LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A mother accused of killing her two sons in Shepherdsville is using insanity as a defense in her case.
Tiffanie Lucas was arrested in November 2023 when police found her sons, 6-year-old Maurice Baker Jr. and 9-year-old Jayden Howard, shot to death inside her home on Brentwood Drive.
Lucas's attorney filed a motion in her case informing the court they plan to argue Lucas was legally insane at the time of the murders. They are not questioning her competency to stand trial.
She's pleaded not guilty in the past. Her trial date is set for Dec. 17.
Lucas has previously been charged with drug offenses, according to court records, with the most recent incident occurring in 2018.
Neighbors told WHAS11 News at the time of the murders that they saw the boys playing in the front yard a day before they were killed.
Lucas later told police someone had given her a firearm, which she left in the bedroom, indicating the shooting may have been an accident. She said no one else had been inside the home.
Bullitt County Sheriff's Detective Richard Beahl testified that Lucas told police she was "in such a bad spot," and that she would "never do anything like this unless someone manipulated me," and that what happened "was an accident."
Maurice Baker Jr.'s stepmother, Michelle Rice, and Bobbie Baker, his aunt, took issue with the idea Lucas was somehow out of control.
"How do you accidentally shoot a kid two times and then shoot their brother? How do you do that? It's no accident," Bobbie said.
Lucas' defense asked the detective if the sheriff's office tried to detect any drugs in her system; Beahl answered "no." Later, the defense motioned to preserve and review police evidence and it was approved.
"We're not accepting that," Rice said. "It's not mental illness, she knew what she did."
