An offer of sympathy from suspect's brother

BY JENNIFER MOXLEY
SALISBURY POST

Michael Laney's family sympathizes with the relatives of two South Carolina women Laney is accused of brutally murdering.

"We are really sorry for the family," Laney's only brother, Wayne, said. "And it has been really hard on us too because when we go to the store and stuff people just point and look."

Just Tuesday, Michael Laney, 33, was arrested as he drove away from his mother's home on Tanglewood Drive in one of the murder victims' car.

"I would like it to be said that we are shocked and disappointed," Wayne Laney said. "We're not on his side as far as the murders. Everybody (in the family) is on the side of the victims."

The first time the Laneys have heard from Michael Laney in the past five or six months was Tuesday evening around 6:30, Wayne Laney said.

"He showed up and a half an hour later the police had him," he said. "I think my mom told him he needed to leave."

Greenville, S.C., police alerted the Kannapolis Police that Laney is the prime suspect in the murders of 86-year-old "Dot" Hancock and her 82-year-old neighbor "Janet" Godfrey and that he had relatives in the Enochville area.

On Monday, South Carolina officials found Godfrey strapped to a chair with her throat slit in an upstairs bedroom of Hancock's home. Hancock was found beaten to death in her garage. The killer apparently drove Hancock's car through the garage door after setting the house on fire. Neither of the bodies was burned.

"We can't believe it," Wayne Laney said. "He don't remember doing it. He said he didn't do it when I asked him point blank," Wayne Laney said. 

While Michael Laney served time in a North Carolina prison for voluntary manslaughter, doctors diagnosed him as a schizophrenic, Wayne Laney said.

Michael Laney had received a 12-year sentence in August 1994 for a murder charge he pleaded down to voluntary manslaughter. He was released in August 1999, after serving five years. Wayne Laney said the charges stemmed from a fight in which his brother stabbed another man in the head.

"He said it was self-defense," Wayne Laney said. "During that trial, the family wouldn't even look at us."

"We are so devastated by this. We want the family (of the victims) to know that we are very sorry. I think about it (the murders) and that's like our own grandma. I never would have pictured him doing that," Wayne Laney said.

"He is crazy, I'd have to say that. He's been violent, as far as fighting," Wayne Laney said. 

"A person who kills, who's in their right mind, is not going to take the victim's car and have the murder weapon in the car and drive from South Carolina down to here," he said. "I think he's crazy and he needs to be in a mental institute. I know that's not going to happen, you know, if he gets the death penalty, you know, I can't change it."