TX - Joshua, 8, & Luke Laney, 6, murdered, Smith County, 9 May 2003 *Insanity*

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Texana – thanks for the links, I bookmarked them.

Newswolf – I caught this afternoon’s stuff on CTV and the affair that she had was over 15 years ago, a one-time thing and her husband forgave her. They said there was some kind of "gentlemans agreement" between the pros. and def. that the affair wouldn't be brought up because it wasn't an issue.
 
I was listening to court tv today and heard them talking about her having two other breaks from reality or signs of pyschosis. I assumed that they meant that others knew about it. One was smelling sulfur every time she read the Bible and I can not remember what the other was. Does any one know what was said about that?
 
txsvicki said:
I was listening to court tv today and heard them talking about her having two other breaks from reality or signs of pyschosis. I assumed that they meant that others knew about it. One was smelling sulfur every time she read the Bible and I can not remember what the other was. Does any one know what was said about that?
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txvicki, I had to stop watching today, but did find this article in the Tyler Telegraph. I didn't know a lot of this previously.
http://www.tylerpaper.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=11219449&BRD=1994&PAG=461&dept_id=226369&rfi=6
They did say she thought the sulfur meant God was telling her that Satan was near. It appears that she studied the Bible extensively, and thought she was getting messages from God.
I seems to me that when she spoke in church, saying God told her to get her 'things in order', that should have alerted someone that something could be wrong, don't you think??
 
My views on this case have seemed to be in the minority here as well as at my husbands site where I have posted about it.

I truely believe she was legally insane when she committed the crimes. 4 forensic psychiatrists have concluded and testified under oath that she was and 2 of them were even the STATE'S witnesses!

There is a big difference between someone being insane and legally insane. Deeanna Laney truely believed she was doing what GOD told her to do and believed that she would go to Hell if she did not follow God's order. I don't believe she wanted to harm or kill her children. That is why she "questioned" what these voices told her. She was a good Mother and she loved those babies.

This is such a sad, sad case. It breaks my heart to think about it. I don't in any way condone what she did but I do believe that according to the LAW, she was insane at the time and therefore, should not go to prision. I do think she needs to be locked away in an institution where she can recieve the treatment she so desperately needs.

d
 
I'm not sure what is meant by 'legally' sane?? Also, if she have thought she was carrying out orders from God, why wouldn't she remember the commandment "Thou shall not kill"??
I am really baffled over this one; the more I watch, the more I agree with Nancy Grace.
 
Legally insane means that the person didn't know right from wrong when they did the crime, therefore could not have known that by killing, it was committing a crime.

A person can be insane, like Andrea Yates who was by all accounts psychotic when she committed her crimes, but not be LEGALLY insane. Meaning, Andrea Yates knew that what she was doing was wrong....against the law.

That is why most insanity defenses do not work, because the person knew right from wrong when they committed their crimes, even if they were way out in La-La Land when they did them.



I usually agree with Nancy Grace on almost everything, but not in the case.
 
Mommyd, I actually do agree with you in that I think she is insane. I think she has unfortunately been mentally ill for some time but because her particular faith has more tolerance towards things such as visions--messages from God--etc.--which are considered manifestations of the Holy Spirit and would be a sign (to Pentecostals) that the person is actually doing well in their religion--a sort of spiritual blessing/high five thing--it wasn't seen for what it was.

Then again, had she been another person, she might have manifested her symptoms in another way--become depressed, self-medicated with drugs or alcohol, etc.

Unfortunately, in Texas, there is no "guilty but insane" verdict. Anyone who is judged legally insane is sent to a medical facility--very restrictive but not prison--and when they are "cured" they are released.

I have posted this before on other threads, but a few years ago a man had a psychotic break in a hospital in Houston. He managed to knock two or three medical staff members down an airshaft--killing at least one, crippiling another. He was judged legally insane and sent to the medical facility.

