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Deanna
LaJune LANEY
Classification: Homicide
Characteristics:
Parricide - Laney claimed God
ordered her to bash in her sons' heads
Number of victims: 1
Date of murder: May 9, 2003
Date of arrest:
Same day (surrenders)
Date of birth: 1965
Victim profile: Her
two older sons, Joshua, 8, and Luke, 6
Method of murder: Beating with a rock
Location: New Chapell Hill, Smith County, Texas, USA
Status:
Acquitted of all charges by reason of insanity on April 3, 2004. Committed
to a maximum security state hospital. Released on May 24, 2012
The Deanna Laney murders were the killings,
by Deanna Laney, of her two oldest sons (Joshua, 8, and Luke,
6) by stoning.
On 3 April 2004, a jury acquitted her of all
charges by reason of insanity.
Details
During the investigation, Laney claimed God ordered
her to bash in her sons' heads. Laney is a member of an Assemblies of
God church, where she sang in the choir.
Five mental health experts were consulted in her
case: two each by the prosecution and defense, and one by the judge.
All of them arrived at the conclusion that Laney suffered from
psychotic delusions which made her unable to know right from wrong at
the time of the killings.
05/24/2012: Court documents obtained by KLTV-TV of
Tyler show Deanna Laney of New Chapel Hill, near Tyler, was released
after four psychiatrists testified behind closed doors last week that
she no longer posed a threat to others. State attorneys disagreed.
However, she is subject to a list of conditions,
including that she have no unsupervised contact with minors and submit
to regular drug tests to ensure that she takes required medication.
A Smith County jury acquitted Laney in 2004 of the
deaths of two sons, 8-year-old Joshua and 6-year-old Luke. Son Aaron,
then 14 months old, survived but suffered brain damage.
Wikipedia.org
Deanna Laney Released From State Hospital
By Dayna Worchel - TylerPaper.com
May 25, 2012
A New Chapel Hill housewife who was acquitted by a
Smith County jury in April 2004 on reasons of insanity for stoning her
sons to death has been released from Kerrville State Hospital.
Smith County District
Attorney Matt Bingham said Deanna Laney, now 47, has been confined to
the hospital since 2007 after she was transferred from Vernon State
Hospital in 2004.
There was a
closed-door civil commitment hearing for Ms. Laney in November in the
114th District Court, but the outcome of that hearing was unclear.
"All of the doctors
who came to the November hearing testified that she wasn't mentally
ill," Bingham said. He added that his office did everything possible
to find evidence to allow Ms. Laney to remain in the mental hospital,
including calling in his own experts to testify.
Bingham said he
respected the verdict of the jury and that Judge Christy Kennedy "did
what she had to do and followed the law." He said he wants the public
to understand that his office and Judge Kennedy had to follow the law.
According to Judge
Kennedy's order, "Witnesses testified that Deanna Laney was not likely
to cause harm to herself, that she was not likely to cause serious
harm to others and that she was not experiencing substantial mental
deterioration of her ability to function independently. All witnesses
testified that there was no further need for Deanna Laney to continue
inpatient treatment."
Bingham said he did
not know exactly when Ms. Laney was released and did not know where
she was living. Her treatment plan has been sealed by the court, he
said, because the case became a civil matter after she was acquitted.
Her husband, Keith Laney, has been notified of the release, Bingham
said.
Matt Bingham and Ms.
Laney's defense attorney F.R. Buck Files had said they were barred by
law from discussing the results after the November hearing.
When Ms. Laney was
acquitted by a Smith County jury in April 2004, then-114th District
Judge Cynthia Stevens Kent ordered Ms. Laney be placed in a
maximum-security inpatient treatment facility. Since then, it has been
determined at hearings each year that Ms. Laney should remain at an
inpatient facility. Judge Kent retired from the bench in 2008.
In June 2004, Vernon
State Hospital transferred Ms. Laney from its maximum-security
facility to Kerrville State Hospital, a nonsecure inpatient facility,
court documents state.
