 |
| |
|
|
gamenaught
|
|
Mother Says She Stoned Sons to Prove Faith
By LISA FALKENBERG, AP
TYLER, Texas (April 1) - A housewife said the first sign that God wanted her to kill her three boys came Mother's Day weekend when she saw her 14-month-old playing with a toy spear.
AP
Deanna LaJune Laney
Deanna Laney said she resisted at first, but the signs kept coming. The baby came to her with a rock, and later in the day squeezed a frog, and she believed God was suggesting that she should either stab, stone or strangle her children.
A sobbing Laney recounted in a videotape played at her capital murder trial Wednesday how she smashed her sons' skulls with rocks to prove her faith to God.
"I was telling him no, and each time it was getting worse and worse, the way that it would have to be done," Laney said. "I thought it was the Lord saying to me, 'You're just going to have to step out in faith. This is faith. You can't see why. You just got to."'
The state rested its case and Laney's attorneys were expected to begin presenting evidence Thursday.
Laney, 39, who homeschooled her children in the tiny town of New Chapel Hill, 100 miles southeast of Dallas, has pleaded innocent by reason of insanity in the deaths of 8-year-old Joshua and 6-year-old Luke and serious injury to a child in the beating of the 14-month-old, Aaron.
Five mental health experts consulted in the case agreed Laney met the standard for legal insanity. But prosecutors want a jury to decide, saying other evidence suggests Laney could tell right from wrong.
The defense is trying to convince jurors that the signs from God were actually psychotic delusions caused by a severe mental illness that made Laney incapable of knowing right from wrong at the time of the killings, the standard in Texas for insanity.
Dr. Park Dietz, a psychiatrist who interviewed Laney in the tape, called her a textbook case of insanity, concluding she did not know right from wrong at the time she attacked the boys.
Prosecutors tried to convince jurors that regardless of whether Laney believed she was doing right by God, she had to have known she was doing wrong by state law. Her first call, prosecutors said, was to 911 to summon authorities.
Dietz said Laney wasn't thinking about state law when she killed the boys, but acknowledged that she probably knew her act was illegal at the time.
In the videotape, Laney said she believed she and Andrea Yates, the Houston woman who drowned her children, were chosen by God to be witnesses after the world ends. Yates was convicted of capital murder in 2001 and sentenced to life in prison.
Laney said she awoke just before midnight on May 9 and "I just got this feeling that now's the time."
She said she went into Aaron's room and bludgeoned his skull with a rock she had hidden under his crib, but he wouldn't quit breathing.
"I told the Lord, 'You're just going to have to do the rest. I can't do anymore,"' Laney said. She said she put a pillow over his head to mute a gurgling sound.
She killed the older boys next, one at a time, guiding them outside and hammering their heads with a heavy rock. She dragged Luke by his feet across the yard so that Joshua wouldn't see him.
"I don't remember seeing their faces at all," Laney said in the tape.
04/01/04 09:28 EST
|
|
| |
|
|
|
gamenaught
|
|
Seriously though, for the religionists, did she do the right thing?
If you heard a voice in your head that you sincerely believe was God telling you to kill your kids, would you do it? Which gets priority..your kids..or God?
How do you tell the difference between a voice in your head and God? After all, it wouldn't be the first time God has ordered his followers to kill innocent people.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Comrade Tassadar
|
|
I'm so commie, aren't I?
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Geronimo
|
|
st cloud USA
Jan 1970
time: 05:35
|
|
Well there is that rather disturbing bible sotry where abraham is told to sacrifice his son isaac on an alter on a mountain peak. At the very last instant an angel arrives and says, well maybe not "April fools!", but at least makes clear that god was only kidding or 'testing abrahams faith'. The moral of the story was that abraham was a righteous person because he was ready to kill his son because god told him to, and that if you follow through on such intructions from God, god will see to it that things work out. This story is well known and I don't doubt it passed through the mind of this diseased mother as she was murdering her children. Really there is *no way* at all for a mere mortal to ascertain whether a voice in their head was that of god or some unfortunate disease given the often weird and to the listener totally inexplicable commands that god is described as having given his followers in the bible.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
gamenaught
|
|
quote:
I was going to try to form a serious response to this, until I saw the idiotic "religionist" term used. |
quote:
Well obviously, I would never know until placed in the situation, but I would say, probably. |
So using the term "religionist" is idiotic but killing your own kids because the voice in your head says so is ok!?!
Glad to see you've got your priorities straight.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
gamenaught
|
|
I'm dead (hehe) serious.
Spiffor is right...there are people that will comply with the voices. The question is..how many?
quote:
So I take it that you have no respect at all for religious people |
There are some I respect. I just don't understand them and it bugs me not to understand something. But yes, recently my respect for many of them has plummeted after seeing the effort they will go through to deny others what they would not deny themselves. By that, I am referring to gay marriage.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
gamenaught
|
|
quote:
So I take it that you have no respect at all for religious people. |
..and, oh yeah, slamming airliners into buildings in the name of Allah and blowing up innocent people in buses and markets didn't exactly increase my respect for religionists.
That said, I live in a country in which roughly 85% of the population is Christian so most of the people I know are religious. The clear majority of them are good people, I like them, and, yes, even respect them. It is only the religious aspect of them that dumbfounds me. Of course for most of them, their religious life is rather low key and passive.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Urban Ranger
|
|
Apolyton Duke of Off-Topic
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by MrFun
Mainstream Christians, Jews, and Muslims will find this horribly repugnant, and against the tenets of their religion -- no matter their sect/denomination. |
So, what you are saying is, you will not do what your God tells you to do, even if you are convinced that it is actually God who conveyed the message to you, if that action/mission runs against your morals? Extrapolating from that, you are also convinced that any "mainstream" (whatever that means) religious people will not do such a thing? Thus, anybody who does that does that cannot be, uh, "mainstream," regardless of what that person's beliefs are?
|
|
| |
|
|
|
gamenaught
|
|
..and will your God send you to hell for insubordination?
|
|
| |
|
|
|
gamenaught
|
|
quote:
I missed the part where you explained why people who are derisively refered to as religionists should care about trolls that pop up with disturbing regularity to the point of being boring. |
You would be more qualified to answer that question...since you've posted to said troll TWICE.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
gamenaught
|
|
And what makes "religionist" a negative term?
|
|
| |
All times are GMT. The time now is 05:35.
Apolyton Time is 00:35. |
top of page
|
| archivepost |
|
Forum Rules:
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
|
HTML code is ON
vB code is ON
Smilies are ON
[IMG] code is ON
|
|
|
|
|
|
02-04-2004 04:08
I love the title
|