In 2016, Lauren Landavazo was a 13-year-old girl who lived in Wichita Falls, Texas. She had just started 8th grade at McNiel Middle School & was described as a social butterfly who loved life, was compassionate & caring. It was just after 3 pm on Friday, September 2, 2016 when Lauren was leaving school on foot; she noticed her friend Makayla Smith walking with another girl & rushed to catch up with them. They took their usual route home from school, heading down a path that would take them down an alleyway that many of the students used to get home. As they walked, they talked about the fact that they didn’t share any classes together that year. Lauren was getting ready to veer off to go to her boyfriend’s house when a car that they didn’t recognize pulled up with the driver’s side facing Makayla. They all just stopped walking at that point.
A young man with shaggy brown hair, a large nose & acne stepped out of the car & made eye contact with Makayla for a few seconds. The girls tried to understand what was happening & thought the man might be pulling some sort of prank so they ignored him & continued to walk. Suddenly, he took a rifle out of his SUV & pointed it at Makayla; she remembers thinking that she must have been hit in the chest because suddenly, she was unable to breathe. Somehow, Makayla found the strength to run to safety & as she did, she continued hearing gunshots; in total, sixteen shots were fired. Makayla sat down, unable to stand & felt blood running down her chest to her stomach.
From where Makayla sat, all she was able to see were Lauren’s legs as she laid on the ground, unmoving. Makayla screamed her friend’s name over & over but she didn’t respond. She took her cell phone out & called her mom, telling her that Lauren had gotten shot & that she herself had also been shot. At that same time, dozens of witnesses stood by, watching in horror, many were fellow students walking home from school. People from the neighborhood came out of their homes & ambulances quickly arrived. Word of the shooting spread very quickly & an acquaintance of Bianka, Lauren’s mom, told her that students from Lauren’s school had gotten shot nearby, so she made a beeline to the area. Makayla remembers Bianka arriving & she heard her scream. When she got there, she found paramedics working furiously over the broken body of her only daughter. Both Lauren & Makayla were transferred to United Regional Health Care.
Makayla asked first responders if Lauren was okay as they placed her on a gurney & loaded her into the ambulance. At that point, she saw Lauren & she had a white sheet over her. All she could say to herself was, “Please let her live.” When she arrived at the hospital, the bullet remained in Makayla’s body & doctors told her it would be best to allow her body to reject the bullet rather than doing surgery at that point.
Lauren’s dad Vern left work as soon as he learned of the shooting & arrived a short time later. He was unable to wrap his head around what was happening & tried to convince himself that his daughter would be okay. Bianka, having seen the state of Lauren’s body, knew otherwise. Once at the hospital, Bianka & Vern learned the devastating news that their daughter didn’t survive her injuries & had been pronounced dead at 4:05 pm. The medical examiner determined that Lauren sustained fourteen bullet wounds from a .22-caliber rifle; two of the shots had been to her head, either of which alone would have been fatal.
When Makayla was interviewed by detectives, she described the shooter. Other witnesses came forward & police learned the man had been driving a gold SUV that sped away from the scene. A composite sketch was created & released to the public via local news outlets.
Less than 48 hours later, authorities received a tip from a local that she’d seen her neighbor, twenty-year-old Kody Lott, getting out of his gold SUV, carrying a large item that was wrapped in a cloth into his apartment at the Fountain Gate Apartments on the day of the murder. The neighbor thought that the item appeared to be either a rifle or a rifle case & that the man was nervous in appearance. Once inside, he left again after a few minutes, driving away in his SUV. He lived near the alley where the shooting happened.
At the same time, a couple also told police that they saw a gold SUV near the make-shift memorial that had been erected at the shooting site. Officers sped to the area in hopes of getting their suspect. As they arrived, a patrol man saw a gold SUV heading in the opposite direction. They pulled the car over & requested permission to search the car. The interior had been recently cleaned from top to bottom & the man behind the wheel identified himself as Kody Lott.
Police found a pair of brass knuckles which, at the time, were illegal in Texas so he was taken to the station & charged with possession of a dangerous weapon. Once in custody, Kody was taken to an interrogation room & questioned about the shooting. He feigned ignorance & denied having any involvement. After about an hour of interrogation, Kody started to get very comfortable & began telling detectives what happened that day. He told detectives that he had seen Lauren walking home from school from the window of the apartment he shared with his mom & step-dad. He was taken by her beautiful icy blue/green eyes & began to wait in the window on a daily basis, just to get a glimpse of the thirteen-year-old & soon became infatuated.
During one of his daily viewings, he noticed Lauren walking hand-in-hand with a boy her own age. He was infuriated with what he was seeing & viewed it as the ultimate betrayal. It further angered him that she had a boyfriend & he himself didn’t have a girlfriend. It was at that moment that he decided that he needed to make the girl that he hadn’t even met, sorry that she had ever crossed his path.
Kody had been in relationships in the past but none had ever lasted very long & he later told a court-appointed psychiatrist he held a “hate in his heart” for females. He was very emotionally immature & unrealistic in his demands & had driven each & every one of his girlfriends away. Unable to maintain a healthy relationship, he entered a warped reality where Lauren, who he viewed as perfect, was devoted to him & only him. On the day he saw her with another boy, his delusional visions were ruined & he believed that Lauren had to pay.
Plotting his revenge, he went to his step-father’s gun cabinet & removed a rifle. When he saw Lauren & Makayla walking, he jumped into his SUV, pulled in front of them to block their path & opened fire. The first bullet hit Makayla & the rest he saved for Lauren. He said the only reason Makayla lived was because he simply ran out of ammunition.
As he spoke with detectives, he basically patted himself on the back with the warped belief that he was a hero who acted selflessly to save Lauren from the dangers she was sure to face later in life. In his sick mind, killing her at a young age prevented her from encountering future rapists & predators.
