Will Alleged Killer Mom Be a Wake-Up Call?

May 15, 2003 -- Like the friends and relatives of Andrea Yates, the Houston mother convicted of killing her children, Deanna Laney's neighbors never believed she would — or could — ever harm her sons. But Yates' attorney hopes Laney's case will sound a new alarm.

"Andrea is a wake-up call," Yates' defense attorney, George Parnham, told ABCNEWS.com. "Deanna LaJune [Laney] is another shakeup … like a car that's been left on the side of the road."

Laney, 38, is charged with two counts of capital murder and one count of aggravated assault. Police say that on Mother's Day weekend, Laney beat her two older sons — Joshua Keith, 8, and Luke Allen, 6 — to death with stones the size of dinner plates, then attacked 14-month-old Aaron James, all while her husband was asleep in their Tyler, Texas, home. Aaron remains hospitalized in critical condition with an open skull fracture.

Given that she allegedly killed her two elder sons 14 months after her youngest was born, Laney may not have suffered from postpartum depression at the time of the slayings, Parnham said. But that doesn't mean that she didn't suffer from the condition, and that it went undiagnosed and developed into psychosis, he said.

"It [Laney's case] speaks volumes about mental illness," said Parnham. "I'm not saying that she [Laney] suffered from postpartum depression because I just don't know. But it doesn't mean that she was not psychotic at the time she did what she did to them [her children].

"It's so hard for the husbands and the doctors … women can somehow mask the signs of [severe] postpartum depression and hide them from their peers, doctors and their husbands."

A Post-Conviction Mission

The slayings shocked Laney's relatives, friends and neighbors. There had been no previous reports of domestic violence or child abuse, and unlike Yates, Laney had never been diagnosed with or treated for depression or postpartum depression.

But they may share the same murder defense — insanity. In Laney's first court appearance Monday, her court-appointed attorney, F.R. "Buck" Files — who has consulted with Parnham — told the judge, "I'm not sure if she can truthfully say she understands what is going on."

The insanity defense did not persuade a Texas jury to acquit Yates of murder, although the panel did spare her from the death penalty. After Yates' conviction, Parnham said he joined the Mental Health Association of Houston and helped form the Yates Children Memorial Fund for Women's Mental Health Education.

The fund was created in memory of Yates' five children, Noah, John, Paul, Luke and Mary. It aims to help educate the public about postpartum depression. Parnham says the Laney tragedy may underscore the need for more education and understanding about the illness in both the general public and the medical community.

"I can only speak for the greater Houston community, but with obstetricians, there is no mandatory course required for them to take that trains them in how to deal with mental-health issues for mothers in their care, and there ought to be," he said.

Mental-health advocates have warned against stigmatizing postpartum depression and argued that better education could erase misperceptions about it, and encourage hesitant women to seek treatment. The National Institute of Mental Health has estimated that 10 to 20 percent of all women who give birth develop some form of postpartum depression, but only one of every 500 to 1,000 will develop postpartum psychosis. Approximately 1 percent of those women kill their babies.

Undeniable Parallels

Some have criticized Andrea Yates' husband, Russell, for his handling of his wife's depression. Russell Yates was at work when the children were drowned on June 20, 2001. Prosecutors questioned why he left his wife alone with the children, given her history of depression and suicide attempts. They later determined he bore no criminal responsibility for the deaths.

Very little is known about Laney, her relationship with her husband, Keith, and what their home life was like. However, the similarities between the Laney and Yates cases are undeniable.

Both women are in their late 30s. Both home-schooled their children. Their friends, relatives and neighbors described them as good, devoted mothers whom they never suspected would have harmed their children.

"[The Laneys were] super people … a super family," neighbor Joe Dick Smith said of Laney on ABCNEWS' Good Morning America. "In no way did we see anything different with her. She had been, you know, out to eat early with other members of the family and [it was] just a normal working day for them."

God Didn’t Kill the Children

And both the Yates and Laney children had biblical names. Like Yates, Laney was described as very religious. And like Yates, Laney allegedly called police to her home and confessed to the slayings. Authorities say she told them God told her to kill her children.

But experts say religion and home schooling should not be blamed for — or stigmatized by — these seemingly parallel slayings.

"We have to be careful because religion did not kill — did not cause the deaths — of these boys," said psychologist Robert Butterworth. "I made the link to religion when I heard she [Laney] had stoned her children instead of using water or smothering them. Men normally use guns or knives to kill their children and then take their own lives, while women use more gentle measures and don't take their own lives."

Butterworth suggests there may have been some signs Laney was suffering from depression, but that her neighbors did not see them because her children were home-schooled and, to a degree, isolated from the community.

"I would say she falls in the mentally ill category [of different types of mothers who kill their children]," Butterworth said. "She was acutely psychotic in that when she heard these voices telling her to kill her children, she did not have the wherewithal to say, 'No, this is a bad act.' If her children had been in the school system and noticed their mother behaving strangely, they may have told other children in their classes."

When mothers believe God is telling them to kill their children, they believe they are doing something good because they are obeying God, Butterworth said. However, in some cases, mothers suffering from severe depression may feel isolated, as if they are in a downward spiral. They kill their children to save them from this downfall.

Insanity’s Long Odds

Still, Laney faces an uphill battle with an insanity defense, if her attorney chooses to use one. Laws in Texas regarding insanity defenses are among the strictest in the nation, requiring defendants prove they did not know what they did was wrong, not just that they felt an overpowering compulsion to do it. In Yates' trial, prosecutors successfully argued that the calls she made to her husband and police after she killed her children suggested that she knew she did something wrong.

Prosecutors could make similar arguments in Laney's case, arguing her 911 call and her willingness to tell police where bodies where — but not look at them herself — show her ability to differentiate between right and wrong. On the other hand, Laney's defense could argue that her behavior clearly illustrates her psychosis, but it may have to stress that psychotic episodes can come upon a person — and end — at any time.

Texas prosecutors have not decided whether they will seek the death penalty against Laney. Butterworth says execution is probably too severe a punishment, but that she should be confined and treated.

"She should spend the rest of her life in a [mental-health] facility because we can't allow people who did what she did to walk free," Butterworth said.

Maybe Deanna Laney will ultimately meet Andrea Yates, who is serving a life sentence at the psychiatric facility in the Skyview Unit near Rusk, Texas. Laney would only be 30 miles away from her Tyler, Texas, home, where God apparently told her she had more in common with Yates than anyone would have ever imagined.