The bath salts made me do it! Woman who urinated on $40m painting blames it on drug linked to zombie attacks

 

A woman who destroyed a painting worth $40 million has spoken out about her shameful act, claiming to have been high on bath salts when she did it.
Carmen Tisch was arrested after surveillance footage captured her pawing at a painting at the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver, Colorado, before turning around and leaning on it as she urinated. 
But she said she doesn’t remember doing it, and only came around after having been thrown in jail. 
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Remorse?: Tisch grinned as she told the news channel that 'they measured my pee puddle'

In an interview with Kdvr.com, Tisch said the last thing she remembers is meeting a friend on a street corner and telling him not to stand on the wall because it was dangerous.
She said she had been drinking heavily and taking the drugs as a replacement for her heroin addiction.

 

‘I was a pill popper, heroin addict. I was in the methadone clinic for while,’ Tisch explained. ‘And when I got off the methadone that`s when I started drinking a lot. That`s when I was doing the bath salt.’
On waking up to the news of what she had done, Tisch said she was ‘in shock’. 
‘I was ashamed and also a little relieved that I didn't murder somebody,’ she told the channel.
‘I`m an artist myself. I`m sorry. I`m ashamed about what happened.’

Caught on camera: Surveillance footage shows Tisch loitering near the painting

Vandal: She then hits the painting, before turning around and urinating against it

Tisch added that officers ‘actually measured my pee puddle’ but said that she is too scared to watch the surveillance video herself.
Since then Tisch has spent time in two psychiatric wards and is now on intensive probation, tested for drugs and alcohol every week. 
A judge ruled that Tisch must also receive help for alcohol dependency as a condition of her sentence and she may still face a restitution hearing.
After Tisch was arrested in December her mother said that Tisch was an alcoholic. 
Lynn Kimbrough, spokeswoman for the Denver District Attorney's Office, said Tisch pulled down her trousers and rubbed her buttocks against the painting while urinating on December 29.
'You have to wonder where her friends were,' said Ms Kimbrough in January.
The police report said Tisch struck the painting repeatedly with her fist and that the scratches and other damage were visible.

Probation: Tisch, seen here in court in January, is undergoing mental health and alcohol addiction treatment as part of her probation

Damage: The painting, which is nearly nine-and-a-half-feet tall and 13-feet wide, is estimated between $30 million and $40 million by the museum

The painting, which is nearly nine-and-a-half-feet tall and 13-feet wide, is estimated between $30 million and $40 million by the museum, according to the Denver Post.
Born in North Dakota in 1904, Still was considered one of the most influential of the American post-World War Two abstract expressionist artists, although he was not as well known as others such as Jackson Pollock.
Still died in 1980, and the city of Denver worked for years with his widow, Patricia, to secure the single-artist museum. 
She died in 2005, and her husband's collection was bequeathed to the city.
Four of Still's works were auctioned by Sotheby's last year for $114 million to endow the Denver museum, which opened with much fanfare in November 18.
The museum's collection includes about 2,400 paintings, drawings, prints, and sculptures, much of which have never been on public display before.
Because Still closely guarded his works, most of the pieces at his namesake museum had not previously been displayed.
Court records show that Tisch was arrested in January 2011 on an armed robbery charge.
She was freed on $50,000 bond, then the charge was dropped on December 16 2011.