He then told detectives that he fled from the scene when he noticed the gathering crowd. He ditched the rifle in a field & later, when he was sure it was safe to do so, he came back to retrieve it & placed it back in the case where he found it. Because he had no ties to the victims, it was his belief that he was in the clear & placed little to no importance to the fact that he opened fire on children in the middle of the day.
Detectives questioned why he would possibly kill a girl who had no idea he existed. He explained that he wanted a girlfriend & Lauren was supposed to be the one. When he saw that she already had a boyfriend, he decided that if he couldn’t have her, no one could. He told investigators that he had an accomplice that day who was pulling the strings & it was the Devil himself. He said he’d consulted with the Devil before murdering Lauren & he agreed that Lauren would only be getting what she deserved.
Detectives had heard enough & Kody was charged with one count of first-degree murder & one count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Despite his full confession, he pleaded not guilty to both charges. He was held on a four-million dollar bail pending trial.
A search of his electronic devices showed that his cell phone had many images of underage girls engaged in sexually explicit acts. Because of this, child pornography was added to his offenses.
Police spoke with Kody’s former girlfriend who told them that he had once tried to strangle her with a seatbelt in a fit of anger. When she ended the relationship, he kidnapped her & her young son & tortured them. She told police that she didn’t report this because she was terrified of the retaliation he was absolutely capable of. When she learned he had been arrested, she finally felt safe enough to come forward.
Being a narcissist, when Kody saw news coverage of the shooting, he heard it described as a random act of violence. This angered him because he knew he’d spent weeks planning & wanted the recognition for doing so. Even as he wanted this recognition, he continued to maintain his innocence.
Those that knew Kody described his childhood as being coddled & spoiled & he had the belief that the world should bend to his needs. He was short-tempered & took a lot but gave little in return. He was a recreational drug user, a social misfit but managed to mostly function normally in society, straddling the line between acceptable behavior & lunacy.
The trial was initially scheduled to start in March 2018 but because the defense argued that he was of unsound mind to stand trial but had been postponed while Kody spent six months in a psychiatric facility & deemed competent to stand trial.
District Attorney Maureen Shelton presented the case before the jury & described Kody as a calculated murderer who stalked a teenage girl for almost a year before taking her life. She reinforced that had he not ran out of ammunition, he would have also taken Makayla’s life. His defense team continued to focus on the mental illnesses he suffered from that prevented him from seeing right from wrong. He was described as acting on his impulses that he couldn’t control & felt he had not been calculated & instead was a victim of his own intrusive thoughts that threatened to consume him.
When Makayla took the stand to testify, the bullet that Kody was responsible for, remained in her body. Doctors hope the bullet will eventually shift over time to an area where it can be more safely removed but this may or may not ever happen. When the district attorney showed Makayla a picture of Lauren, she broke down in tears & was excused from the stand where she was taken from the courtroom, weeping.
Throughout the trial, Kody showed no sign of remorse & presented a picture of arrogance. On September 19, 2018, the jury deliberated for forty minutes & found Kody guilty & he was sentenced to life in prison plus twenty years. Due to current Texas laws, he will be eligible for parole in 2048 when he’s 52-years-old.
In order to honor Lauren’s memory & the ongoing struggles that Makayla continues to face, a statue of a black horse named “Forever” was placed on the grounds of McNiel Middle School that displays positive words such as “laugh,” “live,” “unique” & features purple & blue paw prints on the horse in honor of the girls’ favorite colors. Those that knew & loved Lauren felt the memorial was perfect since she was a girl who showed compassion to both humans & animals alike. The unveiling ceremony was held right before school was let out & Makayla spoke & her father Rodney, who is a pastor, blessed the horse.
On October 1, 2020, vandals forcibly removed the statue from its foundation & was eventually found smashed to pieces in a barn in neighboring Clay County. Police were able to see at least three suspects from a surveillance video removing the horse at 4:24 am. Because of a tip line, police got information that a black pick-up truck was seen with the horse in the back at 4:45 am. They learned that two locals, 19-year-old Zachary Kaiser & his friend Tyler Darland were arrested two months later & charged with theft & destruction of property. Their accomplices, Dakota James & Brayden Seward were taken into custody shortly after.
Zachary Kaiser was found guilty & ordered to pay $400 in restitution as well as two years behind bars. The judge ended up suspending his sentence based on the request of Lauren’s parents who felt that he stood a better chance of finding redemption outside of prison.
With the help of friends & neighbors, the statue was replaced & on May 27, 2021, a second memorial was put in place in front of the school.
On June 11, 2019, Texas passed Lauren’s Law which makes the deliberate slaying of a minor under age fifteen a capitol offense. At the time of Lauren’s murder, the age was ten which made Kody ineligible for the death penalty. Her parents worked tirelessly to get the law passed in hopes of protecting future vulnerable children.
Lauren is remembered as someone who was kind to all that she met & a self-appointed welcome wagon, going out of her way to befriend new students. Those that knew her well were aware that had she met Kody Lott, she would have treated him with the respect he didn’t deserve, had she been given the chance. Even after the heartache Lauren’s parents have faced, they continue to keep forgiveness in their hearts. Vern Landavazo spoke & said, “Try to keep forgiveness in your hearts & try to understand, even if people do things that don’t seem to make sense, I know I’ll be searching my heart to try to spread that & try to prevent from spreading that kind of behavior.”
References:
- Times Record News: Makayla Smith takes the stand to recount day of pain, horror in Kody Lott murder trial
- Texomas homepage.com: ‘It’s disturbing, it’s heartbreaking’; Father reacts after Lauren Landavazo memorial statue stolen
- Medium: The Devil made him do it: The shocking murder of thirteen-year-old Lauren Landavazo
