Gordon Lasley Jr. sentenced to life in prison for killing parents

CEDAR RAPIDS - The two sisters of victim Kim Lasley, almost sobbing at times, said Tuesday the loss of their sister is so great that neither can believe she is gone and they don't know how to go on without her.

'In this past year, I've had to learn to live with this void in my life,” Kelly Sam, Kim's sister, said in a victim's impact statement. 'I have had to accept the fact that I'm alone without her.”

Sam said she prays all the time, which is the only way she and her family can get through this.

Karena Johnson, Kim's other sister, said her sister's death has left an emptiness and life will never be the same without her.

'I tell her every day that I miss her,” Johnson said.

The siblings of victim Gordon Lasley Sr. said in a written statement the death of their brother and his wife were 'cruel” and 'unimaginable.”

'It was the cowardly actions of their adult son. We pray for the maximum sentence of life (for him),” they said in the statement.

Lasley Jr. was sentenced to life in prison. He was convicted by jury for two counts of second-degree murder Dec. 17, 2014. Lasley Jr. killed his parents, Gordon Sr. and Kim Lasley, on Feb. 5, 2014 with a homemade machete at their home on the Meskwaki Settlement in Tama.

According to trial testimony, both victims died from bleeding to death.

Lasley Jr. said during the hearing there was nothing he could say. He kept repeating that he couldn't explain what he did and 'wished” he could take it back.

'I just want to say I'm sorry,” Lasley Jr. said. 'I cared for my parents very much. I know my mom and dad are in a better place than here. I know the world is a corrupt place. I pray for you guys (his family) every day - to be comforted.”

Lasley Jr. then said he had a dream about his parents and he got to hug them and say he was sorry. In the dream they forgive him and he 'holds onto the dream every day.” He described where they were in the dream as 'everything is white, like a white light. Everything is beautiful.”

Lasley Jr. starts to say 'I just lost it” that night but Jill Johnston, his attorney, leans over and says something to him. He then hesitates and just repeats that he can't believe it happened.

U.S. District Chief Judge Linda Reade said she wouldn't give Lasley Jr. a two-level reduction for acceptance of responsibility, which Johnston requested and would reduce the guideline range for sentencing. Without the reduction it was 30 years to life in prison.

Reade said Lasley Jr. never admitted to killing his parents. He never contested it but never admitted it, except for Tuesday 'in a roundabout way.”

'I'm not really sure he expressed remorse today,” Reade said.

He still made the government prove he killed them and argued against intent and premeditation.

Reade said the guideline doesn't account for his killing of two people or for the 'brutal” manner of death.

'These were savage attacks,” Reade said. 'Kim had to watch the attack on her husband and then flee for her own life.”

Reade pointed out that the killings had a witness - the young daughter of Lasley Jr. and according to testimony he planned to kill the child and himself afterward.

Reade said she didn't think Lasley Jr. was insane, as he claimed, and found his experts not to be credible in their mental illness diagnosis. She believes this was first-degree murder, as the prosecution argued.

'Sometimes people do evil acts and it doesn't mean they are mentally ill,” Reade said.