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MOBILE, Ala. » An Alabama judge says a woman should die for the 2010 murder of her common-law husband’s 3-year-old son.
Mobile County Circuit Court judge Roderick Stout on Thursday sentenced Heather Leavell-Keaton to death by lethal injection, upholding jurors’ recommendation. AL.com reports Leavell-Keaton is the first woman in Mobile County history sentenced to death row.
The jury found that Leavell-Keaton intentionally killed Chase DeBlase in 2010, and recklessly caused the death of his 4-year-old sister, Natalie DeBlase. Prosecutors alleged that Leavell-Keaton cooked anti-freeze into the children’s food.
Prosecutors have said the children were tortured, gagged and choked to death. Chase and Natalie DeBlase bodies were found dumped in remote areas near Citronelle, Alabama and Vancleave, Mississippi.
John DeBlase, the children’s father, was sentenced to death in late 2014.
