Jeremy Kirch murdered my mother, Elizabeth Gerling, during a voluntary LSD-induced psychosis in August 2024. Jeremy Kirch pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the second degree for murdering my mother, & as a result, he is facing three and a third to ten years in state prison at the sentencing on - September 11th, 2025. This is hardly "justice" & far less than what he deserves, as I believe he should spend the rest of his life in prison for what he did not only to my mom, but to my family & the community. At the very least, he should have to serve the full ten years of his proposed sentence. My mother, Elizabeth Gerling, dedicated her life to helping people in need and creating a bright future for the youth. She spent her entire career in education at the primary & secondary levels, most recently spending 11 years as the beloved principal at Columbus Elementary in the Utica City School District. Anyone who ever met or knew my mom will tell you how great a person she was. Kind-spirited & truly good individuals are few & far between nowadays, yet my mom was one of them. Always treated everyone with kindness & respect because that's what she believed in.  On a personal level, my mom was my world. She was a single mother & I was her only child, so we had a very strong & unique bond. She was my superhero and the person whom I valued and respected most above all else. Growing up, she made sure I had an amazing childhood, making sure I never missed out on anything despite being a single mother. Whether that was destroying her back by boosting me up higher so I could see Big Time Rush above the crowd in 2009, or screaming at me from the stands to be more aggressive during my high school football games, she made sure to play both roles as my mom and my dad. She made every sacrifice that she could to make me smile, and I’ll always be grateful for that until the day I pass away. She didn’t date while raising me because she thought it would detract from her duty as my mom. As I got older, I realized that she sacrificed 20 years of her life that she could’ve spent finding love raising me, and that was a debt I could’ve only hoped to repay.  I miss her more than I’ll ever be able to comprehend, and I realize now how large a part she was in my life, but not just as my mom. She was my motivation to pursue my goals, my blanket in life for when things got tough, and a large part of my soul. When she was taken from me, that part of my soul was stolen from me just like she was.  My mom met Jeremy in April of 2024, & they started dating shortly after. Jeremy was never off-putting during any interaction I had with him, & quite frankly, I liked the guy at one point. To my family & me, they seemed like a good match for one another. She brought him to her 50th birthday party in June to meet all of her Columbus family, they went on a trip to Cape Cod together, and my mom would spend a lot of her free time with Jeremy at his camper in Oneida. As we know now, Jeremy has severe mental issues and violent tendencies that he hid from her & us. This all culminated in the abrupt end of their relationship when, upon returning from a Phish Concert in Delaware that he attended alone, where he admitted to taking LSD, he was sent to my mom by the police after having a strange interaction with strangers whom he had followed home to their house. After being sent to my mom's care, he strangled her to death later that night, blaming strange delusions as his reason. I had left the day before to go back to school, otherwise she wouldn't have been alone with him & I could've intervened. The reality is that Jeremy Kirch willingly took LSD knowing the risks, and ended up murdering my sweet, innocent mother, and now my life will forever be changed for the worse, even long after Jeremy is dead.