Palm Bay Woman Charged With Killing Her Mother

Police say that 57-year-old Lisa Gaye Leikvold allegedly killed her mother, Laverne Hoffman, at her mother’s residence on Harbor View Drive in Melbourne. Police responded to the residence at 11 p.m. on Wednesday following a 911 call whch alleged that a murder had just taken place.

The initial reports state that Ms. Huffman was found lying on her back in her bedroom with a large kitchen knife in her chest. The suspect, Ms. Leikvold, was found on an adjacent couch inside the house when officers arrived. Police say that Ms. Leikvold did not resist and cooperated with the officers.

The initial investigation is pointing to ongoing family strife as the motivation behind the matricide, according to investigators.

While domestic violence offenses continue a decade-long decline as Florida’s population ages, the relationships of the victim and offender have changed dramatically over the last four years. According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s Annual Uniform Crime Report, spouse-on-spouse murders have dropped from 66 in 2011 to 46 in 2014, while parents murdering children have doubled from 19 to 38 during the same time period. The largest change was in the number of “other family” victim/offender murders which has nearly quadrupled from 7 in 2011 to 27 in 2014.