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Handout
Deanna LaJune Laney Posted on 05/12/2003 11:19:09 AM PDT by MeekOneGOP
Mom 'calm' in call to 911
Diaries, Bible sought to shed light on her thoughts, boys' deaths
05/12/2003
TYLER – Sunday was to be First Assembly of God's special Mother's Day celebration, but the congregation instead gathered to mourn the inexplicable – a tragedy in which two children were bludgeoned to death with rocks, allegedly by their mother, a member of the church's choir.
Hundreds filled the pews, some calling out encouragement, many dabbing their eyes as pastor Gary Bell talked of the pain of losing two of his young nephews and a third nephew's effort to cling to life.
He talked of his sister-in-law, Deanna LaJune "Dee" Laney, who was jailed a few blocks away on charges of capital murder. She reported her children's deaths in a 911 call described Sunday as calm and peaceful.
Handout Deanna LaJune Laney |
Ms. Laney, 38, was arrested early Saturday at her rural Smith County home near Tyler after telling the 911 dispatcher that she'd smashed in her sons' heads with rocks.
'Almost little girlish'
Sheriff J.B. Smith said Ms. Laney used her cellphone to report that God ordered her to kill her sons. He said she talked for more than 20 minutes, her voice "almost little girlish" as she gave the badly rattled dispatcher detailed instructions to her home. Sheriff Smith said Ms. Laney also called her older sons by name as she told the dispatcher how to find their bodies "near the swing" in her front yard.
"She was very calm, very peaceful," he said.
Sheriff Smith and other officials have said the incident is eerily reminiscent of the 2001 Houston case in which Andrea Yates calmly called 911 to report that she'd just drowned her five children. Ms. Yates, who told authorities that she killed her children because she feared they would otherwise be damned to hell, is serving a life sentence for the deaths.
A deputy sent to the Smith County home found the bodies of 6-year-old Luke Allen Laney and 8-year-old Joshua Laney lying in the front yard with bloody rocks the size of dinner plates on their chests.
Ms. Laney's youngest son, 14-month-old Aaron, was discovered in his crib, still breathing despite a massive open skull fracture and a pillow over his head, authorities said. A deputy found Ms. Laney wandering dazed in her back yard, her pajamas spattered with drying blood.
Relatives said the youngest son was in stable condition Sunday at Children's Medical Center of Dallas.
The boys' father, 44-year-old Keith Laney, slept through the attacks, awakening as the sheriff's deputy sent to investigate the 911 call searched the couple's neat brick home, authorities said.
Ms. Laney was being held Sunday in the Smith County Jail in lieu of bail totaling $3 million. She signed papers after her arrest seeking a court-appointed attorney. Sheriff Smith said two lawyers and her brother-in-law, the pastor, visited her during the weekend, and she remains under a suicide watch.
Mood swings reported
"She's had real quick mood swings. The jailer describes her as just peaks and valleys," Sheriff Smith said. "She's sometimes incoherent, sometimes lays in the fetal position, sometimes walks around her cell singing gospel music.
"Sometimes she prays. Sometimes she seems to realize what she's done and says, 'Oh no!' Then she just looks with a blank stare on her face," the sheriff said Sunday.
Investigators remained at the family home in New Chapel Hill, seven miles southeast of Tyler. Authorities said it might be Wednesday before they finish searching the premises.
What was she thinking?
"We're looking for anything she might have written, any diaries, birthday cards, their computer, any highlights in a Bible that might shed some light on what she was thinking," Smith County sheriff's Maj. Mike Lusk said.
Friends and neighbors have described Ms. Laney, a longtime church member, as an intensely devout woman who sang in a gospel group with three of her sisters. She often appeared in the choir during the church's weekly Sunday morning broadcasts on a Tyler television station.
She home-schooled her sons and was known in her modest, working-class neighborhood for closely supervising the oldest two, allowing them to play only with a younger cousin, who lived across the street.
Neighbors said Mr. Laney, who runs an air-compressor repair shop on nearby State Highway 64, is a hard worker who often took his older sons to play and help with chores at the family's small farm in nearby Arp, where he keeps a small herd of cattle.
