Lancaster Girl Faces Added Murder Charges

Prosecutors in Arizona have filed additional murder charges against a 14-year-old Lancaster girl, saying they suspect she was the “brains” behind a triple slaying there last month.

Mohave County Deputy Dist. Atty. Derek Carlisle said Wednesday that the girl, who earlier had been charged with only one of the slayings, now faces three murder charges, the same as two men also implicated in the killings of a family in a Golden Valley, Ariz., trailer park

The girl also faces one count of conspiracy to commit murder and a new charge of armed robbery. Carlisle said investigators initially believed the girl simply went along with the slayings, but now say she played a much bigger role--that it was her idea in the first place to kill the family to steal their pickup truck.

“When we first knew about the whole thing, we didn’t know how serious her role was,” Carlisle said.

“But after reviewing the evidence and conducting interviews, we decided to add the other charges. . . .She may not have killed them, but she helped the person that did the slaying get the bullets, helped in the planning and solicited them to commit the murders.”

Police believe the girl and a 48-year-old man, Frank Winfield Anderson, hitchhiked from their trailer park in Lancaster to the dusty desert trailer park in Arizona, where a local family gave them shelter as an act of kindness.

But days later, the bodies of the family--Leta Kagen, 37, her boyfriend, Roland Wear, 50, and her son Robert Delahunt, 15--were discovered by a relative. Robert had been stabbed to death and the other two shot.

After completing interviews with the suspects, Carlisle said the two men identified the girl as the one who first suggested killing the family.

During a routine traffic stop in Anna, Ill., a few days after the slayings, police nabbed Anderson driving the stolen truck. They later captured Robert Poyson and the girl after the couple sought refuge in a homeless shelter in Evanston, Ill.

Anderson and Poyson have both pleaded not guilty in the case. Additional charges were filed last Friday against the girl, who was extradited from Illinois on Thursday. She is currently being held in a juvenile facility.

A judge will rule at a hearing scheduled for early next month on whether the girl will be tried as an adult.