Records: Bible Saved One Son of Wicca-Practicing Mom Charged in Shootings

Gauracandra · November 7, 2001

Wednesday, November 07, 2001

FORT MYERS, Fla. — A mother accused of killing her 6-year-old son and trying to kill two other sons kept recipes for death spells and practiced witchcraft, according to court documents.

Leslie Ann Wallace, 39, is facing first-degree murder charges and a long list of other crimes stemming from shooting of her younger son James and attempts on the lives of her two older sons on Sept. 2.

Police said Wallace had tried to smother James earlier on the day of the slaying.

The boy fought back as his mother put a pillow over his head, later telling her "That wasn't nice mommy," police said following an interview with Wallace.

Police said after later fatally shooting James, Wallace went to the church where her 16-year-old son Kenny was attending services. Detectives said she fired a shotgun at him, but the pellets hit the Bible he was holding and spared him from serious injury.

A third son, 19-year-old Gregory Wallace, was not injured although detectives said his armed mother tried to get him to come out of a local restaurant where he was working.

Wallace was shot five times when authorities tried to arrest her, but has since been released from the hospital. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

In nearly 1,000 pages of documents released Tuesday, investigators wrote Wallace studied the Wicca religion. Although the belief teaches nonviolence, she kept recipes for death spells and ailments for enemies.

The reports said Wallace, an ex-Marine who had undergone years of treatment for mental illnesses, pulled a gun on her oldest son, Gregory, 19, earlier this year.

Her husband William Wallace stepped in, calmed his wife down and the family "called a truce."

The family had financial trouble and were living with William Wallace's mother in a house too small for them all. Leslie Wallace had been left alone with her youngest son the morning of the shootings.

William Wallace is a hunter and kept a total of nine weapons in the house.