Left: Tiffanie Lucas with sons Jayden and Maurice (Celine Tiffanie Ann/Facebook): Right: Lucas pictured during a court appearance wearing jail orange (WHAS).
Prosecutors say that a Kentucky mother who most recently shifted her defense strategy to claim she was “legally insane” when she shot her two sons in the head nearly one year ago has now expressed her intent to plead guilty to murder — without a plea deal in place.
Tiffanie Lucas, now 33, had been heading towards a December murder trial in the Nov. 8, 2023, deaths of her sons Maurice “Peanut” Baker Jr. and Jayden Howard, 6 and 9, after she was accused of shooting both of the children in a bedroom inside their Shepherdsville home on Bentwood Drive.
Though it seemed that Lucas and her defense team were prepared to build a case that she was not legally sane at the time of the shooting, Bullitt County Commonwealth Attorney Bailey Taylor reportedly confirmed to local reporters on Monday that the defendant’s lawyers informed the prosecution she intends to enter an open plea on Thursday. The lack of a plea deal means that it will be up to Judge Rodney Burress to decide the punishment.
Under Kentucky law, murder is technically a capital crime punishable by death, life without parole, life with the possibility of parole after 25 years, or 20 to 50 years behind bars.
As Law&Crime has reported, Lucas was accused of firing four shots in 30 seconds, claiming the shooting “was an accident,” and claiming that she was “manipulated through Facebook, through the internet or through Wi-Fi […] into doing what she did.”
The Bullitt County Sheriff’s Office has said that a neighboring husband and wife saw Lucas lying down in their driveway on the morning of the slayings and the man called 911 after discovering the shocking scene inside the suspect’s home. Lucas had allegedly told the neighbors her “kids were dying.”
After Lucas’ arrest, a detective testified that she said “I’m in such a bad spot” when she was questioned about the crimes, said “I’m so stupid,” and claimed she “would never do anything like this unless someone manipulated me.”
The killings left the community and the victims’ family shaken and demanding answers. The move to plead guilty may or may not provide answers, but it would bring a relatively swift end to the case and spare the victims’ family members from enduring a trial.
After the shooting, Bullitt County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Col. Alex Payne said that Maurice and Jayden had different fathers. It was later reported that Jayden’s father died in 2019.
Lucas, who reportedly once served a month in jail in a drug possession case, had already raised concerns about her ability to parent, one family friend has said.
“I feel like our system failed them,” JoDee Estes previously told WDRB .
“There comes a time when you have to listen to when people try to tell the authorities instead of the authorities just putting it away or not wanting to you know, listen to the family members,” Estes reportedly said, adding later: “And the family is going to blame themselves for the rest of their lives for this and they should not have to.”
Estes appeared to reference reporting about Durrell Howard, the victims’ older brother, telling the media that family members had called Child Protective Services about Lucas in recent years.
“I should have did more,” Howard reportedly told WLKY. “If it came to me snatching the boys out of the house, I should have and I will hold that on my back for the rest of my life. For both them boys.”
Law&Crime sought comment from Commonwealth Attorney Taylor on the latest development in the Lucas case.
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