Between August and
December 2005, Ms. Laney's treatment team granted her brief passes off
the hospital campus in Kerrville.
In 2007, after
attorneys discovered that Ms. Laney had been transferred from Vernon
State Hospital to Kerrville State Hospital and was being allowed
unsupervised furloughs by doctors, Judge Kent put a stop to it at the
request of prosecutors.
Ms. Laney's defense
attorneys appealed the decision, but the 12th Court of Appeals ruled
in April 2007 that the Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental
Retardation could not grant Ms. Laney passes to leave the facility
with her parents to go shopping and dining in the Hill Country.
Law Enforcement Reaction
Smith County Sheriff
J.B. Smith said on Thursday that he is shocked, very concerned and
upset about the release.
"I believe that most
of us in law enforcement were under the impression that Deanna Laney
would be hospitalized for the rest of her life," he said.
Smith's office
investigated the 2003 deaths of Ms. Laney's children, and Smith and
other seasoned lawmen said it was one of the most gruesome crime
scenes they had ever seen.
The sheriff, after
being asked by the Tyler Morning Telegraph spoke with Judge Kennedy's
court more than two weeks ago and was told that Ms. Laney was confined
and that nothing had changed.
"I'm very concerned
and very upset that I was not informed of this," Smith said. The
judge's order was dated May 15.
The slayings
A jury found Ms.
Laney, a then-43-year-old housewife who home-schooled her children,
not guilty by reason of insanity for stoning her sons to death on
Mother's Day weekend in 2003.
Joshua, 8, and Luke,
6, were found dead in the front yard of the family's New Chapel Hill
home, and then 14-month-old Aaron was found seriously injured in his
crib.
Ms. Laney's attorneys
admitted during the trial that she stoned her children but contended
that she was insane and did not know that what she was doing was
wrong. Ms. Laney told authorities God told her to kill her children.
Under Texas law,
people are found legally insane if, at the time of an offense, they
did not know their conduct was wrong because of some mental illness or
defect.
Ms. Laney was
defended in trial by attorneys Files, Tonda Curry and LaJuanda Lacy,
while Bingham, former First Assistant District Attorney Brett Harrison
and current First Assistant District Attorney April Sikes prosecuted
the case.
Staff Writer Kenneth
Dean contributed to this report.
Texas woman who killed
kids acquitted
USAToday.com
April 4, 2004
TYLER, Texas (AP) — A woman who claimed God ordered
her to bash in the heads of her sons was acquitted of all charges by
reason of insanity Saturday after a jury determined she did not know
right from wrong during the killings.
A jury found that Deanna Laney
was legally insane May 9 when she killed her two older sons, ages 6
and 8, in the front yard and left the youngest, now 2, maimed in his
crib. Laney, 39, would have received an automatic life sentence had
she been convicted of capital murder.
Laney broke into tears as the
verdict was read. Her husband, Keith Laney, sat solemnly with his head
down. 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. She will remain at the Smith
County Jail until a hearing regarding her transfer.
Defense attorney Tonda Curry
said the verdict doesn't mean Laney escaped punishment.
"Now and for the rest of her
life, the punishment and torment that's going on in her own head is
more significant and more damaging to her than anything the criminal
justice system could have done, other than death," Curry said.
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.
Smith County District Attorney
Matt Bingham said had no regrets about taking the case to trial.
"This is a case that the
citizens of this county needed to make the decision on," he said.
Jurors deliberated about seven
hours before reaching their verdict in the deaths of 8-year-old Joshua
and 6-year-old Luke, and the beating of Aaron. The baby was found
bleeding in his crib while the other two were found with their skulls
smashed in the front yard.
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.
"There was no crying," Curry
said. "She was insane. There is no other answer."
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. In a videotape played
at her trial, Laney said she saw her youngest son play with a spear,
hold a rock and squeeze a frog, and took them all as signs from God
that she should kill her children.
In closing arguments earlier
Saturday, prosecutors portrayed the killings last Mother's Day weekend
as deceptively planned and coldly executed.
