Man sentenced for fatally stabbing mother more than 50 times

29-year-old Fort Worth resident, Paul Robert LaBar was sentenced yesterday to 60 years in prison for the murder of his mother in 2016.

Lauren LaBar is said to have placed a call to her husband, Paul Raymond LaBar while he was at work asking for him to return home because she had been injured.  Then the line went dead.

When Paul called back to the residence, his son answered the phone.  When the Paul asked to speak with his wife, his son informed him that he didn't want him to speak with her.

According to a statement made to police, Paul could hear his wife in the background pleading for help before the line again went dead.

When Paul made it home, he found Lauren bleeding on the kitchen floor from multiple stab wounds.  Before losing consciousness, she informed her husband that their son had continued to stab her after the last phone call.

Paul called 911 and told dispatchers that his son no longer had a knife and was “was just staring at him."  He additionally told them that his son had mental disorders and was diagnosed as schizophrenic.

Lauren LaBar, 57, died later that day at Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Fort Worth.

During an interview with homicide detectives, LaBar is said to have confessed to hitting his mother in the head with a mental object and then stabbing her repeatedly when she did not immediately die.

LaBar was previously arrested in 2013 for punching and choking his father.  Paul stated that he was attempting to stop an argument over a video game when he was attacked.

It was at that time that Paul stated that while his son was diagnosed with schizophrenia and had medications prescribed to him for it, his son refused to take the medications and so, "had anger issues."

LaBar was ultimately convicted of misdemeanor assault and sentenced to 90 days in jail and a $372 fine.

On Wednesday LaBar entered a plea of guilty to a single charge of murder for the death of his mother.

In closing arguments yesterday, before the jury reached it's verdict on sentencing, Tarrant County prosecutor Kacey Fickes asked “If he can do this to his own family, is anyone ever safe with him out in society?”

Fickers postured that since LaBar could not be trusted to take prescribed medication there was no way to know for sure if that medication would help with his anger let alone restore his faculties to a place where he wouldn't be a danger to society.

LaBar has been sentenced to 60 years in prison.  He is currently at the Tarrant County Correction Center.

According to the Star-Telegram, LaBar had been deemed incompetent to stand trial in December, 2016.  LaBar was sent to a maximum security state mental health facility for treatment and on April 2, 2018, was deemed competent to stand trial.