Texas woman finds son, 5, dead in oven

AP ^ | 4-17-04

[Indy Pendance]

BEAUMONT, Texas (AP) — The body of a 5-year-old boy was found in an oven at his home Friday, and his mother's boyfriend was charged with capital murder. The suspect, Kenneth Pierott, 27, previously had been found not guilty by reason of insanity in the 1996 slaying of his handicapped sister.

Pierott was arraigned and jailed Friday night in the death of Tre-Deven Odoms.

The child's mother, Kathy Jo Odoms, found her son's body in the oven Friday morning, Justice of the Peace Paul Brown said. The burners on the stovetop were turned on, the oven was not, he said.

The boy had no visible injuries, Brown said. Autopsy results were expected Monday.

Odoms told police she woke up Friday morning because she was hot and smelled gas, The Beaumont Enterprise reported in its online edition Friday. She found the burners were on and turned them off. She discovered the boy's body after Pierott left the house.

Pierott spent six months in state mental hospitals beginning in 1998, after he was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the December 1996 beating death of his 25-year-old sister, who had cerebral palsy.

Court documents obtained by the Enterprise show Pierott hit his sister in the head with a metal dumbbell. He was later diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.

[thegreatbeast]

Good Lord Jesus, what are you supposed to say?

[nmh]

Should have given him capital punishment the first time. Too bad you can't sue judges and jurors. They screwed up.

[Tamzee]

What a sickening, horrific story :-(

And WHY did he only spend 6 months in the mental hospital after beating his disabled sister to death?

[PurVirgo]

My God. That's just sick sick sick.

If the courts find someone NG by reason of Insanity, the defendant should by all means be institutionalized.

If they don't have the capacity of right vs. wrong, why do we trust them to roam the streets?????

[Indy Pendance]

I know, I really struggled with posting this one. But, this barbarian should have gotten the death sentence for killing his sister. This little boy would be alive if we actually prosecuted crimes, and not this reason of insanity crap.

[GeronL]

FRY HIM

[SiliconValleyGuy]

For some reason this reminds me of the news story I heard today of a convicted, confessed child molester who was released on appeal because he did not have the opportunity to face his accuser in the trial (his victim had committed suicide).

The justice system isn't any better than a crap shoot anymore.

[Bogey78O]

Insane people deserve the death penalty moreso than sane people. At least a sane person has a degree of predictability.

I don't want to be next to the "recovering mental patient" manning the powersaw when he has a relapse.

[jnarcus]

So glad that the state found it safe to release this nut case...And will the mother also be charged because why in the hell was she even associating with such a person let alone having him in her household...SOme parents don't deserve the children they get

[cherry]

"Too bad you can't sue judges and jurors"

what....and actually hold people accountable to their idiocy?.....

the recently completed Durst case in Texas is an example....

this guy admitted killing this other man (accidentally, of course) and slicing him up and throwing him in the water...

the jury came back and acquitted him...

now, post trial, one of the chief acquitters is visiting him in jail and befriending the murderer....

[Indy Pendance]

She may not have known his past. The government likes to keep these things quiet. (That's what I'm hoping, if she knew, then, she's as guilty as he is)

[SpyGuy]

In my opinion, "not guilty by reason of insanity" should only apply to cases of involuntary manslaughter (or lesser charges); never to cases of voluntary manslaughter or murder.

[Ann Archy]

What do we expect when God has been kicked out of this country and saying the name of Jesus is either laughed at or spit on.

Abortion....Divorce....Welfare....Atheists have killed our souls.

[Freedom4US]

Insanity in this instance is a legal term, not a medical one apparently. In my view it should be a valid legal defense. However - if the now institutionalized nutcase is ever deemed "cured", then they should go straight to prison, do not pass go, do not collect $200 and stuff kiddies into ovens.

This country is insane, it starts to make sense once you realize that.

[MEG33]

What every state including mine needs is a guilty but insane sentence.It should allow the state to hold them responsible for their crime with imprisonment, after they take their meds and are declared fit to leave the psychiatric hospital.

