Daughter of woman found slain in east Modesto taken into custody

Update: Modesto police on Tuesday evening located and took into custody Gisele Tadlock, daughter of a Modesto woman found slain in her home earlier in the day.

A police lieutenant did not immediately have information on the circumstances of Tadlock’s apprehension, but said he understands it was peaceful.

We’ll have more information as it’s available.

Original story: Authorities are looking for a Modesto woman after her elderly mother was found dead in a home in northeast Modesto on Tuesday afternoon in what police are classifying as a homicide.

Authorities are not calling Gisele Tadlock, 53, a suspect but said they are looking for witnesses or family members to interview.

Officers were called to the victim’s house in the 3300 block of Kee Lane after a caretaker showed up there to see the victim but she did not answer the door, said Modesto Police Department spokeswoman Sharon Bear. Officers entered the home to do a security check and found the woman deceased.

The next-door neighbor, Angela Psuik, said she filed a restraining order against Tadlock last month after Tadlock broke into her home.

Psuik said she was trying to get to her 17-year-old daughter, who Tadlock believes is her own daughter.

“She was fixated on her; she is convinced that my daughter is her daughter,” Psuik said. “Her daughter is grown and in the military and doesn’t want anything to do with her.”

Psuik said her daughter had to lock herself in a bathroom with the family dog and that Tadlock was using a knife to try to gain entry.

“She was trying to take her,” Psuik said. “She thinks I have stolen her.”

After the incident, she sent her 17-year-old daughter and her other daughter, 15, to live with their older sister in Arizona for a few weeks, but they returned last week for school.

Psuik said she didn’t want to pursue charges but got the restraining order instead. “When I realized she was mentally unstable, I said, ‘No, take her to the hospital and get her fixed.’”

But since the first incident, Psuik said, she has found Tadlock in her backyard on multiple occasions, including Tuesday morning.

She said she called 911 around 8:30 a.m., but officers did not show up until 11. It was shortly after that that the second call to police came in for the security check on Tadlock’s mother.

“While they were taking my information, another set of police showed up,” Psuik said. “Next thing I know, they were taping off my house.”

She said that when she learned Tadlock’s mother was dead, “I fell on the floor because we knew something was going to happen because Gisele is very unhinged.”

Police declined to comment on Psuik’s account. Bear would not say what led officers to conclude Tadlock’s mother was a victim of homicide.

Millbrook was closed between Kodiak Drive and Hillglen Avenue while officers investigated.

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This story was originally published August 14, 2018 at 12:51 PM.