LANEY RECOUNTS KILLING CHILDREN
By: CASEY KNAUPP & LAURA JETT KRANTZ, Staff Writers March 31, 2004
FATHER'S TEARS: Floyd Boatright, father of Deanna Laney, is visibly moved in court in Tyler on Wednesday during the playing of a videotape in which his daughter describes in detail how she stoned her three children. (Staff Photo By Tom Worner)
Deanna LaJune Laney knew on the morning of May 9, 2003, she would have to kill her three sons when she saw her youngest son playing with a toy spear - it was a sign from God.
In a 50-minute taped interview shown during her capital murder trial Wednesday, Mrs. Laney explained several signs she received from God leading up to the day she stoned two of her boys to death and seriously injured a third.
The 39-year-old housewife talked quietly in a slow, calm manner at times as she recounted her experiences in detail; at other times she cried uncontrollably, her words almost inaudible.
Psychiatrist and forensic consultant Dr. Park Dietz testified he interviewed the defendant for more than nine hours and concluded she was legally insane at the time of the killings. The tape shown in court was the basis of his diagnosis, as well as the rare consistency of her detailed story. He said the chemistry in Mrs. Laney's brain was unbalanced and the onset of her illness began at least four years ago with a previous psychotic episode.
He described hers as a "textbook case."
Mrs. Laney has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Mental health experts retained by the defense and one appointed by the court are expected to testify that they agree.
The day before the incident, Mrs. Laney said she got the feeling she was going to lose her family and that the Lord was telling her to value the time she had left with them. So she did - they went swimming and then to their farm - she enjoyed being with them, she said.
She then got the feeling she was supposed to be a witness to their deaths. Later that night, while leaving a restaurant, she felt her family would die on the way home in a car accident. Mrs. Laney said she had the exact feeling four years earlier when leaving the same restaurant.
In the middle of the night she woke, her "stomach grumbling" and she saw two shadows outside of the window. One of the shadows was the devil and she feared it would come in and kill her family. After she prayed for a while, the shadows disappeared and she thought the Lord had answered her prayers; it was all over.
The next day, May 9, when Mrs. Laney saw her 14-month-old son Aaron playing with a toy spear, she knew she was going to have to kill her boys. She said she yanked the spear out of his hand and threw it. Later Aaron came in from the house carrying a rock. She grabbed it and threw it out. He then came in squeezing a frog. She got the feeling she was to kill her children by stabbing, straggling or beating them with rocks, she said.
"Each time I was telling Him (God) no and each time it was getting worse and worse, the way it would have to be done.
"I just couldn't believe it, but I believed it with all my heart. I believed it with all my heart it was the Lord telling me that, but I couldn't figure out why."
ASKED FOR SIGN
She asked the Lord if he wanted her to kill her boys, to give her a sign. Luke read a Bible passage about a black horse and later that same day Aaron grabbed a black horse out of his toy box. Mrs. Laney interpreted these as signs; the black horse meant death.
Later, as she was watering shrubs, she said she asked the Lord, "Why? For what purpose? What rock?" She tripped over a rock and knew that rock was the weapon she had to use. She thought the Lord was telling her to have faith, that she could not see the why but just had to obey.
She took the rock inside, along with Aaron. She intended to hit him with the rock then but could not, so she hid it under his crib, she said.
She thought it was her weakness or lack of faith that allowed her to resist God's instructions, Dietz said.
When her husband Keith Laney returned from work and the family was outside, she said she saw Aaron pick up a rock and hit Joshua in the head. He then hit his father with one, who scolded him, then Luke. Mrs. Laney said that it was a warning that if she killed Joshua before Luke, her husband would come in and interrupt her. He would think it was wrong and not understand, she said.
Mrs. Laney's family members, including her husband and parents, cried as the tape played.
As the tape continued, Mrs. Laney said she did not know when she was to kill her children until she awoke about 11:30 p.m. Friday. Then she knew it was time.
After hitting Aaron repeatedly with the rock she had concealed under his crib earlier in the day, Mrs. Laney told the doctor the toddler just would not "quit breathing, he wouldn't die. I couldn't do it anymore. I said, 'Lord, you're just going to have to do the rest.'" And she covered his face with a pillow to muffle the gurgling sound. Then she went to get 6-year-old Luke. After smashing Luke with a rock and dragging his body behind the swing set, she brought 8-year-old Joshua outside and attacked him in a similar manner.
