An Alabama, USA woman, Heather Leavell-Keaton, has made history as the first becomes first woman from the city to be sentenced to death after the Mobile County Circuit Court handed down the verdict on her for murdering her common-law husband's two children.
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Woman sentenced to death for murdering boyfriend's children
A woman who killed her common-law husbands children has been sentenced to death.
Heather Leavell Keaton has set a new record
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Leavell-Keaton was convicted in the 2010 killing of Natalie and Chase DeBlase, who were aged four and three respectively.
Judge Roderick P. Stout sentenced Leavell-Keaton to death by lethal injection on Thursday, August 20, following just 75 minutes of remarks by the jury after the court heard how she cold-heartedly murdered the kids alongside their father, John DeBlase, who had earlier been sentenced to death for the same crimes in 2014.
In his ruling, Stout said that Keaton failed to protect the children from 'needless suffering and death and unexplainable malice.'
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Stout followed the prior sentence recommendation from the jury, which found that Leavell-Keaton intentionally killed Chase DeBlase in 2010, but only recklessly caused the death of his sister, Natalie DeBlase.
According to prosecutors, the little girl was choked fatally in March 2010 after being duct-taped and placed in a suitcase which was set in a closet for 12 hours. Her body was later dumped in a wooded area near Citronelle.
Chase was killed in June 2010, having been taped to a broom handle and left in the corner of the couple's bedroom overnight. He was also choked to death, according to testimony, and his body was found in the woods outside Vancleave, Mississipi.
Prosecutors claimed that Leavell-Keaton was jealous of Natalie and bristled when friends and family members called her a princess. Chase was murdered shortly after he began asking where Natalie was.
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