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CHICKASHA, Okla. — An Oklahoma triple murderer who cut out his first victim’s heart to cook with potatoes was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Lawrence Paul Anderson, 44, pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree murder, one count of assault and battery with a deadly weapon, and one count of maiming. Grady County District Attorney Jason Hicks said he dropped plans to seek the death penalty at the request of the victims’ families.
“A lot of that was tied to they don’t want a trial,” he said at a news conference after the sentencing. “They don’t want to sit in a courtroom and listen to all the gory details of what happened to their loved ones.”
Anderson attacked his uncle and aunt and their 4-year-old granddaughter on Feb. 9, 2021, after stabbing their neighbor to death and cutting out her heart. The aunt survived, saying later God was with her.
He was arrested after police responded to a 911 call. He confessed to the killings, saying he “cooked the heart with potatoes to feed to his family to release the demons,” an agent with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation reported.
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Oklahoma Gov. Stitt blamed for slayings
The attack came three weeks after Anderson was released from prison by mistake.
The convicted crack cocaine dealer was freed months after Oklahoma Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt commuted his prison sentence in June 2020. An Oklahoma County grand jury investigation later confirmed Anderson had been ineligible for the commutation because the parole board rejected his request in July 2019.
Under board rules, he could not seek commutation again for three years. But, he applied again in August 2019, and this time the parole board recommended it 3-1.
Anderson had been serving 20 years behind bars for probation violations on his drug dealing case and for new crimes. The commutation reduced his time to nine years, allowing for his release in 2021.
In the investigation, grand jurors reported that at least one high-level member of the parole board’s staff became aware of the error.
“The discovery was made at a time when it could have been easily corrected,” grand jurors said. “However, a unilateral decision was made by one person not to bring the error to the attention of the Board or the Governor’s office.”
Stitt came under fire last year over the tragedy as he ran for reelection. Days before the general election, the families of those killed sued Stitt and the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board.
The governor’s office at the time called the federal lawsuit a political stunt. The case is still pending.
‘Can’t sleep at night without having nightmares’
The sentencing Wednesday came after prosecutors reached a deal on Anderson’s punishment with his defense attorney. Grady County District Judge Kory Kirkland accepted the deal after checking with the victims’ relatives who were in the courtroom.
Under the deal, Anderson was ordered to serve five consecutive life terms, the first three without the possibility of parole.
He also was ordered to pay $9,500 in fines, $9,500 in restitution, $40,000 in victim compensation assessments and court costs.
He agreed to never appeal, never seek a commutation and never make a book deal or “otherwise participate in telling my story” through media interviews, podcasts, or movies.
Anderson confessed that he first killed Andrea Lynn Blankenship, 41, after he broke into her home, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation reported.
She was stabbed almost 40 times, a medical examiner wrote in an autopsy report. Her left eye, stomach, and most of her heart had been removed.
Anderson then went across the street and stabbed to death his uncle, Leon Pye, 67, and assaulted his aunt, Delsie Pye, inside their home. He also stabbed to death their granddaughter, Kaeos Yates, who was visiting.
In a 2021 interview with an Oklahoma City television station, Delsie Pye said her nephew went crazy after coming to their home.
“He thought I was dead. God was with me,” she told KFOR.
She can only see out of one eye because of the attack. Prosecutors alleged in the maiming count Anderson gouged out the other eye. She also suffered broken ribs and a broken tailbone. Pye is now 66.
“I can’t sleep at night without having nightmares of that night,” she wrote in a victim impact statement read in court Wednesday by Hicks.
The bureau reported in 2021 that Anderson admitted that he cooked the neighbor’s heart at the Pye home. He also said he “tried to make Delsie and Leon Pye eat the heart before he attacked them.”
Anderson never apologized during the sentencing and showed little emotion even when his own relatives screamed at him during their victim impact statements.
DA explains decision on death penalty
During the sentencing, Hicks told the judge he agreed not to seek the death penalty in part because Oklahoma takes too long to carry out executions.
At his news conference, he said eight of the 39 Oklahoma inmates sentenced to death committed their murders before 2000.
“It’s disgusting to think that somebody can sit on death row 15, 20, 25 years while a family has to continue going through all of the trauma of the appeals,” he said.
Blankenship’s daughter addressed the issue in her victim impact statement.
“I think it’s unfair that we even have to come to the decision of, do I want to spend the next few decades fighting for the death penalty? Or do I want to get it over with faster so I can try to feel like a person again?” Haylee Blankenship said.
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