When Papanicolaou sounded the alarm, he turned off the medical alert base station and stole the landline, ran away from home jumping the back fence and grabbing the phone and a bloody kitchen knife.
The base station had a safety battery and an operator was able to call an ambulance after hearing Mrs Welsh shout “help” and “please help me”.
Papanicolaou later told police that Mrs Welsh was the first to attack her.
In a statement on Friday, Judge Robertson Wright said Ms Welsh, who had hearing aids and a pacemaker, kept about $ 1,600 in a drawer in her home and would normally pay Papanicolaou cash.
He said he was pleased that Papanicolaou had attended Mrs Welsh’s home to steal money after her gambling losses, and that the subsequent murder was “unplanned and impulsive”.
Judge Wright said that the nature of the attack, which used three different weapons and developed over a period of time, left him with no doubt that Papanicolaou intended to assassinate Mrs Welsh instead of -the.
It had been presented on behalf of Papanicolaou that she was experiencing a major depressive disorder at the time, but Judge Wright refused. He found that he did have some symptoms of anxiety and depression, but they were not causally related to the murder.
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Judge Wright jailed Papanicolaou for 22 years with a 15-year probation period, and noted her subjective circumstances, including being beaten in prison after her attack on Mrs Welsh received media attention during the his trial in January.
She admitted that Papanicolaou had been genuinely sorry when she told the court that she had prayed to God for forgiveness “five times a day” and that she was unlikely to fall back.
Judge Wright said the murder caused “grief, great harm and distress” to Mrs Welsh’s family, and extended the court’s “very sincere sympathy” for the loss.
“Mrs Welsh’s death was a human and personal tragedy and should not be treated solely as the subject of a criminal trial,” he said. “The evidence in this matter confirmed that she was a loving and affectionate mother and friend; a direct, creative, compassionate woman blessed with the wisdom of the years and the love of her family. “
Papanicolaou, who has been in custody since January 2019, will be entitled to parole in 2034.
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