Oklahoman pleads guilty to killing 3, cutting heart from one
CTV
An Oklahoma man has been sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to killing three people, including a woman whose heart was cut from her body, weeks after being released from prison as part of a mass commutation effort.
An Oklahoma man has been sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to killing three people, including a woman whose heart was cut from her body, weeks after being released from prison as part of a mass commutation effort.
Lawrence Paul Anderson, 44, pleaded guilty Wednesday in Grady County District Court to three counts of murder and single counts of maiming and assault and battery.
Anderson was sentenced to life without parole as part of a plea deal in which prosecutor Jason Hicks dropped plans to seek the death penalty at the request of the victims' families.
"They don't want a trial," Hicks 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."
Investigators said Anderson broke into the home of Andrea Lynn Blankenship, 41, fatally stabbed her and cut out her heart, taking it to the home of his uncle and aunt, Leon Pye and Delsie Pye.
Anderson then cooked and tried to serve the heart to the Pyes, then fatally stabbed Leon Pye, 67, and his 4-year-old granddaughter, Kaeos Yates, and wounding his aunt, Delsie Pye, authorities said.
During sentencing Delsie Pye, 66, said she is heartbroken that a family member would commit such a crime.
Officials in Dresden evacuated 18,000 people Wednesday after the discovery of an unexploded World War II bomb, the largest such operation yet in the eastern German city, emergency services said.
At least six people have been killed and three others hospitalized with severe injures after a bus caught fire in a town west of the Swiss capital, police said Tuesday.
A U.S. judge has rejected a request for a new trial for a Venezuelan man convicted of killing Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, a case that became a flashpoint in the national debate over immigration.
Without warning, the sleepy Cuban farm town of San Antonio de los Baños burst into protest one morning nearly five years ago, triggering a series of copycat demonstrations across the country that shook the Communist government unlike any event in decades.
Three wealthy brothers, including two of New York’s top real estate brokers, were found guilty on Monday at a closely watched sex trafficking trial over allegations they lured women and girls to exclusive parties where they drugged and raped them.
Lawyers for a man accused of carrying out a deadly shooting on Sydney’s Bondi Beach sought a court order on Monday to stop media naming his family, saying their safety was at risk.
A fire at a building near Scotland’s Glasgow Central Station has caused major disruptions to train services.
A U.S. federal judge ruled Saturday that Kari Lake, U.S. President Donald Trump’s choice to lead the U.S. Agency for Global Media, did not have legal authority to take the actions she’s done to largely dismantle the Voice of America. The decision’s effect on VOA operations was not immediately clear.
Visitors to the Capitol will now have a visible reminder of the violent attack against the building on Jan. 6, 2021, and the officers who fought and were injured that day.
U.S. President Donald Trump is set to gather with Latin American leaders on Saturday at his Miami-area golf club as his administration looks to demonstrate it’s still committed to sharpening U.S. foreign policy focus on the Western Hemisphere even as it deals with five-alarm crises around the globe.
The calls to 911 poured in from staff at Camp East Montana in Texas, the nation’s largest U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility, at a rate of nearly one a day for five months, each its own tale of pain and despair.
Some two dozen states challenged President Donald Trump’s new global tariffs on Thursday, filing a lawsuit over import taxes he imposed after a stinging loss at the Supreme Court.