Lancaster Teen’s Murder Conviction Thrown Out

An Arizona appellate court has overturned the conviction of Kimberly Lane, a teenage runaway from Lancaster who was sentenced to life in prison for the murders of three people in northwest Arizona.

Lane, who left home at 14 with the middle-aged manager of her Lancaster trailer park, was convicted for her role in the 1996 slayings of an Arizona family. The trailer park manager and another man were sentenced to death for the crime.

In a decision released Tuesday, the Arizona Court of Appeal said the trial judge committed a “fundamental error” by allowing the jury to consider incriminating statements Lane made to a Mohave County, Ariz., sheriff’s detective. The ruling stated the admissions should have been suppressed because Lane “was incapable of understanding and waiving her rights” to remain silent or have an attorney present during her police interrogation.

The court noted Lane, 14 at the time of the August 1996 interview, was of low intelligence and had the functional maturity of a 10-year-old.

Ron Wood, the defense attorney who handled Lane’s appeal, said Thursday the conviction reversal can still be challenged. Assistant Arizona Atty. Gen. Jon Anderson said he must confer with superiors before deciding whether to seek reconsideration by the appellate court or file a petition for review with the Arizona Supreme Court.

Should the conviction reversal stand, the case against Lane is remanded back to Mohave County, which would have the option of launching a new trial, seeking a plea bargain or dropping the case.

Deputy Mohave County Attorney Derek Carlisle, trial prosecutor, declined comment on a possible plea agreement.

Lane, a victim of childhood abuse and the product of a broken home, left a Lancaster trailer in 1996 with park manager Frank Anderson, now 51. They traveled to Golden Valley, Ariz., where they ended up with drifter Bobby Poyson, 23, as guests at Leta Kagen’s isolated trailer home.

Kagen, 37, her son, Robert Delahunt, 15, and her boyfriend, Roland Wear, 50, were killed by Poyson and Anderson as part of a plot the trio hatched to steal Wear’s pickup truck.

“It is undisputed that Lane had no part in the actual killing of the three,” according to the appellate court.

Prosecutors, however, contend that Lane took part in the planning of the murders. In addition, prosecutors say she lured Delahunt to the trailer and was kissing him when Anderson and Poyson burst in, beating and stabbing him to death over the course of an hour.

Lane, however, testified she was horrified when the bloodshed began and ran out of the room.

Lane, now 17, testified she never thought her co-defendants were serious about carrying out the murder plot. “I thought it was all a joke,” she said.

Anderson and Poyson were both sentenced to death following their convictions at separate trials and are on Arizona’s death row pending appeals. Lane was convicted of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and armed robbery.

Mohave County Superior Court Judge Steve Conn imposed three life sentences for Lane with no possibility of parole until she served at least 25 years. Conn tacked on seven more years for the robbery conviction.

Defense attorney Wood said it remains to be seen whether Lane might win release while her case is in limbo. She’s been serving time at the Arizona Department of Corrections facility at Perryville, just outside Phoenix.