The day after a restraining order against Debra Janelle Jeter ended, the 32-year-old picked up her 12- and 13-year-old daughters at 6 p.m. Friday and told them she had a surprise.
Kiersten and Kelsey Jeter hadn't seen their mom for 14 days. Jeter had attempted suicide at their 101 Brazos St. house and received psychiatric treatment at the DePaul Center in Waco, according to court records.
The girls told their dad goodbye, and authorities say the two were excited to get into the car with their mom and find out what her surprise was.
Three hours later, both girls were found bloodied in the bathroom of a sprawling, abandoned ranch house.
Their throats had been slashed.
Hill County Sheriff Jeffrey T. Lyon, his voice cracking, called the scene "horrific."
Their mother called 9-1-1 just after 9 p.m. and told dispatchers she had just killed her two daughters, Lyon said. Deputies arrived to find Jeter, who is 6 feet tall and weighs 195 pounds, with both hands in the air, holding a cell phone. A knife was lying on the roof of a nearby car, Lyon said.
Inside the abandoned house at 215 U.S. Highway 77 in rural Hill County, Kelsey Leeanne, a Girl Scout, honor roll student and member of the band, was dead. Kiersten Leigh was clinging to life. A medical helicopter took her to Parkland Hospital in Dallas, where she immediately underwent surgery, Lyon said.
On Monday, Kiersten, 13, remained in intensive care but was in stable condition, expected to survive, Lyon said. Funeral arrangements for Kelsey were pending.
Jeter, who has no other children, is on suicide watch at the Hill County Jail, where she remained Monday in lieu of $1.5 million bail, Lyon said.
She was charged with murder and attempted capital murder.
Jeter, who has been studying to be a registered nurse at Hill College, hasn't said a word to investigators, Lyon said, and has had no visitors.
"We're still attempting to get into the mind-set of why this mother turned so violently on her children," he said.
While investigators Monday were trying to piece together the details of those three hours Friday evening, Lyon said he knows that Jeter drove the girls to Corsicana and, on the way back, looked at several vacant houses along the way before stopping at the one that became the crime scene.
Lyon said he believes that Jeter had planned the killing.
Father's worries
Court records filed May 22, the day after Jeter's suicide attempt at the family's house in Hillsboro, reveal that there was worry about putting the girls' care in their mother's hands.
In those records, Lester Lee Jeter, Debra Jeter's husband and the girls' father, filed for divorce and was granted a temporary restraining order against his wife.
He wrote to the court that his wife had attempted suicide with the children at home and was being treated at the DePaul Center on a mental health warrant.
"She may be released within a few days, and I am concerned about her possible actions regarding the children," Lester Lee Jeter wrote.
The documents state that he requested custody "to protect the safety and well-being of the children and any other person who has been a victim of family violence committed by (Jeter)."
Lyon said he did not know of any threats or instances of family violence that Jeter had made toward her children or husband.
Steve Raulston, a 56-year-old lumberyard worker, lives down the street from the Jeter family. He had called the police on the residents of the single-story, unkempt house on the corner with the yellow siding. It was a noisy house, and other neighbors also had called police, he said.
But no one, he said, had anything against those two girls.
"I went in the house and cried when I found out," Raulston said. "They were just the friendliest little girls. They'd wave when they rode by on their bikes. (Kelsey) was a little, redheaded girl. Just as cute as a bug."
He added, "It's really devastated all of the people who live around here. You just don't know what to think. I mean, we saw them every day."
Kelsey 'smart, quiet'
J.C. Rogers, Kelsey's first-period history teacher at Hillsboro Intermediate School, had just seen the girl about a week ago when school let out for the summer.
Rogers said Kelsey was smart and quiet. She often finished her work before other students, he said. When children would talk to each other during class downtime, Kelsey was always reading.
Rogers didn't know what she was reading, just that she always had her nose in a book.
He'd catch the girl at her locker with a book in one hand, while her other was turning the dial of the lock.
He would see her reading while blindly walking through the crowded school hallways.
During parent-teacher conferences a few months back, Rogers commented on her love of reading to Kelsey's mother.
Debra Jeter had laughed, he said, telling him how her youngest daughter had told the family she was going to take a bath, but she found her a while later, reading in the bathroom while the water was running.
Because Rogers' wife is a nurse, Kelsey often came into first period bragging about how proud she was of her mother for studying nursing, he said.
"I'll really miss having her in class," said Rogers, who has three daughters. "She really was a nice little girl."
According to Debra Hargrove, associate vice president of human resources and organizational development at Hill College, Debra Jeter had been a part-time employee of the college during the last fall semester as a tutor in anatomy and physiology. In December, she was accepted into the college's LVN, or licensed vocational nurse, program, and turned it down, saying she wanted to become a registered nurse, Hargrove said.
She said counseling services have been made available to Hill College students and staff.
"We are all just shocked and devastated," Hargrove said.
Lyon said he shares the sentiment.
"Yes, I'm the sheriff," he said. "But I'm a parent. I'm a father. I'm a member of this community. This hits us hard."
Chilling message
In piecing together information, he said, his investigators saw a particularly bone-chilling statement on Kiersten's MySpace page. It was dated the day before she was stabbed and her sister was killed.
The message remained on the girl's page even Monday.
"I get to see my mom tomorrow! Yay!" she wrote.
