VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — WARNING: Some readers may find the following details disturbing
It started out when 37-year-old Norah Horwitz was cleaning out her room in her parents' home on Wren Place in Virginia Beach, according to a detective's testimony during a preliminary hearing Thursday.
In the courtroom, a Virginia Beach Homicide Unit detective testified Norah Horwitz told him she went downstairs to grab a bag from underneath the sink in the kitchen to put her stuff in to donate.
She told the detective her father, Abbey Horwitz, was standing in front of the sink, slightly blocking the cabinet. The detective said Norah then told him her father turned his hips inward toward her, which she believed was a sexual advancement.
He said Norah saw her father grab a kitchen knife, and that he and "came at" her. A small struggle ensued in the kitchen when Norah reportedly told the detective she got the knife from Abbey. She then ran to the hallway where she "struck him in the stomach" because she knew he had a sensitivity in that area of his body.
According to the testimony, Norah said she and her father struggled with the knife in the hallway, one rolling on top of the other. After a back and forth of the two of them taking the knife from each other, Norah said her father tried strangling her when he hit her to the floor. That's when she started stabbing him more.
Abbey Horwitz fell to the ground where the detective testified Norah could hear him groaning and making sounds. The detective said Norah told him she feared retaliation with the possibility of him still able to get up and attack, so she kept stabbing him.
An autopsy report presented by the prosecutors during the preliminary revealed that Abbey Horwitz had approximately 100 stab wounds.
The detective testified Norah waited a period of time before calling 911 "because she didn't want to sound distressed." He added Norah told him her father had molested her in the past, and she thought there was a threat of rape when the initial fight occurred.
Norah Horwitz, a transgender woman in the middle of transitioning and listed in court records as Michael Aaron Horwitz, was treated at the hospital before being taken into custody with lacerations to her hands and stiches for a deeper cut to her leg.
68-year-old Abbey Horwitz was a well-known dentist in the Virginia Beach area and lived in the Birdneck region.
Norah's attorney, a public defender, argued the testimony in Norah's interview with the detective clearly conveyed self-defense. He asked the judge to dismiss the charge, or at least change the charge to involuntary manslaughter.
However, the prosecutors argued back, asking the judge to sustain the second-degree murder charge because she reportedly admitted to stabbing her father while he was still lying on the floor, unable to defend himself.
The judge decided in favor of the prosecutors, pushing the second-degree murder charge to trial.
A grand jury is set to meet to review the evidence in this case on December 4. The next hearing before the trial is scheduled for this January 10.