An Oklahoma man has been sentenced to life in prison without parole on Wednesday for the murder of his uncle, his uncle’s 4-year-old granddaughter and a woman whose heart he cut out and cooked.
via People:
Court documents revealed that Lawrence Paul Anderson, 44, confessed to stabbing 41-year-old Andrea Lynn Blankenship, his 67-year-old uncle Leon Pye and his uncle’s granddaughter Kaeos Yates to death “on or about” February 9, 2021, in Chickasha, Okla., reported NBC News.
He also admitted to injuring his aunt Delsie Pye, according to Fox News. Pye suffered a broken tailbone and ribs and can only see out of one eye after the other was allegedly gouged out, per The Oklahoman.
According to The Oklahoman, Blankenship was the Pyes’ neighbor. The publication reported that Anderson confessed to killing her after breaking through her back door, according to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI)
Anderson then stabbed Blankenship 40 times, removing her left eye, stomach and heart, a medical examiner wrote in an autopsy report, per The Oklahoman.
Fox News reported that Anderson brought Blankenship’s heart to his aunt and uncle’s home. There, he “cooked the heart with potatoes to feed to his family to release the demons,” said an OSBI agent, per The Oklahoman.
After trying to serve the heart to them, Anderson then assaulted his aunt and uncle and their 4-year-old grandchild, authorities said, per Fox News.
The Oklahoman noted that Delsie Pye, 66, wrote in a victim impact statement read in court by Grady County District Attorney Jason Hicks on Wednesday: “I can’t sleep at night without having nightmares of that night.”
“To think a family member of mine could do this heinous crime breaks my heart,” the statement continued. “Family means everything to me. As my nephew, I don’t love you but I don’t hate you … I can’t judge you. God will.”
Per The Oklahoman, Delsie Pye told Oklahoma City television station KFOR in 2021 that Anderson went crazy when he came to her house, saying, “He thought I was dead. God was with me.”
Anderson pleaded guilty to three counts of murder in the first degree, one count of assault and battery with a deadly weapon and one count of maiming on Wednesday, reported NBC News.
His sentencing was part of a plea deal, as Hicks said he was no longer seeking the death penalty at the request of the victims’ families, reported Fox News.
“A lot of that was tied to they don’t want a trial,” Hicks said at a news conference after the sentencing, per The Oklahoman. “They don’t want to sit in a courtroom and listen to all the gory details of what happened to their loved ones.”
The murders happened after Anderson was released early from prison in January 2021 by mistake. According to The Oklahoman, Anderson was freed months after Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt commuted his prison sentence, but a grand jury investigation confirmed that Anderson was ineligible to commute.
According to The Oklahoman, evidence for the killings included a recording from a voicemail that Anderson left, which captured 4-year-old Kaeos Yates screaming as she was killed.
Fox News reported that Kaeos’ mother, Tasha Yates, swore at Anderson in court before leaving, yelling, “Who kills a baby … who does that?”
“On judgment day, I pray your heart is full of fear,” Tasha Yates said, according to The Oklahoman, adding that Anderson snuffed out a light “in this dark world.”
There are some truly sick people in this world.
