- Joined
- Mar 5, 2004
- Messages
- 4,824
- Reaction score
- 2
Jury Acquits Texas Mother in Stoning Deaths
Woman Says God Ordered Her to Bludgeon Sons to Death
By LISA FALKENBERG, AP
TYLER, Texas (April 3) - A housewife who said God told her to bash her sons' skulls with rocks was acquitted Saturday of capital murder and serious injury to a child after a jury determined she was legally insane during the killings.
A jury of eight men and four women deliberated for about seven hours before determining that Deanna Laney, 39, did not know right from wrong last Mother's Day weekend when she killed 8-year-old Joshua and 6-year-old Luke in the front yard and left Aaron, now 2, maimed in his crib.
Laney broke into tears as the verdict was read. Her husband, Keith Laney, sat emotionless. A few jurors cried and struggled to maintain their composure.
State law allows Laney to be committed to a maximum security state hospital. Medical evaluations will dictate when she will be released.
In five days of graphic, emotional testimony, prosecutors portrayed the May 9 killings as deceptively planned and coldly executed. They said that even if Laney believed she was doing right by God, she had to have known she was doing wrong by state law. Her first call, they pointed out, was to 911 to summon authorities.
Defense attorneys argued that insanity was the only reason why a deeply religious mother who homeschooled her children would kill two of them and maim another without so much as a tear.
All five mental health experts consulted in the case, including two for the prosecution and one for the judge, concluded that a severe mental illness caused Laney to have psychotic delusions that rendered her incapable of knowing right from wrong during the killings - the standard in Texas for insanity.
Psychiatrists testified that Laney believed she was divinely chosen by God - just as Mary was chosen to bear Christ - to kill her children as a test of faith and then serve as a witness after the world ended.
04/03/04 20:32 EST
I cannot believe this.. They found her not guilty!!!!!! Ii's bullshit.. Sigh!!! The law isn't fair for dead kids but fair for murderers.. It's bullshit.. but she will be in the hospital. I cannot believe this!!!
Woman Says God Ordered Her to Bludgeon Sons to Death
By LISA FALKENBERG, AP
TYLER, Texas (April 3) - A housewife who said God told her to bash her sons' skulls with rocks was acquitted Saturday of capital murder and serious injury to a child after a jury determined she was legally insane during the killings.
A jury of eight men and four women deliberated for about seven hours before determining that Deanna Laney, 39, did not know right from wrong last Mother's Day weekend when she killed 8-year-old Joshua and 6-year-old Luke in the front yard and left Aaron, now 2, maimed in his crib.
Laney broke into tears as the verdict was read. Her husband, Keith Laney, sat emotionless. A few jurors cried and struggled to maintain their composure.
State law allows Laney to be committed to a maximum security state hospital. Medical evaluations will dictate when she will be released.
In five days of graphic, emotional testimony, prosecutors portrayed the May 9 killings as deceptively planned and coldly executed. They said that even if Laney believed she was doing right by God, she had to have known she was doing wrong by state law. Her first call, they pointed out, was to 911 to summon authorities.
Defense attorneys argued that insanity was the only reason why a deeply religious mother who homeschooled her children would kill two of them and maim another without so much as a tear.
All five mental health experts consulted in the case, including two for the prosecution and one for the judge, concluded that a severe mental illness caused Laney to have psychotic delusions that rendered her incapable of knowing right from wrong during the killings - the standard in Texas for insanity.
Psychiatrists testified that Laney believed she was divinely chosen by God - just as Mary was chosen to bear Christ - to kill her children as a test of faith and then serve as a witness after the world ended.
04/03/04 20:32 EST
I cannot believe this.. They found her not guilty!!!!!! Ii's bullshit.. Sigh!!! The law isn't fair for dead kids but fair for murderers.. It's bullshit.. but she will be in the hospital. I cannot believe this!!!
