Alabama step-mother 'claims she and husband John DeBlase killed children Chase and Natalie with anti
Couple 'killed their children with anti-freeze because they were too much responsiblity'
A female prisoner has allegedly told another inmate that she poisoned her two step-children with anti-freeze because they were too much responsibility.
Heather Leavell-Keaton, 22, is said to have made the horrifying revelation to a fellow inmate at the Mobile County jail in Alabama.
Mobile Detective Angela Prine testified that Leavell-Keaton told the inmate she and common-law husband John DeBlase wanted the children dead because 'it would be better if they had less responsibilities'.
'We poisoned them with anti-freeze': John DeBlase, left, and common-law wife Heather Leavell-Keaton. Leavell-Keaton has allegedly confessed the murders to a fellow inmate in an Alabama jail
Horror claim: Leavell-Keaton is led into a courtroom in Alabama in December
She is said to have claimed they practised on a dog first.
The body of three-year-old Chase DeBlase was found near Vancleave, Mississippi, on December 8. His four-year-old sister Natalie was found near Citronelle three days later.
Their father is jailed on murder charges. Leavell-Keaton allegedly told the inmate that the couple had poisoned Natalie first - and then Chase because he began crying and asking for his sister.
At a previous hearing, investigators had said Leavell-Keaton told them DeBlase fed rat poison to the children.
Detective Prine's testimony came in a preliminary hearing on capital murder charges against the 22-year-old stepmother.
Leavell-Keaton's attorney, Richard Horne, said she is functionally blind and not capable of some the things she's accused of doing.
Victims: Natalie Chase, four, and her brother Chase, three. The pair were allegedly killed because they were too much responsibility
But Circuit Judge Rick Stout found probable cause to send the case to the grand jury.
Detective Prine testified that jail inmate Roseanna Russell was assigned to help Leavell-Keaton because of her blindness and the defendant began talking to her about the case.
The detective said Russell learned the couple first poisoned their dog with antifreeze 'to find out how long it would take to kill a living thing'.
Then they started giving antifreeze to the children, who got progressively sicker.
Natalie died March 4, 2010, and they dumped her body, the detective said. They stopped poisoning Chase for a few months but started back because he began crying and asking for his sister in front of others, she testified.
Chase died June 20. On the way to dump his body in Mississippi, they stopped at a video game store to buy two games because they no longer had the responsibilities of the children, the detective said.
If convicted of capital murder, Leavell-Keaton could be executed or sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Horror: Alabama man John DeBlase was charged with two counts of murder in December
According to arrest warrants from December, DeBlase allowed their stepmother to subject them to horrific torture before they were killed.
He allegedly told police he dumped the bodies in wooded areas in two states and covered them in twigs.
Days before the murder charges were filed, warrants detailing the children's mistreatment were prepared when DeBlase was arrested on child abuse charges.
The documents claim DeBlase allowed Leavell-Keaton, to bind the girl's hands and feet with duct tape, put a sock in her mouth and leave her in a suitcase in a cupboard for about 14 hours.
According to the warrants, Leavell-Keaton also duct-taped the boy's hands to the side of his legs, taped a broom handle to his back and shoved a sock in his mouth, also covering it with duct tape. The boy was then forced to stand in a corner all night while the adults went to bed.
The documents don't specify when the alleged abuse occurred, only saying it happened sometime after March 1.
An investigation into the children's disappearance didn't start until late last month after Leavell-Keaton sought a protective order against DeBlase in Kentucky, said Mobile Police Officer Chris Levy.
She claimed in the November 18 filing that DeBlase 'may have murdered his children', and that she feared for her life because he was abusive. The couple just had a child together this summer.
'I am afraid that he is going to do something to harm our daughter because of what he has done to the other children,' she wrote.
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