Man Who Helped Lancaster Couple Kill 3 Sentenced to Die

An Arizona man, convicted of helping a Lancaster couple slaughter a family of three who gave them shelter, was sentenced Friday to die by lethal injection.

Robert “Bobby” Poyson, 22, was the last to be sentenced for the August 1996 deaths of Robert Delahunt, 15, his mother, Leta Kagen, 37, and Kagen’s boyfriend, Roland Wear, 50. Poyson played the leading role in the killings, according to evidence presented at the three trials.

Along with Kimberly Lane, 16, and Frank Anderson, 50, of Lancaster, Poyson was convicted of three counts of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and armed robbery.

According to the prosecution, Poyson had been staying at Kagen’s desert trailer compound in Golden Valley, Ariz., for several months--the family had a reputation for taking in vagabonds--before Anderson and Lane arrived. They had run away together from trailer parks in Lancaster, leaving behind Anderson’s invalid wife and Lane’s father and siblings.

Lane then inspired the two men to kill the family in order to steal Wear’s truck and head for Illinois, where, Anderson told Lane, he could connect her to the Mafia.

Three days after Lane and Anderson moved in, the three shot Kagen in the face, crushed Wear’s head with a cement block and pounded a knife into Delahunt’s skull with heavy rocks after Lane had lured him to a trailer for a kissing session, prosecutors said.

Lane was sentenced to 32 years in prison--she was too young to be executed under Arizona law because she was 14 at the time of the murders. Anderson was sentenced to death. Poyson will soon join him on Arizona’s death row at the state prison in Florence.

While jailed in Kingman awaiting trial, Lane gave birth to a girl that was believed to have been fathered by Anderson or Poyson. The baby was given to Lane’s mother and stepfather.

Evan Williams, investigator for the defense, said he has remained in contact with Lane and that she is completing her education in prison and hopes to someday be reunited with her daughter.