"It was graphic, it was
horrific and it was brutal," Bingham told the jury.
Bingham pounded his fist in his
hand as he recounted Joshua's killing: "He got strike after strike
after strike on his head to the point that his brains were coming out
of his head like liquid."
Prosecutors 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.
The 911 tape was among the
evidence jurors reviewed during deliberations. Jurors also had asked
for psychiatric testimony to resolve a disagreement over why Deanna
Laney stopped beating Aaron, then 14 months old, but they reached a
verdict before receiving the transcript.
Psychiatrists testified that
Laney couldn't finish killing the baby, and that she told God, "You're
just going to have to do the rest." Prosecutors said that action
indicated Laney knew right from wrong and that if she chose to disobey
God's orders by not killing Aaron, she could have disobeyed his orders
to kill the other two.
Bingham said Aaron, who lives
with his father, suffered permanent injuries in the attack.
Jury Weighs Case of Mom Who Killed 2 Sons
By Lisa Falkenberg, Associated Press Writer
April 3, 2004
TYLER, Texas - A jury on Saturday began
deliberating whether a homemaker was insane when she used rocks to
bludgeon two of her sons to death and severely injure a third after
receiving what she claimed were orders from God.
Deanna Laney, sitting several feet away from a
poster-sized portrait of her three children, wept uncontrollably as
prosecutors portrayed the killings last Mother's Day weekend as
deceptively planned and coldly executed.
"It was graphic, it was horrific and it was
brutal," prosecutor Matt Bingham told the jury during closing
arguments earlier Saturday.
Laney, 39, has pleaded not guilty by reason of
insanity to murder in the deaths of 8-year-old Joshua and 6-year-old
Luke, and serious injury to a child for the beating of Aaron, now 2.
Bingham pounded his fist in his hand as he
recounted Joshua's killing: "He got strike after strike after strike
on his head to the point that his brains were coming out of his head
like liquid."
Defense attorney Tonda Curry began her argument by
asking the jury why a deeply religious woman known as a loving,
devoted mother who homeschooled her children would kill two of her
children and maim another without so much as a tear.
"There was no crying," Curry said. "She was insane.
There is no other answer."
She recalled a tape of Laney calling 911 after
midnight on May 10, calmly reporting the murders and directing
authorities to her home.
"Do you remember that voice?" Curry asked the
jurors, who sat solemn faced, some appearing pensive. "Have you ever
heard a voice like that, so empty of emotion?"
About three hours into deliberations, the jury
asked Judge Cynthia Kent for the 911 tape, the transcript of that call
and the testimony of Laney's husband, Keith. The judge agreed to give
jurors only the tape, saying the transcript had not been admitted as
evidence and that jurors could review Keith Laney's testimony only if
they cite a specific disagreement over it.
Curry stressed that five psychiatric experts,
including one hired by the judge and two by the prosecution, concluded
that a severe mental illness caused psychotic delusions and made Laney
incapable of knowing right from wrong during the killings — the
standard in Texas for insanity.
"We have five consistent medical opinions that say
she's insane and none to the contrary," Curry said.
If Laney is found innocent by reason of insanity,
she would be committed to a hospital for treatment. Medical
evaluations would dictate when she would be released.
If convicted of capital murder, she would be
sentenced to life in prison, with the possibility of parole in 40
years. If convicted of serious injury to a child, a first-degree
felony, the sentence could range from five years to 99 years or life.
Laney, who home-schooled her children in the tiny
town of New Chapel Hill, 100 miles southeast of Dallas, was convinced
she was divinely chosen by God to kill her children last Mother's Day
weekend, psychiatrists testified.
Closing Arguments Begin in Texas Mother's Murder
Trial
Deanna Laney Says God Ordered Her to Bludgeon Sons
to Death
By Lisa Falkenberg, AP
April 3, 2004
TYLER, Texas (April 3) - Attorneys began their
closing arguments Saturday morning in the trial of a homemaker who
said God ordered her to use rocks to bludgeon two of her sons to death
and severely injure a third.