There is no guarantee that they will stay on the meds or that the meds will continue to work..Whatever drives the person to commit murder,they should be kept away from society.

[Keith in Iowa]

>>Good Lord Jesus, what are you supposed to say?

That the legal system needs a plea of "Guilty, but insane" and people who plead it get sent to the nut house until they're sane, then they go to prison.

[Moonman62]

I can't say much for the mother bringing this nutcase in the home with her child.

[Tamzee]

But OF COURSE you needed to post it... issues like this are one of the significant differences between the left and the right. It twists our stomachs but shows us that there is much more work to be done :-(

Thank you for all your posts, by the way... I'm often too busy to respond to threads but I'm always grateful to folks who post them and keep us all up on events.

[Indy Pendance]

"I'm often too busy to respond to threads but I'm always grateful to folks who post them and keep us all up on events."

Ditto that and thanks. When I have time, I post threads, but most of the time I'm reading, in between working and other things.

[EGPWS]

Insane people deserve the death penalty moreso than sane people. At least a sane person has a degree of predictability.

What's the difference between murderous contempt for life and and insanity?

IMHO anyone who takes a life in cold blood is insane for doing such a thing, thus there is no difference between a murderer and an insane person.

A sane person wouldn't even conceive the notion of placing themselves in a situation to be judged as sane or insane would they?

A murderer is what they are, a taker of life in cold blood, that is a fact, the idea of the murderers state of mind is speculation only, which is derived from experts in the field of psychology. Some of which could be considered insane by their own standards but would never be found to be insane for they are the standard makers.

Jees, I'm going to bed before my own post drives my tired mind insane!

[Arkinsaw]

I believe its quite possible for someone with paranoid schizophrenia to be insane enough to commit murder without being responsible. I think the defense is valid.

However, if the defense is successful, someone who is insane enough to take a life is too insane to ever be released from an institution or trusted in society ever again. I don't think there is a "cure" for that.

He should have remained institutionalized permanently after the first death.

[MEG33]

Guilty,but insane and imprisoned or hospitalized for the same sentence as a "sane" person.

[Fishing-guy]

In my state, a judge has to agree to the release of the person from the state hospital. Of course, you would hope that the justice system will continue to monitor the person and make sure that he takes his medication.

[MEG33]

Agreed..and the guilty but insane judgement would do that.

[Dan from Michigan]

I can't think of a worse way to go.

[Stew Padasso]

"previously had been found not guilty by reason of insanity in the 1996 slaying of his handicapped sister"

America needs to grow up and realize that crazy people are not exempt from punishment.

The folks that left him off the first time should be hauled out in front of the public to explain themselves.

[Stew Padasso]

left = let

BTW - shouldn't be long before the Andrea Yates supporters throw a media parade for this crazy too.

[csvset]

Picture of the perp

He looks looney. What the heck was mom thinking about, shacking up with this chump?

[Smokin' Joe]

If the courts find someone NG by reason of Insanity, the defendant should by all means be institutionalized

If the defendant isn't institutionalized (and did it) the court should be.

[katz]

The libs got them all out of the psycho hospitals and on the streets 20+ years ago. That is why we have all the psycho homeless roaming the streets. If they are insane, put them in a closed home. Give them the medication that they need. Do not give them government monthly incomes to live aimlessly on the streets. Another example of the liberal assault on us.

[FITZ]

What the heck was mom thinking about, shacking up with this chump?

Sex is so important to some women --- she probably met him in some bar and brought him home the first night --- some women really don't care to protect their children from men who will go home with them.

[sheik yerbouty]

His defense attorney will show a junior high school picture and tell the court "He was an honor student".

[TheSpottedOwl]

RIP little boy :-(

[TheSpottedOwl]

When stupid women make really stupid choices?

Maybe she was desperate. Do you have a pic of her?

[dasboot]

The article doesn't mention any evidence that the guy killed the kid. They haven't even done an autopsy. The youngster coulda been playing "space shuttle" with the rocket engines blasting, he in his capsule, and died of asphyxiation. Who knows?

