MAN CONFESSES TO KILLING TEEN, HANGS HIMSELF

IN SUICIDE NOTE IN KENTUCKY, STEPFATHER SAYS HE HAS `NO EXCUSE' FOR MASS. SLAYING

Author: By Judith Gaines, Globe Staff

Date: WEDNESDAY, March 24, 1999

Page: B1

Section: Metro

Then he hanged himself in his Kentucky apartment, Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley said yesterday.

Scrawled in Lackey's handwriting in the note found in his Hopkinsville apartment Monday was a terse confession of his crime and the circumstances that led to it, but no indication of how he killed his stepdaughter, or his motive.

``You were right. I did it. I have no excuse. Drinking did it,'' said the note, addressed to Sergeant Timothy O'Connor, who headed the investigation into Nancy's death for Chelmsford police.

Lackey's wife, Marie, 48, discovered his body when she came home from work at about 4 p.m. Monday. Richard, 51, had hanged himself with his bathrobe belt on the back of his bathroom door, Coakley said.

Dorris Lamb, coroner in Christian County, Ky., confirmed yesterday that Lackey ``died from asphyxiation due to hanging.''

For Nancy's adoptive parents, Donna and Richard Launt of Fort Washington, Md., the confession brought a shocking, unsatisfying end to their need to understand their daughter's death. ``This is not what I wanted,'' said Donna Launt. ``This wasn't a solution.''

Nancy had lived with the Launts for 12 years before coming to Massachusetts, in a fatal quest to know and be loved by her birth mother and stepfather, who also was her uncle.

``I knew that someone took my daughter's life, and I did not want him to get away with it. But I thought in terms of jail, not this kind of death,'' Donna Launt said. ``This is just an end, with many unanswered questions.''

Chief among the questions are how Nancy was killed and what role, if any, Marie Lackey played in Nancy's death and the subsequent coverup.

``Insofar as our investigation led us to consider family and friends, there's nothing to single her out,'' Coakley said. ``It appears that Richard is taking responsibility. There's nothing in the note that would implicate Marie.''

Coakley stressed that the investigation is still open. She said Nancy was last seen in Billerica on New Year's Day, 1990. ``Unless a witness comes forward, we may never know how or where or exactly when she was killed,'' Coakley said.

Donna Launt said her strongest emotion now is deep sympathy for Nancy's three siblings, particularly her brother Paul, the Lackeys' son. ``Once again, it's a shame on his family,'' she said.

Nancy is the second young woman Richard Lackey has admitted killing.

In 1968, Lackey, a Massachusetts native, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the death of his fiancee, Janeal L. Bason of Tewksbury. In court testimony, Lackey said he and Janeal were en route to Marie's wedding to his brother, Arthur, when they got into an argument.

The argument escalated. In a violent rage, Richard grabbed his fiancee around the throat and strangled her. He served eight years in prison for second-degree manslaughter.

After Arthur died, Richard lived with Marie for several years. They married in 1990. For a time, Richard managed the car wash where Nancy's remains were found.

In 1991, Paul left their Billerica home and moved to Hopkinsville, hoping to get away from their alcoholic storms. ``They were nice people when they weren't drinking,'' he said. ``But when they were drunk, they were ugly.''

Three months later, Marie and Richard moved to Hopkinsville, too, but did not live with Paul. Richard was familiar with the area, having owned the Playboy Lounge Social Club in Newport, Ky., in the 1960s.

In Kentucky, Richard worked as a housepainter, while Marie found employment at a sewing factory. ``I couldn't have wanted nicer people around me,'' said Ruth Edwards, 84, who rented an apartment to them.

But police say the Lackeys' fights got rough. In November 1996, ``he started a fight with her, she retaliated, he was injured by her, and both were arrested,'' said Hopkinsville Oficer Terry Parker.

Both were convicted of spousal abuse and given 30-day suspended sentences, provided that they got therapy for anger control and substance abuse.

As a child, Nancy had been abused by the Lackeys and removed from their home at age 4 by state social workers. She was raised by her adoptive parents until she became obsessed with a desire to live with her birth mother, her paternal uncle, and her oldest brother, Paul, in a Billerica apartment.

She wanted to believe they had surmounted their troubled past.

Without telling the Launts, she abruptly left their Maryland home in 1989 and moved in with Marie and Richard, who then lived in an old industrial section of Billerica.

Her remains were found last October in a shallow grave behind the Chelmsford car wash, after a car wash employee noticed a jawbone in the dirt.

``This whole thing is so sad because Nancy had a bright future in front of her, and she could have created the type of life she wanted,'' Donna Launt mused yesterday. ``She just never got the chance.''