In less than five years he was deemed "cured." With a strict dosage of meds, he was no longer violent. He was released in and in less than a year he had shot to death a total stranger in a grocery store--a woman who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

This is the problem. With medication, these people are able to function normally--although there may be severe side effects for them and I am not sure any of us would consider it a desirable normal. But they are released into exactly the same support system--(no family or family that couldn't recognize the problem, ensure meds were taken, etc.) as before their violent acts! I think the families more often than not have a huge denial of the depth of their loved ones' problems--Perhaps there is an inherent bias against being able to admit that someone you love can be so mentally ill as to be perhaps incapable of living at home or being "themselves" ever again--

So prison ends up being the only place where we are sure these people are not released back into society on their own again. There should be some kind of guilty but insane verdict where they can be in a restricted facility but not necessarily prison.

I think the M'Naghten's Rule is probably as good as it gets, though, for a way to determine when a person is mentally ill enough to be judged legally insane. After all, severely depressed people are mentally ill...people who sniff anything aerosol as teenagers are definitely mentally and emotionally empaired, maybe to the level of mental illness...I think as a juror I'd welcome having some kind of objective standard to judge the evidence by rather than sitting in a jury room deciding what is or is not insane enough to be "legally" insane.
 
Very well said, Texana. It would be great if there could be some kind of law that requires a person who is found legally insane and then cured, take their meds and be tested to make sure those meds are being taken in order to remain out of prison.

I was made to attend an Assembly of God church as a child, by my parent's of course, and I know a bit about Deanna Laney's religion. I won't say that this religion is fanatical by any means but they do believe that visions or the voice of God talking to you is very much possible if you are a good Christian and worthy. That is one of the reasons that I feel so strongly that Deanna Laney didn't know right from wrong because she felt she was following what God told her to do in order for her to be in Heaven and that the time was at hand.

I have no answers in this case. Like I said before, it is just so sad, for all those involved. :(

d
 
I cried reading this story over at CTV. There aren't words to adequately describe the sadness I feel for those children. Not only do I feel awful for what these children went through at the hands of the woman they loved more than anyone, the woman who was supposed to protect them from harm, but for her husband who has to live with the though that he was sent back to bed while his wife was beating his 14 month old baby senseless.

I do think she needs to be locked away in an institution where she can recieve the treatment she so desperately needs.
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And what happens when she is deemed 'cured', gets out, and finishes the job she started on her youngest baby? I know thats a major what if, but seriously what if? What if in 10 years, she seems normal again. What if she got out and had 'God speak to her' again, and tell her to finish off her 10 year old that should have died with the others? Will she just go back to the mental institution until she is normal again?

I think there is no doubt that Yates, and this woman were both totally psychotic. I also think Scott Peterson must have been psychotic to be able to kill Laci and Conner. But I also think they all belong in the same place, and it ain't a mental hospital where they can be 'cured' and released back into society.

And what I want to know is, when will these people stop using God told me to do it as an excuse for murder?? When will it stop?! I can say God told me to go kill my husband, shoot him and then call the police and calmly report it, and as long as I made the murder look as though I couldn't tell right form wrong at the time, I know I am getting off! Thats really f'd up. :rolleyes:
 
Well, in all honesty, there is one difference between Yates and Laney, and Scott Peterson--when they were not psychotic, they were very good parents and people in general--from all accounts. Whereas by all accounts, ISP was not a loving husband spending all his time with his wife.

While medicated, Laney and Yates are not killers. They do not hear voices or have visions or have delusions. It is a brain malfunction of which we do not have all the answers--although I feel strongly they have to be locked away for the safety of others, I think as long as their medication schedules are enforced (and they should not be allowed outside visitations a la' Hinckley) that is different from someone like Scott who merely calculated the odds of being caught, the odds of being "bankrupt" by child support, and tried to gamble.

Scott has an emotional sickness, Yates and Laney had a mental sickness. There's a difference.

Dee Laney's mental illness was definitely hidden by her religion, as was Andrea Yates'. Married to another person who would have recognized the seriousness of her post-partum depression and let go of his own fantasies for a home-grown tribe, Yates might have never killed. Brought up in another religion Laney might have self-medicated, got a job outside the home, sent her kids to public scohol and been a PTA volunteer.

Within both of their crimes is an element of violence and anger I cannot understand and I think there is probably an element of emotional unhealthiness that triggers the mental illness--or allows it to become violent--or maybe the two are connected.

