A Windsor man has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the stabbing death of his mother.

Jason Coffey, 41, stabbed his mom 40 times then went through her purse searching for money to buy drugs.

"Drugs had everything to do with this," says defence lawyer Andrew Bradie. "If Jason hadn’t been addicted to crack cocaine, this murder would never have happened."

Coffey cried throughout the entire reading of facts by the Crown attorney in a Windsor courtroom on Tuesday.

“My client accepted responsibility for a most egregious act,” says Bradie. “He recognized that he had perpetrated a crime upon his mother which would never allow the family unit to be the same.”

Coffey killed his 63-year-old mother in her Oak Avenue home last July.

“All he could do to try to show the extent of his sorrow and remorse was to accept responsibility and have them never go through the criminal process in the normal course, which would have required them to testify in some fashion or another,” says Bradie.

Windsor police originally charged her son with first-degree murder.