Did he shoot his wife while sleepwalking?
Raymond Lazarine said he wasn’t awake when he killed his wife…
Raymond Lazarine called his son Nathan while he was at work.
It was around noon on 18 December 2013.
‘I’ve had a dream that I shot my wife…’ he stammered. ‘Then I woke up… come quick.’
Nathan thought his dad sounded oddly distressed about a dream and rushed to his home in Houston, Texas.
When Nathan got there and burst into the living room, he couldn’t believe what he saw.
Raymond’s wife Deborah was dead on the floor in a pool of her own blood.
How had a dream become a horrific reality?
Raymond and Deborah, both 63, had been married for 35 years.
Nathan was Raymond’s son from a previous relationship – Deborah had a daughter of her own, too – Krysta Johns, 46.
Raymond ran a successful electrical contracting business and Deborah was his loyal wife.
She loved the simple things in life, like being near water, cooking, crafting or landscaping her garden.
Deborah was devoted to her children and her grandchildren – and loyal to her husband.
She knew that Raymond drank too much, especially as he was taking psychotropic medication for his mental health, which shouldn’t be mixed with alcohol.
Krysta would later say that her mum had suffered silently from domestic abuse for decades.
She would say that Raymond didn’t like it when Deborah was on the phone.
Away from him, she was a different person – happy, bubbly and outgoing.
No one would have known she was suffering at home.
Then on 18 December 2013, Raymond called his son, begging him to come to the house.
He talked about a dream in which he had shot and killed his wife.
Only, it wasn’t just a dream – Nathan found Deborah dead.
And when the emergency services arrived, Raymond had the same story.
Deborah had been shot six times – two wounds were to the head, and another was in her back.
Raymond said he had killed his wife while sleepwalking.
He said he’d dreamed that he’d shot his wife and when he woke up, he discovered that he really had.
Despite claims from loved ones, there were no official police reports of violence or abuse from the home.
But straight away, there were questions.
The shooting happened in the middle of the day, so why was Raymond asleep?
Deborah’s death made headlines across the city.
A husband who had ‘accidentally’ killed his wife while sleepwalking was a tragic thought.
There had been similar successful cases.
One of the most famous was back in 1988. Canadian Kenneth Parks developed a gambling disorder and lost his job.
One night, he fell asleep while watching TV, and while sleepwalking, drove for 14 hours to his in-laws’ house, strangled his father-in-law, who survived, and beat his mother-in-law to death with a tyre iron.
Kenneth then drove to a police station and said, ‘I think I killed someone.’
Kenneth had a great relationship with his in-laws, so people were baffled.
When he was taken into custody, he had a large gash on his hand, but as is typical of a person who is sleepwalking, he
Deborah lay in a pool of her own blood
felt no pain.
Kenneth was eventually acquitted at his trial.
But there was a chance that Raymond was trying to get away with murder, and investigators couldn’t risk that.
He was charged with Deborah’s murder.
It would take six years for the case to come to court, which was an agonising wait for Deborah’s loved ones who just wanted justice.
Raymond’s lawyers called for several extensive sleep studies to try and prove his sleepwalking defence.
In November 2019, Raymond, now 67, finally faced a jury.
He didn’t deny that he’d shot his wife, but insisted it wasn’t on purpose and that he couldn’t be held fully responsible for it.
Raymond’s defence said that he suffered from a ‘medical condition’ which caused him to sleepwalk, and because of his sleep-like state, his actions were involuntary.
They had an expert who had conducted sleep studies on Raymond testify.
He said that Raymond did have movement during REM sleep, where you are mainly paralysed, which was unusual.
They said it was important to remember that we’re still learning about the brain and how it works.
‘There are witnesses over there who have seen the manifestation of his sleep disorder, and we thought that would be important for the jury to know,’ they said.
The defence called four men who’ d been incarcerated with Raymond while he waited for trial.
They did say
that they had seen him walking in his sleep – day and night.
Meanwhile, the prosecution described a marriage that was fraught with tension.
Deborah’s daughter Krysta took the stand.
She was shown pictures of herself with her mum smiling together on a trip to a beach house, and she recalled their loving relationship.
When Krysta was then shown pictures from her mum’s autopsy, she broke down in tears.
She talked about Raymond being a heavy drinker and how he’ d been abusive towards her mum for years.
Krysta said that her stepfather was controlling and that he’d even threatened to kill Deborah so many times that she wasn’t even afraid when he said it anymore.
It had become so commonplace.
The domestic abuse had gone on for decades.
Emotionally, Krysta described an incident when she was still in high school, when she walked into her parents’ room.
She recalled her mum was hungover from the night before, and had asked Raymond for water.
When she’d asked him for a different cup, he’d forcefully pinned her down and held a gun under her chin.
Krysta said she feared Raymond and worried that he’d be violent towards her if he were ever released.
‘This is an individual who has terrorised a family for years,’ the prosecution said.
‘This was a horrific murder with no justification.
‘There is no mitigation and there’s nothing in this defendant’s past or future that means he’ll ever be a productive member of society.’
Afterwards, the jury found Raymond guilty of Deborah’ Deborah s murder.
They agreed with the prosecution and decided that Raymond had deliberately shot his wife. wife
At the sentencing, Raymond was asked if he had anything to say to the court.
‘Just that I’m sorry,’ he replied softly.
Krysta expressed her fear that her step-father would be released one day and would come after her.
‘We have just needed him to be locked away forever,’ she told the court.
Raymond was sentenced to 75 years in prison and ordered to pay a fine.
He will be eligible for parole when he is 97.
He had tried to cover up a murder by pretending he was asleep, but he was wide awake when he fired six bullets into his wife.