But the one thing I know about people who have this kind of mental illness is, they can never really be "cured" and so they cannot be released into society, ever. Do they belong next door to the Scott Petersons of the world? Probably not. But they certainly do not belong in an unrestricted, free society.
 
She could also be considered cured, get out, then decide she is so normal that she stops taking her meds. She could go psychotic again and harm someone else. These women had things going on mentally and also were responsible for several children, being homemakers, and homeschooling. That would be stressful on anyone, much less a mentally ill person. Laney's symptoms were masked by her church beliefs. I can't prove it, but I believe that some people who say God tells them to do things, it is mostly because they are very active in some church and they also think that they are grandiose, up on a special level with God. Some people think they are in the CIA or that the government is after them.
 
txsvicki said:
She could also be considered cured, get out, then decide she is so normal that she stops taking her meds. She could go psychotic again and harm someone else. These women had things going on mentally and also were responsible for several children, being homemakers, and homeschooling. That would be stressful on anyone, much less a mentally ill person. Laney's symptoms were masked by her church beliefs. I can't prove it, but I believe that some people who say God tells them to do things, it is mostly because they are very active in some church and they also think that they are grandiose, up on a special level with God. Some people think they are in the CIA or that the government is after them.
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I agree entirely. She could get out again, stop taking her meds, and kill her remaining son... who says she won't? Put poor crazy Laney in a mental instituition instead of prison, I am all for it, throw Yates in their too while your at it.. as long as they can never roam freely in society and among innocent children, I'm fine with it.

Bottom line is these people should NEVER be treated and released back to normal everyday life. If God tells them to kill their own babies, who can say they won't walk into a daycare and do more of 'Gods will'?
 
I don't care if she is legally insane or sane. I want her locked up for the rest of her days in either prison or a mental institution. I don't want her to ever be judged sane enough to reunite with her remaining child. I would have her sterilized so that she can never again bring a baby into this world.

Her remaining child as well as the rest of society need to be protected from her. She is dangerous. Period! :furious: :furious: :furious:
 
Jury deliberating 4/3.

http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20040403115909990002

"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.
-----

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."
 
Acquitted, for reason of insanity.

I'm amazed, frankly, because by the state standard here--the M'Naghten rule--she definitely knew what she was doing was illegal. If I had been a juror I would have voted to convict. It seemed pretty clear to me that she knew that by the evidence, and that's the law.

It seems awfully unfair to me that she did exactly the same thing as Andrea Yates and Andrea was clearly very, very sick mentally. (She wasn't even caring for herself physically--she was almost catatonic, IMO--talking very little, eating very little, etc., etc.) So Laney will get to be in a mental facility and eventually released while Yates will never get released from prison.

And when Laney's family decides she's "healed" because she feels better or God speaks to one of them--she'll stop taking her meds and who knows what will happen then.

I have to say, though, that I'm not sure I'd feel that much better if she was convicted, because I do think she is mentally ill.

There's no really just ending to this.
 
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?brd=1994

"A woman who claimed God ordered her to bash in the heads of her sons was acquitted Saturday of all charges after a jury determined she was legally insane during the killings.


A jury found that Deanna Laney did not know right from wrong 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, was found not guilty by reason of insanity of charges of capital murder and serious injury to a child.

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."
 
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=11239285&BRD=1994&PAG=461&dept_id=226369&rfi=6

"Mrs. Laney, 39, was deeply grateful for the verdict and was very emotional, her attorneys said.

"She is in a living hell because of what she knows she did," lead defense counsel F.R. "Buck" Files Jr. said."

"Files said Mrs. Laney was concerned daily with the health of her son Aaron, who survived the attack, but would not be able to see him as long as she is in Smith County Jail. "

I wonder if her husband will allow her to see the baby. I recall his testimony on this was something like, I am taking this day by day.
 
I think Laney's husband might have wanted a different verdict. I think on the one hand he knows his wife was mentally ill...on the other hand, he has to be wondering, "Why didn't she say something to me?"

Think of all that man has lost in less than a year--it is truly a tragedy--

I thought it was interesting that at no time did Laney look towards her husband in the trial--according to the reports--
 
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