Deanna Laney, sitting several feet away from a
poster-sized portrait of her three children, wept uncontrollably as
prosecutors portrayed the killings last Mother's Day weekend as
deceptively planned and coldly executed.
"It was graphic, it was horrific and it was
brutal,'' prosecutor Matt Bingham told the jury of eight men and four
women.
Laney, 39, has pleaded not guilty by reason of
insanity to murder in the deaths of 8-year-old Joshua and 6-year-old
Luke, and serious injury to a child for the beating of Aaron, now 2.
Bingham pounded his fist in his hand as he
recounted Joshua's killing: "He got strike after strike after strike
on his head to the point that his brains were coming out of his head
like liquid.''
Defense attorney Tonda Curry began her argument by
asking the jury why a deeply religious woman known as a loving,
devoted mother who homeschooled her children would kill two of her
children and maim another without so much as a tear.
"There was no crying,'' Curry said. "She was
insane. There is no other answer.''
She recalled a tape of Laney calling 911 after
midnight on May 10, calmly reporting the murders and directing
authorities to her home.
"Do you remember that voice?'' Curry asked the
jurors, who sat solemn faced, some appearing pensive. "Have you ever
heard a voice like that, so empty of emotion?''
Curry stressed that five psychiatric experts,
including one hired by the judge and two by the prosecution, concluded
that a severe mental illness caused psychotic delusions and made Laney
incapable of knowing right from wrong during the killings - the
standard in Texas for insanity.
"We have five consistent medical opinions that say
she's insane and none to the contrary,'' Curry said.
If Laney is found innocent by reason of insanity,
she would be committed to a hospital for treatment. Medical
evaluations would dictate when she would be released.
If convicted of capital murder, she would be
sentenced to life in prison, with the possibility of parole in 40
years. If convicted of serious injury to a child, a first-degree
felony, the sentence could range from five years to life.
Laney, who home-schooled her children in the tiny
town of New Chapel Hill, 100 miles southeast of Dallas, was convinced
she was divinely chosen by God to kill her children last Mother's Day
weekend, psychiatrists testified.
Doctor says mom who killed sons mentally ill
Prosecution witness at odds with government
position
Msnbc.msn.com
March 31, 2004
A
psychiatrist for the prosecution testified Wednesday that a mother who
crushed her sons’ skulls with rocks was suffering from delusions and
did not know right from wrong.
Dr. Park Dietz
said Deanna Laney believed God ordered her to kill her children last
Mother’s Day weekend. “She struggled over whether to obey God or to
selfishly keep her children,” Dietz testified.
Laney, a
39-year-old stay-at-home mother who homeschooled her children, has
pleaded innocent by reason of insanity to charges of capital murder
and serious injury to a child in the deaths of 8-year-old Joshua and
6-year-old Luke and severe injury to then-14-month-old Aaron.
Dietz said that
Laney, who is deeply religious, had a series of delusions on the day
of the killings. He said she saw Aaron with a spear, then throwing a
rock, then squeezing a frog and believed God was suggesting she should
either stab, stone or strangle her children.
Laney at first
resisted, but she felt she had to do what she perceived to be God’s
will to prove her faith, he said.
“She told me she
felt as if the Lord were saying ’If you keep rejecting, it’s going to
keep getting worse,”’ Dietz said.
Although he
testified for the prosecution, Dietz said Laney didn’t realize her
actions were wrong, which means she was legally insane under Texas
law.
Prosecutors
contend that Laney did know right from wrong when she killed her
children in the little town of New Chapel Hill, 100 miles southeast of
Dallas. Prosecutors say other evidence suggests she was not insane,
but they are not seeking the death penalty.
Two psychiatric
experts for the defense, two for the prosecution and one for the judge
all have said Laney was insane according to the legal definition. The
defense was set to question Dietz when testimony resumed Wednesday.
Laney had
delusions in which she would read everyday events or objects as
messages from God. When her baby had abnormal bowel movements, for
example, she thought it was a message from God that she was not
properly “digesting” God’s word, Dietz said.
