Stepfather of 12-year-old girl who 'stabbed her nine-year-old brother' tortured ... trends now
The stepfather of a 12-year-old girl who killed her brother in a 'demonic' attack in Oklahoma was previously jailed for torturing and killing a cat, and beat a jail cellmate so violently that the man was left with brain injuries.
DailyMail.com is not naming the girl who remains in juvenile detention following the January 5 attack.
She stabbed her nine-year-old brother, Zander Lyda, three times at their home in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Her mother, April, believes the attack was caused by a change in medication but she has not yet given any additional details.
Zander's father is 39-year-old Levi Lyda. In 2017 - when Zander was four and the girl was six - he tortured and killed a pet cat that belonged to another of his daughters in Missouri.
Levi Lyda, 39, was arrested in 2017 - when Zander was four and the girl was six - for torturing a cat to death. The cat belonged to his other daughter
Levi is pictured here with his ex-wife April, holding Zander, after his birth in 2013. The girl now in custody for killing Zander is shown, right, as a toddler
Mom April Lyda with her son, Zander, on a GoFundme appeal for the family after his 12-year-old sister stabbed him to death
He told police he was drunk and killed the animal in a haze. His family told police he said he didn't want the burden of it anymore.
Lyda was taken to the county jail in St Charles, Missouri, where he beat up cellmate James L. Falke two nights in a row.
Falke, who was in jail for drunk driving and fleeing the scene of an accident, sued the county for not protecting him from Lyda after the first attack. As part of his lawsuit, doctors described how he'd been beaten by Lyda to such an extent that he was left with a 'moderate brain injury'.
Lyda is not the girl's biological father but on the night of the attack, her mother told police how he and his mother treated her like their 'own'.
'She is with Zander’s dad and grandma all the time they look at her like she’s there granddaughter too.
'She doesn’t get left out, I don’t understand why she would have so much anger towards him,' she said.
Her biological father has not been publicly identified.
Levi was pictured in an undated photo driving Zander in an undated photo before his death on January 5, 2023
Lyda is shown in the bodycam footage arriving at hospital while his son was receiving treatment.
In the cat killing case, the girl's mother - another former partner of Lyda's - returned home to find drops of blood in the house and the lifeless kitten in the backyard.
Police also found drops of blood in the young girl's bedroom, they said.
He allegedly told his wife 'I got rid of the cat' just before she found the body but claimed not to remember having killed the kitten because he was drunk after consuming a six-pack of beer and a half-bottle of vodka.
When questioned by police, authorities said, Lyda explained that after their family cat gave birth to a litter of kittens, caring for them became a burden on the family.
'It appears the animal had broken bones, had a broken leg,' St. Charles Prosecutor Tim Lohmar said at the time.
'There are pretty clear indications of blunt force trauma to the head.'
Lyda later pleaded guilty to that offense, and remained out of jail so long as he underwent substance abuse counseling, mental health treatment and refrained from consuming alcohol.
Criminal records obtained by DailyMail.com show that he had previously been cited for public intoxication and a slew of traffic violations. He was also cited just one week before the murder of the cat with stealing a motor vehicle
But that was not the first time Lyda had a run-in with the law.
Criminal records obtained by DailyMail.com show that he had previously been cited for public intoxication and a slew of traffic violations throughout Oklahoma, where he grew up, and Missouri, where he had lived with April and their two children.
He was also cited the week before the cat's murder with a motor vehicle
