TYLER, Tex. — Deanna Laney cannot stop crying. The 39-year-old East Texas woman sobbed Monday each time a prosecutor, police officer or her own lawyer described the brutal stoning death of two of her sons and the assault on a third son that left him nearly blind.

The prosecution and defense were in agreement as Laney's highly publicized murder trial opened in this small town midway between Dallas and the Louisiana state line: Laney, who told police that God instructed her to kill her children, was insane on the night of the killings in May 2003.

Although four forensic psychiatrists hired by the prosecution, defense and the presiding judge at the trial concluded that Laney was insane, only a jury can decide if she is not guilty by reason of insanity, Smith County District Attorney Matt Bingham said during his 12-minute opening statement.

Laney's crying in court Monday was in contrast to her demeanor when she used her cellphone to call 911 shortly before 1 a.m. on May 11, 2003 — the day before Mother's Day. Wearing her pajamas, Laney sounded composed and did not appear to be crying when the 911 operator asked her to state her emergency.

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"I just killed my boys," Laney told the sheriff's deputy who dispatched the call to the Laney home in New Chapel Hill, Texas.

"Ma'am, you did what?" the male deputy inquired.

"I just killed my boys."

For 38 minutes Laney calmly answered the deputy's questions. At the same time, she was speaking to officers sent to investigate.

"Are the boys breathing now?" the operator asked, according to a recording of the call played for the jury.

"No," Laney said.

"You said you killed your two boys?" the officer asked. "Why did you do that, ma'am?"

Laney replied matter of factly, "I had to."

According to prosecutors, Laney put her sons, Joshua, 8, Luke, 6, and Aaron, 14 months, to bed at about 9 p.m. and then went to her own room. Her husband, Keith Laney, followed at about 10:15 p.m.

Deanna Laney was taken into custody after calling police and telling them what she had done.

Laney awoke at 11 p.m., tried to lock her sleeping husband in their bedroom and then went to Joshua and Luke's room. She escorted Luke to a rock garden in the front yard of their home, which is encircled by a white split-rail fence. Laney told her son to lie down with his head on a rock and she took another large rock, raised it over her head and brought it down onto his skull.

She then killed Joshua in the same manner. Both children were found with large stones lying on their chests.

Aaron was attacked with a rock in his crib but did not die. Laney put a pillow over his face to muffle the gurgling sounds the severely injured toddler was making. He was still gurgling when the first Smith County sheriff's deputy arrived shortly after 1 a.m.

As the deputy and Keith Laney attended to Aaron's injuries, Deanna Laney remained on the phone outside with the 911 dispatcher. "What's going on? Are you upset about anything?" the operator asked.

"I just did what I had to do," Laney said.

"You did what you had to do? Why do you say that ma'am?"

"That's just what I was told to do," she said.

"Who told you to do that?" the dispatcher continued.

"God," Laney said.

A message from God

Laney wore a brown jacket and orange turtleneck to court Monday. Seated in the second row of the courtroom, Keith Laney bowed his head and rubbed tears from his eyes. He remains supportive and still wears his wedding ring. Other relatives, including her parents and several siblings, also are standing by the devoutly religious woman.

In many ways, prosecutors are going through the motions. They have ample evidence that Laney killed her children, including stipulations with the defense to that effect. The issue for this jury, which is sequestered, will be whether the defense can meet its burden under the law of proving that Laney was legally insane and could not distinguish between right and wrong at the time of the killing.

Defense attorney F. R. "Buck" Files told jurors that Laney loves her husband and children and was devoted to God, church and family. She is a deeply spiritual and private person, who never told anyone about several psychotic episodes that preceded the killings, he said.

According to Files, Laney told psychiatrists while she was in custody that she believed God was speaking to her in different ways. On the day of the killings, for example, she believed she received a message from God that he wanted her children with him. The message came in the form of a child, not identified by Files, who was playing with a spear and a rock and squeezing a frog.

Laney told psychiatrists that she rejected a spear or strangulation and decided to use stones to kill her children. Laney believed her son Joshua, the first boy to die, would be resurrected on his birthday that July.

Laney wasn't sure if she was supposed to kill Aaron, the youngest, or not.

"Aaron is in his bed. The baby is in his bed. I don't think I killed him," Laney told the 911 dispatcher. She told the operator later that she thought she "did wrong by Aaron."

"I don't think I was supposed to kill him," she said without explaining.

The 911 tape is particularly chilling because Laney's voice was even, devoid of emotion, almost childlike. Asked about any family pets, Laney said she had a dog named "Tuffy," and volunteered that the dog doesn't bite.

Although many in the courtroom cried as the call was played and the story told by lawyers, jurors remained composed and listened intently. If they conclude Laney's mental condition did not cloud her reasoning to the point that she was legally insane, Laney could face life in prison. If, however, jurors find Laney not guilty by reason of insanity, she would likely be committed to a forensic mental-health facility.

Detective Noel Martin identified one of the rocks Deanna Laney used to kill her children.

The case is attracting widespread media attention locally and nationally, in part because of the nature of the killings and because it echoes the trial of Andrea Yates, another Texas mother who killed her children.

Unlike in the Yates case, prosecutors here chose not to seek the death penalty and aren't trying to prove that Laney had any malice or forethought.

The trial is expected to last less than 10 days. Court TV is broadcasting the proceedings.