A Warren man accused of killing his grandmother with a hammer has entered a plea of “a, but mentally ill.”

Juston K. Moore, 19, was charged with criminal homicide in the June 10 death of Kelly D. Wadsworth, 60, also of 619 Fourth Ave. She was Moore’s grandmother.

Moore was in Warren County plea court before President Judge Maureen Skerda on Thursday, where he entered the plea to first-degree murder charge as well as abuse of a corpse. He entered a guilty plea to theft by deception at a separate docket.

A hearing regarding the “mentally ill” portion of the plea and sentencing will be scheduled and probably held on the same day, according to Skerda.

Moore was represented by Warren County Chief Public Defender Kord Kinney.

Moore detailed some of his mental health diagnoses during court, listing, among others, hallucinations, attention deficit disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and borderline personality disorder.

District Attorney Rob Greene said the sentence for first-degree murder is mandatory life in prison without parole. Greene said he had talked with the family and “there is no just outcome of this case.”

Moore said he understands that he will spend the rest of his life “in the prison system.”

He said he believed that he might be admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Skerda agreed that that would be the likely outcome if the mental illness aspect of the plea is upheld.

At a preliminary hearing in August, a video of a police interview with Moore revealed many details of the case.

Moore said he had a conversation with his grandmother in which she voiced frustration.

“She was really upset,” Moore said in the interview. “She said, ‘Just kill me.'”

“I wanted to kill her because I thought that’s what she wanted me to do,” he said. “I was looking for some way to take control of that.” He said he wanted it to be as painless as possible.

He said he considered using pills before finding a pillow and trying unsuccessfully to kill her with that.

“I know that she could probably get back up … get back alive,” he said. “I ended up walking to the kitchen, getting the hammer.”

After killing her with the hammer, he put his grandmother’s corpse in a recycling bin — which resulted in the abuse of corpse charge.

Following the playing of the interview, City of Warren Police Detective Tiffany Post said an autopsy determined the cause of death to be asphyxiation, strangulation, and blunt force trauma.