On Wednesday, an Oklahoma man was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murders of his uncle, his uncle’s 4-year-old granddaughter, and a lady whose heart he took out and cooked.
According to court filings, Lawrence Paul Anderson, 44, admitted to stabbing to death Andrea Lynn Blankenship, 41, his 67-year-old uncle Leon Pye, and his uncle’s granddaughter Kaeos Yates “on or about” February 9, 2021, in Chickasha, Okla.
According to Fox News, he reportedly acknowledged to harming his aunt Delsie Pye. According to The Oklahoman, Pye had a broken tailbone and ribs and can only see out of one eye after the other was allegedly gouged out.
Blankenship was the Pyes’ neighbor, according to The Oklahoman. According to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, Anderson admitted to killing her after breaking through her back door (OSBI).
Anderson then stabbed Blankenship 40 times, taking her left eye, stomach, and heart, according to an autopsy report obtained by 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 pled guilty on Wednesday to three counts of first-degree murder, one act of assault and battery with a deadly weapon, and one count of maiming, according to NBC News.
According to Fox News, his sentencing was part of a plea deal in which Hicks stated that he was no longer seeking the death penalty at the request of the victims’ families.
“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 occurred after Anderson was mistakenly released from jail in January 2021. Anderson was released months after Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt shortened his jail sentence, according to The Oklahoman, but a grand jury inquiry revealed that Anderson was ineligible for the commuting.
The Oklahoman said that evidence for the killings included a tape from a voicemail left by Anderson, which captured 4-year-old Kaeos Yates wailing 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.”
