Published: Wednesday, December 15, 2010, 5:30 AM
MOBILE, Alabama -- Heather Leavell-Keaton beat her 4-year-old stepdaughter with a belt and hairbrush, caused burns to her body and forced her to sit in a chair all day, according to documents filed in court in Mobile this week.
Leavell-Keaton, 22, also beat and burned her 3-year-old stepson and later dumped the siblings’ lifeless bodies, the documents allege.
Investigators found the remains of Natalie and Chase DeBlase last week.
Leavell-Keaton is charged with abuse, while her common-law husband, John DeBlase, the children’s father, is charged with 2 counts of murder.
On Tuesday, her lawyer, Darryl Bender of Birmingham, said the charges against her appear to be based only on claims by DeBlase.
“Someone has just made those allegations, and I’m not aware to this point of any documentation, any police reports, any medical treatment — anything that would indicate those charges are true, anything that would suggest that she did any of those things,” Bender said.
Investigators discovered Chase’s remains in a wooded area near Vancleave in coastal Mississippi on Wednesday, and Natalie’s body was found near Citronelle in north Mobile County three days later.
Police say that Leavell-Keaton and DeBlase are blaming each other for killing the children.
DeBlase, who lived in Mobile, met Leavell-Keaton while she was a student at Spring Hill College, although her family lives in Kentucky.
At a hearing Tuesday, Mobile County District Judge Charles McKnight set a $206,000 bail for Leavell-Keaton, who was transferred this week from a jail in Louisville, Ky., where the children were first reported missing last month.
Leavell-Keaton, whose family says she is legally blind, was escorted into McKnight’s courtroom with the help of sheriff’s deputies. She stood at a podium, her head tilted down.
She had been arrested in Louisville on 2 counts of willful child abuse, but prosecutors upgraded those to the more severe felony of aggravated child abuse. Prosecutors also added 2 counts of abuse of a corpse.
The judge explained that the 2 lesser charges of child abuse had been dropped.
“So I only have four now?” Leavell-Keaton said. “OK.”
McKnight also required that $50,000 of the $206,000 bail be paid in cash in order for her to be released.
Asked after the hearing whether Leavell-Keaton would be charged with murder, Assistant District Attorney Jo Beth Murphree said, “That is a question that I cannot answer right now. Not today. I can tell you the investigation is ongoing, and as the investigation progresses, we will upgrade charges as the facts dictate.”
Court documents filed this week recount several alleged instances this year in which Leavell-Keaton beat, burned and abused the two children. In the case of the boy, the documents also describe Leavell-Keaton “snatching him up by his shirt, shaking and screaming at him.”
Police have said the girl was killed in March, while the boy was killed in June. Leavell-Keaton dumped the young girl’s on March 4 and dumped the boy’s body on June 20, according to the court documents.
DeBlase faces similar abuse of a corpse charges along with the felony murder counts. State law defines felony murder as participating in a serious crime that leads to a murder.
His lawyer, Jim Sears, said that DeBlase maintains his innocence. “He’s saying he did not murder the children,” Sears said.
The Press-Register reported last week that documents filed in court against DeBlase allege that he watched as Leavell-Keaton tortured the children, without stopping her.
According to those documents, Leavell-Keaton bound Natalie’s hands and feet with duct tape, shoved a sock into her mouth, put her in a suitcase and locked it in a closet 14 hours.
On another occasion, according to the documents, Leavell-Keaton bound Chase to a broom with duct tape, wrapping his hands at his sides and the broom to his back so as to force him to stand upright. From there, the boy was made to stand in the corner, a sock forced into his mouth, while the couple slept for the night.
Police have said that DeBlase admitted to dumping his children’s bodies.
“He, obviously, has been charged with murder,” said Bender, lawyer for Leavell-Keaton. “He had the knowledge of where these kids were, so his involvement in it is obviously quite a bit. You would expect that he’s going to make an allegation of some sort to put himself in as good a situation as he possibly can.”
Bender said that he wasn’t sure whether Leavell-Keaton’s family in Kentucky would be able to afford bail for her, although “I’m certain they would want to.”
Authorities in Kentucky were alerted that the children were missing Nov. 18, when Leavell-Keaton’s mother came forward, according to police, who have declined to say how her mother got that information.
Louisville police then picked up Leavell-Keaton for questioning, and she requested a restraining order against her husband, claiming she feared him.
She told police that the children had been killed in Alabama.
Leavell-Keaton and DeBlase are scheduled to appear in court on Jan. 4 for a preliminary hearing.
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