The nut is a suspect; and has not, apparently, confessed. It sounds like they're just assuming (and with good reason) that the kid was murdered....but that may not be the case.

Stranger things have happened.

[FITZ]

That's true. And the mother is likely equally insane --- not too many sane women pick up men who previously murdered their sisters but got off for being insane to bring home to spend time with their children --- it's very possible that the mother herself murdered the child and because of his record is putting the blame onto him.

[csvset]

I haven't seen a pic of the mother. The suspect was "off his medications". The suspect's father called the cops due to the suspect, "running around naked, proclaiming he was God".

The suspect had "fathered" a child with the mother of the deceased boy.

[vetvetdoug]

That figures. He will walk and the press will give him a pass. Affirmative action in progress you know.

[Devil_Anse]

should have gotten the death sentence for killing his sister

Should have given him capital punishment the first time

FRY HIM

What'th the MATTER with you people??? KILL the MENTALLY ILL?? What ARE you, thome kind of NAZIS, or thomething?

(My opinion: YES. Kill the mentally ill--IF they commit murder!)

[VeritatisSplendor]

case reported in NJ today where the boyfriend killed a three year old.

sure the mother is responsible.

I so is the father, for making a baby with a woman he's not going to marry and stay with. A father has got to be there to protect his children.

Mrs VS

[FITZ]

The suspect's father called the cops due to the suspect, "running around naked, proclaiming he was God".

Then the mother had to have been off her medications also ---- and is probably just as likely a suspect in this murder. No sane woman is going to invite home a man like that who runs around naked proclaiming he's God, to spend time in her child's home.

[Xenalyte]

Tre-Deven?

[csvset]

Do you have a pic of her?

There's one at this link as well as a pic of the victim.

There's more info on the suspect too.

Seems as though he was high on Angel Dust when he killed his sister. This guy needs an Express Pass to Death Row.

Waking nightmare

[TheSpottedOwl]

Thanks for the link. I don't know what to say.

[deport]

Waking nightmare

By: JAMIE REID and DEE DIXON , The Enterprise

04/17/2004

	Scott Eslinger/The Enterprise Family friend John Kelly, 51, of Beaumont offers comfort to Kathy Odoms, 30, outside Memorial Hermann Baptist Beaumont Hospital on Friday afternoon.

BEAUMONT - A 27-year-old Beaumont man, once confined to a mental hospital for killing his sister in 1996, has now been charged with killing his girlfriend's 5-year-old child early Friday.

Kenneth Lee Pierott, Jr., of Beaumont, was arraigned in Baytown Friday on a charge of capital murder, accused of killing Tre-Deven Odoms, whose body was reportedly found in an oven at the boy's home.

Pierott, who did not live at the home, was transferred to Beaumont Friday night from Baytown, where he was arrested earlier in the day.

As the sun was rising over the rented, two-bedroom house on Amarillo Street in the quiet South Park neighborhood, a horror was about to dawn on 30-year-old Kathy Jo Odoms.

Relatives say Tre-Deven's mother awoke about 6:45 a.m. because she felt hot and smelled gas. Her boyfriend, Pierott, was pacing around her bedroom and ordered Odoms to go back to sleep, according to Odoms's mother, Kathy Scott.

Photo provided by the Odoms family
Tre-Deven Odoms, who was around age 1 at the time this photograph was taken, was described as a happy child who loved crawfish and basketball.

Instead, she went to the kitchen, where she found three stove burners alight and turned them off, her mother said.

She then went to check on her two children.

Her youngest son, a 2-year-old who is Pierott's son, was still asleep.

But 5-year-old Tre-Deven, Odoms's son from a previous relationship and a happy child who loved basketball and crawfish, was missing.

"[You] won't have to worry about taking him to school no more," relatives say Pierott told Odoms as she searched the house.

Odoms returned to the kitchen - where she found her son curled up in a fetal position inside the stove with his head resting in his hand, Scott said.

