Norma J. Caraker’s son Neil Howard, 46, killed her in her Troy, Ill., home because he did not approve of her dating, according to a statement from the Madison County IL State’s Attorney’s Office. He strangled his 60-year-old mother on Sep. 13, 2023, shortly after she went on a date, the statement said.

A Madison County jury returned a guilty verdict in the case of a man accused of strangling his mother. Noma Caraker, 60, was found unresponsive in her Troy, Illinois, home on Lower Marine Road in September of 2023.

Prosecutors said the mother's dating made him "angrier and angrier and angrier, until he got drunk enough that he couldn’t take it anymore."

The victim, Norma Caraker, was the widow of Charles “Tom” Caraker Sr., a former mayor of Troy who died in 2018.