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Suspect Who Allegedly Said Devil Told Him To Shoot Two 13-Year-Old-Girls Heads To Trial
Kody Austin Lott allegedly told police he planned the shooting “after talking to the devil about it" and was jealous the victim had a boyfriend.
A Texas man who allegedly said the devil helped him plan the killing of a 13-year-old girl and the shooting of another went on trial Monday.
Kody Austin Lott, 22, is accused of shooting Lauren Landavazo and Makayla Smith as they walked home from middle school in Wichita Falls on Sept. 2, 2016. Landavazo was shot 14 times and died; Smith lived.
Lott is charged with murder, aggravated assault and possession of a prohibited weapon, according to the Dallas Morning News, a Texas newspaper.
After his arrest, Lott told police he was troubled by news reports that described the shooting as senseless. But it “wasn’t senseless,” Lott insisted to police, “because he planned and thought it out after talking to the devil about it,” according to Lott’s arrest warrant, obtained by Oxygen.com.
Lott, then 20, explained that he had seen Landavazo walking home from school and was attracted to her, even though he knew she had a boyfriend, police say. Lott said that he didn’t have a girlfriend, so knowing that Landavazo had a boyfriend made him angry, according to the warrant.
Lott also faces three counts of possession of child pornography, after police allegedly found images of underage girls performing sex acts on one of the smartphones taken from the vehicle Lott was driving when he was arrested, according to the Times Record News, a newspaper in Wichita Falls.
On the day of Landavazo’s killing, Lott allegedly armed himself with his step-father’s semi-automatic, AR-15 type .22 caliber rifle and waited by the window of his apartment watching for the girls to walk past. When Lott saw them, he jumped in his SUV, caught up with them in an alley, and opened fire on the teens.
'They were best friends. They were always talking, whether through text message or Snapchat,' Tre'vion Elliott, Makayla's oldest brother, told the Times Record News.
“From what I was told, they always walk home together. They walk to school together since they live in the same neighborhood, and they walk home together also.”
Lott intends to pursue an insanity defense at his trial, according to the Times Record News. He has been held in lieu of $1million bond since his arrest.
[Wichita County Sheriff’s Dept.]