Odoms called Beaumont Police about 7 a.m. and they arrived about five minutes later.

Police would only say the boy died of asphyxiation. They would not confirm whether the oven was hot or that the child was inside, but they said the Ogden Elementary kindergartner had no markings on his body.

Scott Eslinger/The Enterprise
Kathy Odoms, 30, of Beaumont clutches a teddy bear as she is led away from Memorial Hermann Baptist Hospital on Friday afternoon by her stepfather, Thomas Scott of Jasper.

Results from a Friday afternoon autopsy are pending, police said. The oven was removed by police.

During her search for Tre-Deven, Odoms heard Pierott drive away in her white Ford Contour, Scott said.

The car was soon found at Pierott's mother's home in the 1000 block of Campus, according to police. A SWAT team surrounded then searched the home, but Pierott was not there.

Instead, he was found about 9:21 a.m. at his father's house 90 miles away in Houston's North Shore area, said Capt. Jack Hagee of Harris County Constable Precinct 3.

Authorities were called to the home on a complaint that a mental patient was refusing to take medicine. When police arrived, Pierott's father told police he "thought his son had been involved with killing a child," Hagee said Friday.

Scott Eslinger/The Enterprise
Kathy Scott, 46, of Jasper as she talks outside Memorial Hermann Baptist Hospital on Friday afternoon about the death of her grandson, Tre-Deven Odoms.

Pierott was arrested without incident on misdemeanor traffic warrants issued in Baytown. Police say he lived at an apartment in the 5700 block of Martin Luther King Parkway and was reportedly unemployed.

Before long, Houston and Beaumont lawmen had connected Pierott to Tre-Deven's killing.

Kathy Jo Odoms was taken to Hermann Memorial Baptist Beaumont Hospital, where she was examined and released Friday. When she left the hospital with relatives, she was clutching a white teddy bear.

Pierott has a history of violence and mental illness.

In 1996, high on marijuana laced with embalming fluid, he killed his disabled sister by smashing her head with a metal dumbbell.

Scott Eslinger/The Enterprise
This is the Beaumont home that Kathy Odoms, 30, shared with her 2- and 5-year-old sons.

Psychiatrists diagnosed Pierott as paranoid schizophrenic. But Beaumont psychiatrist Dr. Edward Gripon wrote that the illness was in "substantial remission" with psychotherapy and antipsychotic drugs.

Pierott was judged not guilty by reason of insanity and sent to psychiatric facility Vernon State Hospital in July 1998, then Rusk State Hospital in August. He was released in October, with "no indication of psychosis," his doctor at Rusk wrote at the time.

In 1999, after returning to Beaumont, he forged a check and was fined $750 and placed on community supervision for three years, according to court documents.

Three years later, in 2002, court records show that he hit Odoms with his hand and was intoxicated or under the influence of an intoxicating substance that day.

Later in 2002, he was ordered to have no contact with Odoms after a family assault episode. However, Odoms said she wanted to continue having a relationship with him and to let him freely see their child, according to court documents.

Earlier this month, Odoms sought child support from Pierott, court papers say.

Reporters ANGELA MACIAS, JACQUELINE LANE and CHRISTINE RAPPLEYE added to this report.

Reach this reporter at:

(409) 833-3311, ext. 428

jreid@beaumontenterprise.com

©The Beaumont Enterprise 2004

---

And the alledged Prep.....

Suspect went in psychiatric hospital after killing sister

By: JAMIE REID , The Enterprise

04/17/2004

	Kenneth Pierott is accused of killing his girlfriend's 5-year-old son, reportedly by stuffing him inside an oven in her Beaumont home.

Kenneth Lee Pierott Jr., the prime suspect in the Friday murder of his girlfriend's child, was released in 1998 from a Texas psychiatric hospital where he'd been treated after bludgeoning his sister to death.

Kenneth Lee Pierott Jr., the prime suspect in the Friday murder of his girlfriend's child, was released in 1998 from a Texas psychiatric hospital where he'd been treated after bludgeoning his sister to death two years before.

