deason after hearing victim impact statements from Deason's family members and his mother.

The statements, written by Deborah Deason and Elsie Deason's sister Eddie Forde, were read in court by Linn County Victim Liaison Anastasia Basquin.

Both women described Elsie as a kind and loving woman and shared their disgust at the way George had beaten her.

“She is an animal and a monster… She was a kind, loving and gentle woman who deserves justice,” Forde wrote in his statement.

Deborah Deason and Forde asked the judge to give Deason the harshest sentence possible. Fifty years is the maximum sentence for second degree murder.

Deason was also sentenced to one year for assaulting a person in a certain profession and five years for obstructing official acts, but those sentences were to run concurrently with his 50-year sentence, rather than consecutively. He will have to serve at least 70 percent of his sentence, or 35 years, before being eligible for parole.

The Gazette's Trish Mehaffey contributed to this article.

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