By Shayna Jacobs
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN SUPREME COURT — Linda Stein's personal assistant felt a "crazy sensation" throughout her body after beating her boss to death with a wooden yoga stick, she said during her videotaped confession.
Natavia Lowery, 28, claimed she could not hold back from bludgeoning Stein into unconsciousness after hearing a series of racial insults from a boss she described as disrespectful and degrading.
Lowery is on trial for Stein's murder after allegedly confessing to authorities on Nov. 9, 2009. She admittedly stole over $30,000 from Stein and was and was thrown into a senseless and violent rage on the day of the murder, according to the taped confession.
"My intentions weren't to kill her," a tearful Lowery told investigators during the interview.
"You know it's different when you're hitting someone with a heavy bar and you're in essence fracturing their skull?" said Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzzi-Orbon.
Lowery said her boss became "really evil" and transformed just before the beating. When she started throwing insults at Lowery, the young assistant said anger consumed her.
"I can't explain how I felt, you know," Lowery said. "I can't explain, you know, what was going through my body."
"I didn't feel like me. [Stein] didn't look like herself."
Lowery has since recanted her statements, but a Manhattan jury Thursday watched more than an hour of footage during which a sobbing, sniffling Lowery said she lost control of herself and murdered Stein.
The confession, Lowery's lawyers argued, was coerced by investigators who kept Lowery overnight in a cement-walled room at a Lower East Side precinct.