Pierott, 27, now stands accused of stuffing his girlfriend's 5-year-old son into an oven, where the child died of asphyxiation, a Beaumont police spokeswoman said Friday. Capital murder charges were filed late Friday.

But it's not the first time Pierott has faced murder charges, according to court records.

In December 1996, Pierott killed his 25-year-old sister - bed-ridden with cerebral palsy - by whacking her head with a heavy metal dumbbell. Police soon found him in a nearby apartment, covered in blood and body tissue, wearing only shoes.

Before the killing, Pierott told his mother he was God and had recently smoked a drug called "wet" - marijuana laced with embalming fluid, according to police reports.

Shortly after his arrest, he told police he had been fighting with the Devil and he killed his sister because she had been corrupted by evil relatives.

"This man was frankly psychotic at the time he was initially arrested," according to a 1997 psychiatric evaluation by Dr. Edward B. Gripon.

In the same evaluation, Pierott was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Gripon wrote that the illness was in "substantial remission" thanks to psychotherapy and antipsychotic drugs.

Pierott was declared legally insane and was sent to Vernon State Hospital for evaluation in July 1998.

Two Vernon psychiatrists agreed Pierott was psychotic and needed to be in a maximum-security hospital, according to court records. One of the doctors checked a box that said, "is likely to cause serious harm to others."

In August, he was transferred to Rusk State Hospital, but less than three months later, doctors declared him safe to release.

"It is the opinion of the patient's attending physician that continued in-patient treatment is no longer needed," former Rusk State Hospital Superintendent Harold R. Parrish Jr. wrote at the time.

"He has reached maximum hospital benefit," Rusk physician Harry Thompson wrote in a medical examination on Oct. 12, 1998.

Pierott returned to Beaumont, where he was treated locally by Spindletop Mental Health and Mental Retardation. In 2000, social workers noted that he lived with his mother and briefly held a janitorial job, but was otherwise unemployed.

In 2002, Pierott was taking his medications and his schizophrenia was in remission, according to court documents.

But by October 2002, he was in trouble again. Pierott received a one-year deferred sentence for domestic violence on Aug. 23, 2002, according to other case files. He had been ordered by the court to have no contact with Kathy Jo Odoms, his girlfriend and his victim. (See main story.)

No further court documents about Pierott's treatment or his sister's murder case were released Friday.

Reporter Jacqueline Lane contributed to this report.

Reach this reporter at:

(409) 833-3311, ext. 428

jreid@beaumontenterprise.com

©The Beaumont Enterprise 2004

[mabelkitty]

And where is the child's father?
Dumb question, I know.

[mabelkitty]

My tin foil tells me that is the plan.
Lay out crimes and refuse to enforce the penalties.
If enough people get good and tired of this, some will knee-jerk and demand Gestapo and fascists tactics to control these criminals.

Then the criminals get redefined in a broader sense to include those who oppose the powerful.

[Palladin]

"Pierott was judged not guilty by reason of insanity and sent to psychiatric facility Vernon State Hospital in July 1998, then Rusk State Hospital in August. He was released in October, with "no indication of psychosis," his doctor at Rusk wrote at the time.

In 1999, after returning to Beaumont, he forged a check and was fined $750 and placed on community supervision for three years, according to court documents.

Three years later, in 2002, court records show that he hit Odoms with his hand and was intoxicated or under the influence of an intoxicating substance that day.
Later in 2002, he was ordered to have no contact with Odoms after a family assault episode. However, Odoms said she wanted to continue having a relationship with him and to let him freely see their child."

Neither of them is crazy. He is a mean and vicious drug addict; she is a stupid 'ho.

[Walkingfeather]

Oh yeah and Im sure this man displayed absolutly no Psychotic behavior till this very moment...She woke up and her staight and narrow live in boyfriend killed her son... WHy Im sure she holds no blame for bringing this man into her home..... (sarcasm on the highest order ... off )