FILICIDE (multiple): Pennsylvania: Meghan Lippiatt found dead

James King, Tue., Jun. 7 2011

Meghan Lippiatt, found insane following murder of two sons, was discovered dead in a rural part of Navajo County.

​A Pennsylvania mom whose insanity defense allowed her to beat the rap in the slayings of her two sons was found dead in a canyon in northern Arizona over the weekend. Authorities think the death might be a suicide.
Meghan Lippiatt, 35, of Mount Joy, Pennsylvania was found dead Saturday in the wreckage of her white Volkswagen minivan. The wreckage was found crashed in a canyon -- about a two-hour hike from the closest road -- in Navajo County, Department of Public Safety officials say. Authorities say she may have been dead for nearly a week before she was found by tourists.

Lippiatt killed her two sons -- Silas, 2, and Myles, 4 months -- in 2004.
She told authorities that her "children were possessed by a demon" and that "she was possessed and the only way to save all of them was to end their lives." Lippiatt suffocated Myles, then drowned Silas in a tub.
She was found not guilty by reason of insanity after a nonjury trial in December 2007.
Following the verdict, a psychiatrist examined Lippiatt and found her to be competent for release. She went to live with her parents in Pennsylvania, despite prosecutors' demands that she be institutionalized.
Arizona Department of Public Safety spokesman Bart Graves tells New Times that it's unclear what Lippiatt was doing in Arizona, but says it appears she may have been to the scene of her death before.
"She knew what she was doing when she came here," he says. "[The area where she was found] is so remote it would be very hard to find without knowing where it is."
Graves wouldn't speculate about whether Lippiatt came to Arizona to kill herself.
The Navajo County Medical Examiner will determine a cause of death after an investigation.

http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2011/06/pennsylvania_mom_who_murdered.php

FILICIDE (multiple): Loisiana: Amy Hebert appeal denied

Amy Hebert

By John DeSantis
Senior Staff Writer  February 25, 2011

 

THIBODAUX — A three-judge panel has rejected appeals arguments for a Mathews woman convicted in 2009 of murdering her two children.

The Louisiana 1st Circuit Court of Appeal ruled against attorneys for 42-year-old Amy Hebert, who was convicted on two counts of first-degree murder in connection with the 2007 stabbing deaths of her 9-year-old daughter, Camille, and 7-year-old son, Braxton. She was spared the death penalty sought by prosecutors because jurors could not agree on the matter. But state District Judge Jerome Barbera sentenced her to two consecutive terms of life in prison.

Her attorneys have until mid-March to seek a review by the Louisiana Supreme Court, but no notice of such a request has yet been received.

Lafourche District Attorney Cam Morvant II said the 25-page opinion of Chief Judge Burrell Carter, and judges Edward J. Gaidry and Jewel E. “Duke” Welch reflects how important letters written by Hebert on the day of the murders were in guiding the jury toward its verdict. Jurors could have found Hebert not guilty or not guilty by reason of insanity.

“They took a lot of time on this case and honed in on the letters,” Morvant said. “That’s what they questioned her attorney on — what about the letters? They were the big issue at the trial.”

New Orleans attorney Jane Beebe, who filed the appeal for Hebert, argued that the evidence presented during the trial was insufficient to convict the former teacher’s aide of murder because defense witnesses established that she was insane at the time of the killings. Two prosecution doctors were unable to rebuff that evidence, Beebe argued.

The 25-page opinion notes that two doctors presented by defense attorneys spoke of Hebert’s delusional and psychotic behavior, including claims that the voices of God and Satan had instructed her to kill the children.

It also recounts how a prosecution doctor, Rafael Salcedo, testified that Hebert had the ability to distinguish between right and wrong. Inability to make such distinctions is the standard for insanity in Louisiana. The jury, the appeals judges ruled, had the freedom to consider that opinion above the others.

Two letters written by Hebert, one to her ex-husband, Chad, and the other to her mother-in-law, Judy Hebert, discovered by police at the crime scene, clearly showed Hebert’s motive for the killings, which was anger at the potential that the children would be taken from her.

“We are convinced any rational trier of fact could have found the defendant failed to rebut her presumed sanity at the time of the offense,” the appeals court says in its decision. “The jury was free to accept or reject, in whole or in part, the testimony of any witness.”

The judges note that their job is not to determine credibility of the witnesses from a trial that has already taken place.

Hebert’s attorney also argued that Barbera erred by refusing to allow testimony from a forensic expert who said the knife patterns on the bodies of the children and family dog, which was also killed, was evidence of insanity.

But the appeals court ruled that the defense attorney’s argument lacks merit.

The appeals judges also rejected an argument by Hebert’s attorney that the trial should have been moved elsewhere because publicity made it impossible to pick an unbiased jury.

The appeals court also rejected Hebert’s attorney’s argument that consecutive sentences — meaning the two life terms will run one after another — amounts to excessive punishment.

The appeals judges ruled that Hebert’s status as a first-time felon and thus worthy of mercy in sentencing was not supported by the facts of the case.

“The defendant brutally killed her two helpless, young children,” the judgment states. “She is the worst kind of offender.”

Senior Staff Writer John DeSantis can be reached at 850-1150 or john.desantis@dailycomet.com

http://www.dailycomet.com/article/20110225/ARTICLES/110229652/1212?p=all&tc=pgall