An Oklahoma man has pleaded guilty to three first-degree murder charges, an assault and battery charge, and a maiming charge for a heinous 2021 triple murder.
44-year-old Lawrence Anderson has since received five life sentences, three without parole.
As part of the plea agreement, District Attorney Jason Hicks said the punishment can never be modified.
“That’s done to ensure that there is never an opportunity for him to be released,” said DA Hicks.
Hicks said that was what the victim’s families wanted, to spare them the lengthy and traumatizing trial that he said could’ve lasted months. DA Hicks said the jury selection alone would’ve lasted weeks because of the high-profile case. The deal would also prevent the family from reliving the disturbing details of their loved one’s murder.
In 2021, Lawrence Anderson was released from prison early, after the Governor Stitt commuted him and dozens of other’s sentences. Andrea Blankenship’s father-in-law called it an “epic failure” of a government experiment.
In February of that year, Anderson broke into Blankenship’s Chickasha home through a back door. Investigators said he gouged out the single mother’s eye, stabbed her multiple times, and carved out her heart.
He then walked over to his Uncle Leon and Aunt Delsie Pye’s home to cook the heart. Anderson tried to feed it to them before he attacked his aunt, uncle, and their 4-year-old granddaughter Kaeos who was visiting.
Inside the Grady County Courthouse on Thursday, the judge allowed the family to stand up and vent their frustrations with Anderson.
“You’re not sad at all! Don’t shed no fake a** tears!” shouted Quindessa Flowers, granddaughter of Leon and Delsie Pye.
Flowers, went off script when it was time for her impact letter. She screamed at the top of her lungs, “I hope you rot from the inside out,” “You ain’t no family of ours,” and “I hate you for everything you’ve done to us.”
Flowers then stormed out of the courtroom, as she did multiple times, overwhelmed with emotion.
Kaeos’ mother, Tasha Yates demanded Anderson look at her while she spoke.
She read her victim impact letter that said, “I pray you hear my baby girl as she told you that she loves you and that she didn’t want to die, too! And just like you didn’t hear her then, I pray that God doesn’t hear your cries either and I pray that you cry out for God on more days than you don’t.”
As she stormed out of the courtroom after cursing at Anderson and yelled, “Who kills a baby? Who does that?”
Anderson’s aunt, Delsie Pye was the lone survivor of the attack, but she is now blind in one eye and deaf on the left side.
DA Jason Hicks read her impact letter to Anderson on her behalf saying, “To think a family member of mine could do this heinous crime breaks my heart. Family means everything to me, as my nephew I don’t love you but I don’t hate you – even though I can’t judge you, God will.”
As part of the plea agreement, Anderson has agreed to stay quiet to prevent him from ever becoming a celebrity for the crimes he committed.
“I don’t want him on television. I don’t want him on 48 hours. I don’t want him on any other type of magazine program talking about what he did or anything. I don’t want him writing a book. I don’t want him to financially profit from any of this,” said DA Hicks. “He’s not going to talk to the media, he’s not going to talk to lawyers. He’s not going to talk to anybody.”
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