A retired police officer who was convicted of sexually assaulting a 9-year-old child drank poison in court as his verdict was announced, officials said.
Kelless Twohearts Lory, 58, was convicted in a DeKalb County, Georgia, court, according to a press release from the district attorney’s office.
As the jury foreman read aloud his verdict, he started drinking a liquid from a vitamin bottle, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported.
Deputies learned that the unknown liquid was actually poisonous. He was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital for treatment.
Lory hasn’t been sentenced yet, but he faces two life sentences plus 40 years behind bars. The sentencing phase of the trial is pending.
A jury found him guilty of abusing a family member between July 2011 and July 2012. He was caught and arrested in 2014.
He was already retired from the Chamblee Police Department when the crime was committed. The DA’s office said he had worked as a transit cop.
In 2013, a Missouri sex offender killed himself moments after he was convicted. The New York Daily News reported that Steve Parsons, 48, collapsed and began convulsing on the floor in the courtroom. Nodaway County Sheriff Darren White said he believed that Parsons got an overnight delivery of 100 grams of cyanide from an online store, and the next day, he entered the courthouse with the poison inside his mouth to escape detection.
And in 2012, an arsonist dropped dead minutes after his guilty verdict in a Phoenix courtroom. He also took cyanide.