AUTOPSY RESULTS
Pediatric pathologist Harry Lee Wilson testified Wednesday brain tissue slides showed both boys' brains were viable from 10 minutes up to one hour after their mother mortally injured them with heavy landscaping rocks.
"It is my opinion that neither boy died right away after receiving the injuries," he said. "Luke lived after the wounds were inflicted and was alive after he was drug behind the swing."
Laney family members hid their eyes as autopsy photos were displayed for the jury.
Wilson testified Luke received one lethal blow to his right temple, while Joshua suffered multiple blows to the left side of his head that seriously damaged his skull and scalp. Wilson said both were likely unconscious as their brains continued to swell, ultimately causing their deaths.
He testified the lack of defensive wounds indicated the boys were under the psychological, intellectual and physical control of their mother who told them to place their heads on a landscaping stone in the family rock garden before striking them.
Aaron did not die from his injuries and is still recovering. His doctor testified Monday the toddler suffers visual impairment and will never be self-sufficient.
A little more than an hour after the attacks, Mrs. Laney told a 911 dispatcher she believed she "did wrong by Aaron" and wasn't supposed to kill him.
Dietz said this indicated she had already begun to doubt whether the Lord told her to kill Aaron, the signs from God and how she had interpreted them. He said a week after the attacks, she was certain she was not supposed to kill Aaron, and by the time Dietz interviewed her in December, she knew she was not supposed to kill any of them.
Now medicated, she believes her experiences were not signs from God but a mental illness, he said.
THE CASE
Acting Smith County District Attorney Matt Bingham said Mrs. Laney was deceptive because she led her two older boys out into the yard one after the other without telling them where they were going, before stoning them to death. He pointed to Mrs. Laney dragging Luke's body out of view before bringing Joshua outside as evidence she was trying to hide her actions.
Mrs. Laney said on the videotape she did not want Joshua to see what she had done to Luke or to struggle, as Andrea Yates' oldest boy had done. She said when Joshua asked where they were going, she replied, "This is a test." She later hit Joshua until she couldn't any longer and saw a streak of light, indicating to her that he was dead.
Mrs. Laney told Dietz she believed Mrs. Yates had also been instructed by God to kill her children and be a witness in the end times. The Houston woman was convicted of drowning her five children and sentenced to life in prison.
Bingham must show that Mrs. Laney knew what she was doing and knew right from wrong at the time of the killings in order for her to be found guilty. Prosecutors repeatedly asked Dietz and forensic psychiatrist Dr. Edward Gripon, both prosecution witnesses, if Mrs. Laney knew murder was illegal at the time she killed her sons.
"She knows that right and wrong are two different things, but she felt she was doing what was right because she had lost a grip on reality," Dietz testified.
He said he believed Mrs. Laney knew that murdering her children was illegal, and although mental illness would not remove that knowledge, she probably was not thinking about it at the time.
Bingham described some of her accounts of the attacks as cold and deceptive. He said she was aware enough to engage in a systematic plan to kill her children in a certain order, with different rocks and other steps she took. First Assistant D.A. Brett Harrison characterized her actions conducted in the middle of the night without her husband's knowledge as "secretive."
Dietz and Gripon both said Mrs. Laney was profoundly impaired by her illness and did not want to kill her children, but truly felt she had a decision - to obey God's orders and kill her children or turn her back on her God and go to hell.
Gripon also reviewed all documentation, prior interviews and conducted is own six-hour interview of Mrs. Laney in December.
"The presence of mental illness in this particular individual is rather obvious," he said. "She has a psychotic condition that has increased in magnitude and severity over the last few years."
Whether she knew murder was illegal, she believed God had instructed her to kill her children and he would never ask her to do something that was not right, Gripon said.
Mrs. Laney is standing trial in Judge Cynthia Kent's 114th District Court for the consolidated cases of capital murder and injury to a child. The prosecution rested its case Wednesday and the defense is expected to complete its case Thursday.
The state's team, made up of Bingham, Harrison and Chief Felony Prosecutor April Sikes, is not seeking the death penalty in the case. Lead defense counsel F.R. "Buck" Files Jr. and attorneys Tonda Curry and LaJuanda Lacy are defending Mrs. Laney.
Laura Jett Krantz covers Tyler city government, planning and zoning and the Parks Board. She can be reached at 903.596.6266. e-mail: news@tylerpaper.com
Casey Knaupp covers state and federal courts. She can be reached at 903.596.6289. e-mail: news@tylerpaper.com
