Juror: Kehoe murders disturbing

How Michelle Kehoe killed her 2-year-old son and attempted to kill her other son was disturbing to all the jurors, juror Barbara Beenken said a few hours after the guilty verdicts were read.

Beenken, of Grundy Center, said in a phone interview Thursday that it was a difficult case. Being a mother and grandmother herself, she couldn't 'know why a person does something like that. It's hard to imagine unless they were insane,' but after looking at the legal definition of insanity, the jury didn't believe Kehoe met the criteria.

Kehoe, 36, of Coralville, claimed insanity as her defense, but in Iowa, the legal definition holds that a person must be unable to understand the nature and quality of the act or cannot distinguish right from wrong.

The Grundy County District Court jury deliberated for less than two hours before finding her guilty of first-degree murder, attempted murder and child endangerment causing serious injury.

Kehoe drove her sons from their Coralville home in the family van Oct. 26, 2008, to a remote pond near Littleton and slashed their throats. Kehoe duct-taped eldest son Sean's eyes, nose and mouth before cutting him and then went after younger son Seth, who was cut twice and died a few minutes later.

Sean survived to tell police what his mother did.

Kehoe faces life in prison. Sentencing is 1:30 p.m. Dec. 15 in Buchanan County District Court.

Beenken said jurors understood Kehoe had a mental illness but did not believe she was insane according to the legal definition. None of the jurors knew how the others felt about the case until they sat down to deliberate.

Everybody had a chance to say how they felt, and it didn't take more than one vote, she said.

B.J. Franklin of the Horizons Survivors Program and a Kehoe family spokeswoman said in a statement to the media that the family recognizes the 'stigma' that comes with mental illness and hopes anyone suffering from such an illness gets help. The family wasn't aware of the extent of Kehoe's illness or would have gotten her help, Franklin said.

Drake University Law School associate professor Robert Rigg, who has worked on many insanity cases, said jurors are biased regarding mental-health issues and don't feel they should be used, especially in such brutal crimes, like a murder involving a mother and her children.

Most of the successful insanity defenses are those tried before a judge and not a jury, Rigg said. Judges are less likely to be swayed by emotion and to rule strictly according to the law.

Rigg said the 'egregious facts' of this case certainly didn't help the defense, which conceded that Kehoe committed the brutal acts.

The purchasing of the duct tape and knife months before, combined with how she killed Seth and attempted to kill Sean, made it a tougher sell for the jurors, he said.

Video of the verdict

Closing arguments

Kehoe's actions in killing her 2-year-old son Seth and attempting to kill her 7-year-old son Sean were not the act of someone insane because she deliberately and willingly committed the acts and then tried to cover them up, Assistant Attorney General Andy Prosser said during his closing argument in Kehoe's murder trial today.

Prosser asked the jurors in the case to consider why Kehoe tried to blame the incident on a strange man if she didn't know her actions were wrong.

She planned out the events of Oct. 26, 2008, Prosser said. She purchased a knife months before and purposely stopped at Quik Star in Jesup to ask the location of a playground where she would lose her phone. She wanted to make sure she didn't have her phone, Prosser said.

Defense attorney Andrea Dryer said in her closing that Kehoe didn't understand the difference between right and wrong at the time of the act. The purpose of Kehoe's story about a strange man kidnapping the boys was Kehoe's attempt to spare her husband Eugene the shame of his wife committing suicide and killing their children. This doesn't make sense, and Kehoe is delusional, Dryer said.

The definition of delusion is a fixed, false belief.

Kehoe didn't act out of anger, Dryer said. She truly believed killing the children and herself was the right thing to do. She wanted to spare her children a lifetime of pain she endured. She suffered from major depression and believed her children would inherit her disease, Dryer said.

Prosser asked why Kehoe worked so hard at making others think she didn't do it. If she lacked the mental capacity to know right from wrong, Prosser asked, why didn't she just admit it? She tried to cover up her guilt, he said.

"Actions speak louder than words," Prosser said.

In a note to investigators during an interview, Kehoe finally broke down and confessed to the crime, then told investigators she wanted to be locked up forever and wanted to be killed, Prosser said. She felt guilt, and understood her actions were wrong, he said.

Dryer asked the jurors to return a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity, based on Kehoe's diminished capacity to distinguish right from wrong at the time of the crime.

Prosser asked the jurors to return a verdict of guilty on all charges.

The jury went out at 10:45 a.m. to begin their deliberations.

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Photos by Cliff Jette

Kehoe closing arguments-Thursday

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