"Police: Remains found believed to be missing girl"

Human remains believed to be the daughter of John DeBlase were found in the woods off a rural in Citronelle, Alabama on December 11 2010 at about 9 a.m. by Kara Rose. John DeBlase "is charged of two counts of felony murder and two counts of corpse abuse". The Wednesday before, the police believe they have found the skeletal remains of DeBlase's 3-year-old son, Chase. DeBlase's daughter, Natalie, found on Saturday would have been 5 in November. Both children have been believed to be missing for months. DeBlase's wife, Heather Leavell-Keaton, is also suspected to be responsible for the murders. Though, she has only been charged of child abuse, not the actual murders. It has been stated that she would duct tape Natalie's hands and feet, put a sock in her mouth and put her in a suitcase in the closet for 14 hours. Also she is accused of "duct-taping [Chase's] hands to the side of his legs, strapping a broom handle to his back and shoving a sock in his mouth, then forcing him to stand in a corner all night while the adults went to bed". A month before the police found the remains, Leavell-Keaton had sought a protective order against DeBlase because she was a afraid that he would harm their new born child of last summer. Making police more suspicious. DeBlase's lawyers say he will plead not guilty due to mental disease and defect, which friends say that that is "certainly not without reason."

This is a tragic story about two unfortunate children who have been through so much abuse and then finally murdered. This article has stated no reason why DeBlase would want to murder his children. The children were murdered separately and had both dumped immediately. It seems this man had no remorse for his children's deaths or that he was the one who murdered them. The article isn't very clear if Leavall-Keaton is the mother of the two young children. It seems they were just brought into her life and she did not want to put up with them , so she just locked them away. She has no sympathy, she was willing to beat those poor children and then put all the blame on her husband, DeBlase, so she would not get in trouble. She uses the child they have together to help protect herself and keep the innocent role in this story. They both are at fault in this case, but unfortunately these things aren't so black and white. Lawyer have ways of bending the rules. The real question is not if they're guilty or not it's if the guilty will be punished properly.

Cited from Yahoo! News : http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_missing_children_alabama;_ylt=AuLLwtpj5a8uei3QFKCvXTWs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTN2NzFmaGdjBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAxMjExL3VzX21pc3NpbmdfY2hpbGRyZW5fYWxhYmFtYQRjY29kZQNtb3N0cG9wdWxhcgRjcG9zAzQEcG9zAzEEcHQDaG9tZV9jb2tlBHNlYwN5bl9oZWFkbGluZV9saXN0BHNsawNwb2xpY2VyZW1haW4-
"Police: Remains found believed to be missing girl"
By Brian Skoloff - Sat Dec 11 2010