“To interpret
what a baby leaves in his diaper reflects a mentally ill person,”
Dietz said in testimony Tuesday.
Laney had at
least one other psychotic experience several years earlier in which
she had hallucinations of smelling sulfur she believed was God’s way
of alerting her the devil was near, he said.
Also Tuesday,
Laney’s husband testified that he saw no change in his wife’s mood
before the attack and no clue that she was capable of killing the
boys.
“I don’t
understand it,” said Keith Laney, who has stood by his wife in court.
Keith Laney, 47,
smiled at his wife when prosecutors asked what year they were married
but briefly lost his composure at the sight of a poster-sized
photograph of the three smiling boys, taken months before the
killings.
The jury on
Tuesday also saw a crime-scene video of 8-year-old Joshua and
6-year-old Luke, lying dead in a yard, near garden signs that read,
“Mom’s Love Grows Here” and “Thank God for Mothers.” The boys were
found in their underwear with heavy rocks on their chests.
The video also
showed a large spot of blood in a baby bed, where Deanna Laney
severely injured the couple’s youngest son, Aaron, 14 months old at
the time.
Laney lowered her
head during the testimony and wept as graphic autopsy photos were
shown to the jury of eight men and four women.
Dietz has worked
on other high-profile cases, including those of child killers Andrea
Yates and Susan Smith, serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer and “Unabomber”
Ted Kaczynski.
In Yates’ case,
the Houston mother contended that Satan ordered her to kill her five
children to save them from eternal damnation. Dietz concluded that
Yates must have known murder was wrong if Satan ordered her to do it.
He also saw Yates’ attempts to conceal her murder plans as a sign that
she knew they were wrong.
Texas woman, Member of Assembly of God, says God
Told her to Kill Sons
No decision on seeking death penalty, attorney says
CNN.com
Tuesday, May 13, 2003
TYLER, Texas (CNN) -- Whether authorities will seek
the death penalty against a Texas woman accused of beating to death
two of her three young sons has not been decided, according to the
district attorney who will try the case.
Smith County D.A. Jack Skeen said he wants to wait
until all the evidence is gathered before making that decision in the
capital murder case of Deanna LaJune Laney, 38.
In Texas, a capital murder charge carries a
punishment of either life in prison or death.
Laney made a brief court appearance Monday, in
which a judge read aloud her rights and put her bail at $3 million,
the district clerk said. Laney's court-appointed lawyer, F.R. "Buck"
Files, advised her to stand silent.
Files said he was simply being cautious because his
client has not yet had a mental examination -- the results of which
could be key to her defense.
"We have such uncommon allegations against her that
it raises, for anyone who's ever been in the system, questions of
sanity and competence," he said.
Laney has been acting erratically in her jail cell,
the sheriff said.
"She goes from a fetal position of crying, to
walking around the cell singing gospel music. She stops and prays,
then she goes into a crying hysteria," Smith County Sheriff J. B.
Smith said. "She all of a sudden realizes what she's done, then she'll
go into a flatline, blank stare."
Laney is under a suicide watch, according to The
Associated Press.
In addition to capital murder, authorities said, a
charge of aggravated assault is also pending in connection with the
beating of Laney's third son, Aaron, 14 months old, who was found
bloodied under a pillow in his crib early Saturday. Aaron was in
critical condition Monday at Children's Medical Center of Dallas.
Smith said Laney's 8- and 6-year-old sons, who
died, were "severely beaten in the head with what appeared to be a
rock." He said Laney told authorities that God told her to kill her
children.
Sheriff: Laney told 911 dispatcher 'I've killed my
boys'
After the killings, Laney made a 911 call on her
cellular phone and spoke in a "very calm, matter-of-fact way." She
told a dispatcher, "I've killed my boys," Smith said.
A sheriff's department spokeswoman said deputies
arrived at the New Chapel Hill home, about seven miles outside of
Tyler, at 12:52 a.m. Saturday.