Night before slayings
"At the present time, we don't have a clue what was in her head," Sheriff Smith said. "Their home was neat. The landscaping was all beautiful. Their friends that we've interviewed have said there was no indication, even the night before, of anything. They went out for dinner the night before with their kids."
Investigators said they have not been able to talk with Mr. Laney, who remained in Dallas on Sunday to be near his comatose son. They hoped to interview him Monday.
Mr. Bell told reporters outside his church that the Laney family "is one of the last you'd think this would ever happen to."
"They were a model family, hardworking, very spiritual. But in a moment of passion, and weakness, it seems, this tragedy unfolded," he said.
In his brief Sunday sermon, Mr. Bell said the church would stand with Ms. Laney, as well as with her grieving husband and their families. He told congregants that he'd already visited Ms. Laney in jail because he is her pastor as well as her brother-in-law.
Hurt and confusion
"All I can say is that I expressed our hurt and confusion over why and how this could happen, but also acknowledged our continuing love," he said.
He also repeatedly urged the congregation not to speculate about the case or discuss it with the media.
Authorities said a major focus of their investigation would be trying to unravel what could've prompted Ms. Laney to think God wanted her to kill her children. They said they have had no indication that Ms. Laney was on any medication or had a history of psychiatric problems.
Investigators also will review video recordings of the church's Sunday services, which air locally a week after taping.
In the service shown Sunday, Mr. Bell talked about the world's increasing terrorism and violence as signs of the imminence of the Antichrist, Armageddon and the return of Jesus Christ.
The hourlong sermon pointedly referred to a string of high-profile crimes in the United States, including the kidnapping of Salt Lake City teenager Elizabeth Smart, the slaying of pregnant woman Laci Peterson in California and a case reported last month in The Washington Post of two parents accused of decapitating their three children.
"I'm sure there will be people who will resist the death penalty because it was a moment of insanity, so the death penalty will be cruel to people who kill their innocent children," Mr. Bell said of the case reported in The Post. "You explain that logic to me."
But on this Sunday, after the somber congregation flocked past a church sign that read, "a mother's heart is a child's schoolroom," Mr. Bell implored them to avoid "theologizing and judgmentalism."
Pastor Derwood Dubose of Hurst, district director for the North Texas Conference of Assemblies of God, spoke to the congregation by phone, telling them that Ms. Laney had been "overcome by some force we cannot fully identify," leaving family and friends with "a hurt that only time and God can heal."
Mr. Bell thanked congregants for all their calls, visits and offers of help, adding, "The main thing we need is prayer."
"It's a time of mourning," he told reporters after he and more than a dozen of the Laneys' other family members filed out of the church sanctuary. "It always happens to someone else, then when it comes this close to home, you begin to empathize with other people.
"The truth is, nobody knows exactly what happened at this point except Dee."
E-mail lhancock@dallasnews.com
Amazing how quickly someone can say the above and then turn around and ask for prayer & forgiveness. The children killed and the child wounded are STILL innocent. THAT is cruel.
Her behavior in jail would say different. She's already starting the insanity defense, which I will never accept as a true defense.
The call to the cops here (like Andrea Yates' call to the cops) was proof enough that she knew right from wrong, and was thus not legally insane.
She'll spend life in prison, just like Yates.
Are you being sarcastic?
Oh, my God! Are you actually suggesting this woman be killed?
You are evil evil EVIL!!!!
She'll spend life in prison, just like Yates.
I agree with you, Sinky. Given that Texas defines legal insanity very narrowly, she'll be found sane, probably after she's medicated. But given what I heard the sheriff say about her behavior, it's going to be a mitigating factor in whether they go for the death penalty, or if they do, will mitigate with the jury, just like Yates.
Another apocalyptic religious connection to a homicide.
What I didn't know until reading this thread was that the A of G discourages psychotropic drugs.
Not good.
She'll pay the penalty for sure.
But this is not an evil woman; this is a nutty woman who happened to belong to a church that discouraged her use of antidepressants. I'll wager, as time goes on, we find out that this woman was, in fact, severely depressed and could have benefitted from treatment.
Like Christian Science, a denomination that refuses to recognize modern medicine (and thus ridicules the intellect of human beings) is a scandal to God Himself.
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