An Oklahoma man who pleaded guilty to killing three people – and ripping out and cooking the heart of one of his victims – just weeks after he was erroneously released from prison, has been sentenced to life behind bars, officials said.
Lawrence Paul Anderson pleaded guilty to multiple counts of murder, maiming, assault and battery on Wednesday in connection with the vicious 2021 slayings of Andrea Lynn Blankenship, 41, his uncle Leon Pye, 67, and Pye’s granddaughter, 4-year-old Kaeos Yates.
His aunt, Delsie Pye, 66, was injured in the attack.
Anderson escaped the possibility of the death penalty in exchange for his guilty pleas, as per a request from the victims’ families, and was instead sentenced to life in prison, prosecutor Jason Hicks told reporters.
Victims’ loved ones lashed out at the killer in court on Wednesday, with one telling him to “rot from the inside out,” local news station KFOR reported.
Yates’ mother, Tasha, delivered several impassioned victim impact statements read before Anderson’s sentencing, at one point yelling, “Who kills a baby … who does that?”
Hicks said the victims’ families did not want the case to go to trial.
“They don’t want to sit in a courtroom and listen to all the gory details of what happened to their loved ones,” he said during a press conference following the sentencing.
Anderson unleashed his gruesome attacks in February 2021 – just weeks after being freed from prison when his 20-year drug-related sentence was commuted in response to a mistaken recommendation from Oklahoma’s Pardon and Parole Board.
He fatally stabbed Blankenship after breaking into her house, authorities said. He then removed her heart and took it with him to the Pyes’ home.
According to investigators, he cooked the heart and tried to feed it to his relatives before stabbing and killing his uncle and Yates. His aunt was repeatedly stabbed but survived.
With Post wires
By: Ny Post
