Can God be sued for bad advice?
by Shannon Harrison
feature editor

Deanna Laney is insane.

What sane mother would bash in the heads of her three sons, killing two and maiming the third as he lay in his crib?

What sane mother would say God told her to kill her son?

What sane mother would refuse anti-psychotic medication until her oldest son failed to rise from the dead on his ninth birthday?

Yes, Deanna Laney is terribly ill.

A Texas jury in Tyler agreed Laney is insane, a verdict they reached after hearing testimony that could not refute her illness.

God told Laney, as she reports it, to bash in the heads of Joshua, 8, Luke, 6, and Aaron, 2.

Only Aaron survived the attack, but his eyesight is impaired, and doctors report he never will live independently.

No one knows what set off Laney’s madness. This woman obviously is religious. Laney must have spoken to God often, and she believes he spoke to and through her. Tragically, those messages were misunderstood.

This mother’s tortured existence joins the long register of motherhood gone awry. Every year the list grows longer as another mother kills her children.

She may direct her car into a lake with her children strapped into their car seats. She may chase her children down and drown them one by one in the bathtub. She may stab her children to death and blame an unidentified intruder.

Meanwhile, the husbands of these mothers are as befuddled by the actions of their wives as we are.

Surely these mentally disturbed mothers drop clues to family members or friends. Everyone must be more diligent to listen to these clues and seek help for these mothers before they turn their deadly hands on their children.

Laney fits a pattern we have come to recognize: out of touch, anxious, overwhelmed, stressed out, needy for attention, seeking guidance, screaming for help.

After medication, Laney recanted and said she no longer was sure the killings were God’s will.

“ I started realizing that he wouldn’t do something like that,” she was quoted as saying in the media.

In the trial, psychiatrists testified Laney felt embroiled in a spiritual warfare. She believed she was chosen by God to kill her children as a test of faith.

But here is the problem with the verdict. Laney was found innocent by reason of insanity. This woman will be placed in a maximum-security mental institution and evaluated over time. Eventually, she could be diagnosed as cured and set free.

Texas law should allow juries to give a verdict as guilty by reason of insanity. Guilty she is. She murdered her children.

Laney’s case is another tragedy that society must deal with. We must watch out for signs of illness that could drive anyone to kill her children.

Regardless of this tragedy, however, Laney should never embrace freedom again. How could she ever be well or sane again after her actions?

Last Updated: 4/14/2004
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