In case you haven't been following the latest in Texas regarding the most interesting and bazaar criminal trials, Andrea Yates second trial is just wrapping up as Deanna Laney's gets underway.  For those who haven't heard of Deanna Laney, she is the mother who killed her 8 and 6 year old sons with rocks and severly injured her 14 month old.   The longer I watch this case, the more I am CONVINCED that there is a very big missing piece of the puzzle. 

May 10, 2003, Mother's Day week end, Deanna Laney puts her boys to bed after conventiently stashing a large rock under her 14 month old son, Aaron's, crib.  At about 11:00 PM she locks her husband in the bedroom as he sleeps and proceeds to one by one bludgeon her children, killing the 8 and 6 year old in the garden behind the house and then permanently blinding and mentally impairing the baby in his room.  Then, at around 1:00 am, she calls 911 and calmly tells the 911 operator that she has just killed her boys because God told her to.  Clearly insane, right?   I mean no sane woman could or WOULD do such a thing.  At least this seems to be the general concensus of four expert psychiatrists and even the prosecution isn't arguing that she was, in fact, insane.

Of course everyone has heard of Andrea Yates and what she did...interestingly enough Deanna Laney followed that case and was very familiar with the details, according to testimony.  In Andrea's case the defense alledges that she suffered from a progressively worsening case of Post Partum Psychosis and that there were warning signs before she killed her children one by one, drowning them in the bathtub.  They presented tons of evidence that she suffered from mental illness for some time before she commited the crime. Deanna Laney, in fact, said she thought at the time of her own crime, that she and Andrea were chosen to be in this together.  However, what I find remarkable and hard to understand is that there were NO warning signs with Deanna Laney.  She apparently was a loving wonderful mother, who attended church regularly, homeschooled her children, she was just a pillar of the community along with her family.

I have a very hard time believely that a loving mother just suddenly, with out warning becomes psychotic and kills her children.  No warning signs, NOBODY saw anything to lead them to believe that she was mentally ill? COME ON!  Somebody knows something, or Deanna Laney is brilliant.

Here's what I think, either:

1: Deanna Laney used Andrea Yates as a "template" for her own crime, the only difference is she said God told her to do it and Andrea said the Devil told her too.  Interestingly enough this small difference got Andrea convicted and Deanna doesn't even have the prosecution contesting that she must be insane.  Wouldn't hearing voices, regardless as to WHO it is thought to be, be "INSANE" either way?   Testimony from her minister, husband and mother in law says that Deanna was the perfect Christian mother who did everything that one would expect from a family so involved in their church.  Maybe the pressure was too much? Maybe she just wanted out of the role she was "expected" to perform.  Everyone agrees she MUST be insane because they could not find a motive as to why she would do such a thing.  Maybe her motive was as simple as wanting out and in the small restrictive "community" in which she lived she couldnt (in her own mind) just up and leave.

OR

2: Keith Laney knew his wife was not functioning with all her marbles.  SOMEBODY knew,  But,  let's face it, there are those who wanted Rusty Yates lynched after he admitted he knew his wife was not well and that she had admitted to him that she was afraid she would hurt the children.  Remember now,  the Laney's had followed the Yates case, so would Keith Laney dare make the same mistake Rusty did?  The simple fact is somebody had to have noticed this woman was psychotic if, in fact, she was.

So tell me, what do YOU think? I am really interested to hear different opinions on this.  It's got me completely dumb founded.