Woman condemned to death for killing lover’s children

Leavell-Keaton was convicted for the 2010 killing of Natalie and Chase DeBlase, who were aged four and three respectively.

Judge Roderick P. Stout sentenced Leavell-Keaton to death after the jury in a 75 minutes presentation described how she and her husband, the children’s father, John DeBlase, who had earlier been sentenced to death for the same crimes in 2014, murdered the children.

In his ruling, Stout said the convict failed to protect the children from “needless suffering and death and unexplainable malice.”

According to prosecutors, in March 2010, one of the deceased, Natalie was duct-taped and placed in a suitcase which was set in a closet for 12 hours, adding that the deceased corpse 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 told the court that the convict was jealous of Natalie because friends and family members called her a princess, adding that Leavell-Keaton murdered Chase after he started asking about the where-about of Natalie.