Fort Worth man who fatally stabbed his mother while she begged for help pleads guilty
A Fort Worth man accused of stabbing his mother more than 50 times has pleaded guilty to murder.
Jurors listened to testimony in the punishment phase of his trial on Tuesday and will decide his sentence. He faces a maximum of life in prison.
Paul Robert LaBar, 29, suffered from schizophrenia, according to his father, who was 61 when the killing took place in September 2016.
The father, who is named Paul Raymond LaBar, told a police detective working the case that his son was on medication for mental health issues but refused to take it and, as a result, had unresolved anger issues.
Court records show that Paul Robert LaBar had previously been convicted of misdemeanor assault for punching and choking his father in 2013. He was then accepted into the Mental Health Court Diversion Program, designed to divert mentally impaired offenders out of the traditional criminal justice system and into treatment.
His enrollment in the program was later revoked, and in July 2014, he was convicted of misdemeanor assault of a family member and sentenced to 90 days in jail and a $372 fine, according to court documents.
In 2016, officers responded to a call in the 7500 block of Gleneagles Way near Eagle Mountain Lake. They found Lauren LaBar, 57, with multiple stab wounds, and her son, Paul Robert LaBar, inside the home, police said.
Paul Raymond LaBar told police that he was away from home when got a call from his wife telling him to come home because she’d been injured.
Then the line went dead.
When the father called back, his then-26-year-old son, Paul Robert LaBar, answered. He asked his son to put his mother back on the line, but the son told him he didn’t want his father to speak with her.
Paul Raymond LaBar would later tell police that he could hear his wife, Lauren LaBar, pleading for help before the line went dead again.
Before losing consciousness, a fatally injured Lauren LaBar was able to tell him that their son had continued to stab her after the last phone call.
In an interview with homicide detectives, the son confessed to hitting his mother in the back of the head with a metal object, then stabbing her repeatedly when she didn’t immediately die.
According to an arrest warrant affidavit from the 2013 assault case, Paul Raymond LaBar told officers he was trying to stop an argument over a video game between Paul Robert LaBar, then 22, and his younger son when he was attacked.
This story includes information from Star-Telegram archives.
This story was originally published January 28, 2020 at 3:45 PM.