When officers arrived, they entered the house and
found Aaron in his crib, wounded but still breathing. Laney was not
there but continued to talk calmly on the phone, Smith said.
Officers found the woman, wearing bloody clothes,
in a wooded area about 100 yards behind her house, the sheriff said.
Laney described where her other two children could
be found but refused to go there herself, he said.
Her husband was apparently asleep inside the house
during the attack because he came walking out "in his nightclothes,"
the sheriff said.
The recording of the 911 call is in the hands of
the district attorney, who said he doesn't plan to release it
publicly.
"In any case like this, the incoming 911 tape is
very important," Skeen said, "because it contains the initial obvious
statements of the defendant."
Smith said the Laneys were a "very stable, loving
family" and that the suspect has no history of mental illness.
Similarities to Yates case
[Ednote: They were both members of churches, Laney
Assembly of God and Yates The Church of Christ.]
Two years ago, another Texas woman, Andrea Yates,
drowned her five children while suffering from postpartum depression
and psychosis. She told authorities that Satan told her to kill the
children. Despite a documented history of mental illness, a jury
rejected her plea of innocent by reason of insanity and convicted her
of murder. Yates was sentenced to life in prison but will be eligible
for parole in 40 years.
Attorneys on both sides are aware of the
similarities to that case.
"Whether or not we use some of Andrea Yates in our
case, I cannot tell you," Files said. "Obviously, anyone who looks at
Andrea Yates and looks at this case would draw some comparisons, just
at first blush."
Files said he has "no doubt" Laney can receive a
fair trial in Tyler, the Smith County seat, but said media coverage of
the case could pose problems.
Laney sang in the choir at the First Assembly of
God Church, where her brother-in-law, Gary Bell, is the pastor,
according to The Associated Press.
"This was a brutal and horrific incident that has
changed our lives [and will] for years to come," Bell said during a
service Sunday. "But we all believe as a family that this wasn't our
Dee that did this to her children."
Neighbors, too, were at a loss to explain what went
wrong.
"There's no way in the world that I would believe
she would do this without something taking over her and something
snapping in her," a neighbor said.
"It is absolutely devastating to the neighborhood,"
he said.
Murder by God's Command
No one thought there was something wrong with
thirty-nine-year-old Deanna Laney on Mother's Day weekend in 2003.
That's why they could not have predicted what she was about to do.
A housewife in New Chapel Hill, Texas who saw
herself as a religious sister to Andrea Yates, the housewife who
drowned her five children in 2001, Laney began to see "signs." Her
fourteen-month-old son, Aaron, was playing with a spear. That was the
first signal from God that she was to do something to her children.
She resisted, not certain that she understood. But
the signs continued.
The case was broadcast on Court TV, and covered by
newspapers, television talk shows nationwide and by Internet Web
sites.
When Aaron presented Laney with a rock that day,
she later reported that she believed she was supposed to pay
attention. This was a symbol. Later that same day, he squeezed a
frog. Then she understood. She was to kill her children, either by
stoning them, strangling them or stabbing them. God had shown her
three ways.
Again she told God no, but again she felt pressured
to comply. "Each time it was getting worse and worse," she later
said, "the way it had to be done." In other words, the more she
resisted, the worse the death would be for her children. She decided
that rocks would be preferable to strangulation, so she found some in
preparation.
Laney knew she had to "step out in faith." She had
to trust God, and she believed that God would use her brutal deed to
do something great. He had done such things in the Bible. Then when
Laney woke up before
midnight on May 9, she knew
that the time was at hand. She had already hidden a rock in Aaron's
room, so she went there first.
Lifting the rock, she hit Aaron hard on the skull.
He began to cry, alerting her husband, Keith. He asked what was wrong
and Laney kept her back to him to prevent him from seeing what she was
doing. She assured Keith that everything was okay. But it wasn't
okay. Aaron was still breathing, so she put a pillow over his face
until she heard him gurgle. She silently told God that He would have
to finish the job.
