After her change of plea hearing was pushed back last week, a 33-year-old Kentucky woman went to court on Wednesday and admitted that she killed her two sons, ages 6 and 9, by shooting them in the head at home. This ended her official claim that she was “legally insane” at the time.
The murder trials of Tiffanie Lucas for the deaths of her boys Maurice “Peanut” Baker Jr. and Jayden Howard were set to begin in December.
She was charged with shooting both of them in their bedroom at their Shepherdsville home on Bentwood Drive on November 8, 2023.
Lucas walked into a Bullitt County courtroom wearing jail orange and was sworn in right away. She promised that what she would say in court would be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
She gave her full name, the address of her home where the murder happened, her birthday (she turned 33 on October 2), and the fact that she had finished high school.
After that, Judge Rodney Burress asked Lucas several things.
The judge asked, “Do you have or have you ever had a mental illness or defect that would make it hard for you to think and reason?”
Lucas replied, “No, sir.”
The judge then asked, “At this time, are you sick or less able to make decisions in any way?”
That person said, “No, sir.”
Why did the judge ask, “Are you high on alcohol or some other drug?”
Lucas said, “No, sir,” again stating that she knew what was going on and that by pleading guilty, she was giving up her right to a trial by a jury and her right to appeal.
In September, Lucas’s lawyers said that they would argue in court that she was not legally insane at the time of the shooting.
Reported that Lucas was charged with firing four shots in 30 seconds. She said the killing “was an accident” and that she was “manipulated through Facebook, the internet, or Wi-Fi into doing what she did.”
According to the Bullitt County Sheriff’s Office, the husband and wife of a neighbor saw Lucas lying down in their driveway the morning of the killings.
The husband then called 911 after finding the shocking scene inside the suspect’s home. Lucas is said to have told her friends that her “children were dying.”
Once Lucas was caught, an investigator said that when she was asked about the crimes, she said, “I’m in such a bad spot,” “I’m so stupid,” and “I would never do something like this unless someone manipulated me.”
But what she said in court on Wednesday didn’t point the finger at anyone but herself.
Lucas admitted that she made a “open plea,” which means she admitted to killing two people without a plea deal or a suggested sentence from the Bullitt County Commonwealth Attorney’s Office.
Burress said that Lucas will face 20 to 50 years in prison or life in prison for both murder counts when he sentences her, and that it will be up to him to decide whether the sentences will run consecutively or at the same time.
She told them she got it, and then she said she was pleading guilty because she is guilty.
After that, everyone decided that the sentencing would happen on November 22 at 9 a.m.
Ann Baker, the aunt of the victims, told WLKY after the hearing that she was “glad” Lucas “openly said she was guilty” and hoped the judge would make sure the suspect would never get out of jail.
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Baker allegedly said that if she could, she would tell Lucas, “You were a monster to them in the end of the day.” “That’s what they saw you as.”
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