In a story that might seem to be straight out of a crime thriller, a US man has been given a life term after he killed his family before he tried to feed them the cooked heart of another woman he murdered.
Forty-four-year-old Lawrence Paul Anderson was jailed after he pleaded guilty to the 2021 murder of Andrea Blankenship, his uncle Leon Pye and his uncle's four-year-old granddaughter Kaeos Yates, the Independent reported.
According to prosecutors Anderson killed Blankenship and cut out her heart and took it to his aunt and uncle’s house where he cooked it with potatoes. He tried to serve it to his uncle and aunt before he killed his uncle and his granddaughter.
As the chilling details emerged, it came to the fore that Anderson was released from prison as part of a mass commutation effort in Oklahoma just a few weeks ago.
The report by the international daily said Anderson pleaded guilty to three counts of murder in the first degree, one count of assault and battery with a deadly weapon, and one count of maiming and received five life sentences, to be served consecutively.
District Attorney Jason Hicks told the Independent, “There’s evidence in possession of my office as well as the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation that’s so shocking, after I reviewed it, it kept me up at night for weeks.”
“The intent of that agreement is to ensure he never steps outside of the prison. Not only that but to ensure that nobody can ever modify these sentences. That was something that was extremely important to not only my office, but also to the family members of the victims in this case,” he added.
Earlier in 2017, Anderson had been sentenced to 20 years in prison for probation violations on a drug case.
Prosecutors said they did not seek the death penalty as they felt a trial would continue to harm the victim family.