RUNAWAY FACES MORE CHARGES IN SLAYINGS.

Byline: Bhavna Mistry Daily News Staff Writer

Arizona authorities now say that a Lancaster runaway may have had more to do with a grisly triple murder than they originally believed.

The Mohave County District Attorney's Office has filed more charges against 14-year-old Kimberly Lane of Lancaster, who was arrested in August along with the neighbor she had left Lancaster with and a 20-year-old man the two met in Arizona.

``We found out that her role was bigger than we originally expected,'' said Mohave County Deputy Attorney Derek Carlisle. ``She may not have been the one who physically fired the shots, but she assisted in acquiring the bullets, came up with the idea and was one of the accomplices.''

Lane initially had been charged with one count of murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder. The amended charges include three counts of first-degree murder, one count of conspiracy to commit murder and one count of armed robbery.

Facing the same charges are Frank Anderson, 48, who had lived in the same mobile-home park as Lane, and Robert Poyson, 20, who had been staying at the isolated desert home where the slaying victims lived.

The additional charges were filed against Lane on Sept. 12, after her extradition from Illinois. During an advisory hearing Friday, Lane denied her involvement in the slayings. Lane is being held in a juvenile facility.

Lane now awaits a hearing to see whether she will be tried as an adult.

Anderson and Poyson are being held by Arizona authorities and have pleaded not guilty to the murders. They are awaiting trial.

Officials say the girl may have suggested the idea of killing the three Arizona residents to steal a pickup truck and get out of Golden Valley, a small town in western Arizona.

Found dead Aug. 15 were Leta Kagen, 37, her companion Roland Wear, 50, and Kagen's son, Robert Delahunt, 15, who was stabbed. The bodies were discovered by Kagen's husband.

``I can't say how their mental thinking works,'' Carlisle said. ``But they wanted to leave. They had been hitchhiking from Lancaster and were quite a ways from the city.

``It doesn't make sense,'' the deputy attorney said. ``But then I don't think the way they do.''

Carlisle said Lane convinced a teen-age neighbor to give them two bullets, fetched rocks used in killing Delahunt and brought Poyson and Anderson water while they were committing the acts.

Lane also lured Delahunt into a small camp trailer where his throat was slashed and he was stabbed in the head, Carlisle said.

After they left Lancaster on July 29, Lane and Anderson hitchhiked from Lancaster to Arizona where they were given shelter by Kagen, who often allowed transients and newcomers to stay with her until they could get along on their own, officials say.

That's where they met Poyson, who had been renting living space from Kagen.

About three days after Lane and Anderson arrived, prosecutors claim, Lane, Anderson and Poyson killed Kagen, Wear and Delahunt and then fled to Illinois in Wear's truck, bringing along items belonging to Kagen that they had hoped to sell.

According to officials, Anderson dropped off Lane and Poyson in a suburb outside of Chicago, where they claimed to be husband and wife and lived in a homeless shelter.

Anderson kept the truck and continued on alone until three days later when he was stopped in Anna, Ill., during a routine traffic stop.

Poyson and Lane were arrested at the shelter days later after law enforcement officials traced a phone call Lane made to a Lancaster neighbor and followed up information from Anderson.