A college senior was charged with murdering her mother. Now, family friends say she was ‘brainwashed’ by her dad

A college senior accused of murdering her mom last summer has pleaded not guilty.

Karrie Neurauter, 20, a computer engineering major at the Rochester Institute of Technology in upstate New York, is in court for second degree murder.

She was arrested at her home in Syracuse and accused along with her dad, Lloyd, of killing her mom, Michele, in August 2017.

Prosecutors say Michele's death was a "homicide staged as a suicide," and have yet to release more details beyond the fact she died by strangulation. They have not revealed information about motives or evidence.

Friends of the Neurauter family told local media they believe Karrie could have been psychologically manipulated by her dad.

"I think that we don’t know what it is to be living in an abusive, brainwashing situation," Megan O’Toole Tuazon, a friend of Michele's, told WHAM. "They were absolutely manipulated."

We have contacted the prosecution in Karrie's case to ask them to respond to claims that she was brainwashed by her dad, and will update this post if we hear back.

At the time of her death, Michele lived with her 14-year-old daughter and was divorced from her ex-husband Lloyd.

Lloyd was arrested last week in Princeton, New Jersey, where he was living. He was tackled by a detective on the roof of a five-story parking garage and taken into custody.

Cops in Michele's town of Corning, NY, said they had answered a number of domestic calls at the Neurauter home in the past.

Karrie has been remanded to Steuben County Jail in New York. Her case continues.

@hshukman