Woman sentenced to death for the murder and torture of her step-children

Heather Leavell-Keaton has been sentenced to death by lethal injection (C)MCSO

An Alabama woman, Heather Leavell-Keaton has been sentenced to die by lethal injection,  six months after the children's father, John DeBlase was handed the same sentence. Keaton was found guilty of poisoning the children, Natalie, 5, and Chase, 3, with anti-freeze in their meals but it was the choking that ultimately killed them, the court heard.

Natalie, 5, and Chase DeBlase, 3, both murdered in 2010   (C)AP

After enduring months of being burned with cigarettes and hot candle wax, the oldest child was duct-taped and stuffed inside of a suitcase for 12 hours in March 2010. When she was finally released she was choked and her body dumped in a garbage bag in woods near Citronelle, Ala. Three months later, after detectives say Natalie's brother started crying and asking about her in public, creating a "liability," Chase was taped to a broom handle and left in the corner of the couple's bedroom overnight. Eventually he too was choked to death and his body tossed in woods outside Vancleave, Miss. in Dec. 2010. Their skeletal remains were found a few days later.

Their father, John DeBlase       (C)AP

Prosecutors said Keaton was jealous of Natalie and wanted them both dead.
The last woman killed in the state was in 2002 by the electric chair

Source: DailyNews