Next Laney went after her other two sons. She
took Luke, 6, outside first in his underwear and smashed his skull by
hitting him repeatedly with a large rock. Then she dragged him by the
feet into the shadows so that Joshua, 8, would not see him. She left
the stone, the size of a dinner plate, lying on top of him.
Joshua was next and Laney repeated to him what she
had done with Luke, placing them together in a dark area of the yard.
Afterward, she called 911 to report, "I killed my
boys."
When the police came, they found Aaron still
alive. He was taken away and it eventually became clear that both his
vision and motor skills were severely impaired.
Outside, the police saw Laney standing still in
blood-stained clothes. She indicated where she had left the boys and
they found the bodies lying beneath large rocks. Both boys had
serious head wounds. Laney was arrested, leaving her bewildered,
horrified husband to wonder what had happened.
Parallels
Laney's case had many parallels with that of Andrea
Yates. Both women lived in
Texas and home-schooled their
children. Both were deeply religious. Both felt they had no choice
but to do what they did to their children. Both called 911. And both
had some of the same psychiatrists assessing their states of mind for
their trials. Five experts came into the case for Laney, including
Dr. Philip Resnick, who had served on Andrea Yates' defense team, and
Dr. Park Dietz, who was hired by the prosecutor.
But Laney's 2004 trial unfolded quite differently.
While the defense psychiatrists had no trouble
testifying that Laney had been delusional and psychotic at the time of
the crime and could not appreciate that what she was doing was wrong,
the surprise came with the prosecution's expert, Dr. Park Dietz. He
had been instrumental in convincing a jury that despite her terrible
history of mental illness Andrea Yates had known that what she was
doing was wrong and thus she was sane when she murdered her children.
In the Laney case, he surprised everyone by saying the opposite.
From his assessment, he decided that Laney did not
know that what she was doing was wrong. She believed she was
following God's orders. She admitted that she might have been aware
that what she had done was illegal, but she was not thinking about
that. She imagined that she and Andrea Yates, who also had started
with the youngest, would together be the two witnesses when the world
came to an end.
"She struggled over whether to obey God or to
selfishly keep her children," Dietz testified. His impression was
that she had felt she had no choice.
Another psychiatrist for the prosecution, Dr.
Edward Gripon, agreed that the presence of mental illness was
obvious. Several of the experts thought that Laney had suffered from
an undiagnosed psychosis over the past three years.
One more expert witness was Dr. William Reed, a
court-appointed psychiatrist who used the word "crazy" to refer to
Laney, and he agreed with the others.
Among the evidence they used was Laney's post-crime
demeanor. Six days after the attacks, she was calm as she described
for psychiatrists what she had done. There were no tears. She was
awaiting her children's resurrections. With a smile, she said that
because she had obeyed God, "I feel like he will reveal his power and
they will be raised up. They will become alive again." Dr. Resnick
said that since she did not believe she had carried out God's orders
perfectly—she wasn't certain about Aaron--she lapped up water from the
floor and from a toilet bowl.
After getting antipsychotic medication, she
eventually saw her acts in a different light and showed remorse. She
realized with horror that she had suffered from a hallucination that
had triggered her acts.
Laney's sister, Pam Sepmoree, testified that Laney
had been acting strangely in the days leading up to the murders. She
was losing weight, eating less, and reading her Bible more. Sepmoree
said that the boys were her sister's life.
Despite this unprecedented agreement among all the
psychiatrists, prosecutors nevertheless presented a case against Laney
that certain behaviors indicated sanity. She had said that she
believed that her husband would think her acts were wrong, so she
tried to keep Aaron's cries from alerting him. She had called 911 to
turn herself in. And she had told a jailer that she might need an
attorney. In addition, Laney had no documented history of mental
illness, only self-reported episodes: delusions about her baby's feces
and a hallucination of smelling sulpher, which she associated with the
devil.
Jurors got the case on the afternoon of April 3,
and it took them seven hours that same day to acquit Laney of all
charges by reason of insanity. She was transferred to a maximum
security hospital where medical evaluations will determine when she
can eventually be released.
