Lisa Boothe hadn’t heard the news.

“I didn’t know they went ahead and did it,” she said Thursday by telephone from Iowa, where she lives with one of her three surviving children. “I guess I’m not surprised, but I really don’t know what to think. I’m not looking forward to going to court again.”

Her husband, Raymond D. Boothe, has been charged in Douglas County District Court with three counts of attempted murder. The charges stem from events Aug. 27, 2002, the night her husband stabbed the couple’s developmentally disabled 11-year-old son with a pair of needle-nosed pliers and left him for dead on the Kansas Turnpike.

Boothe, 36, who has a history of mental illness, was convicted in Leavenworth County of killing his son, Levi, and is serving a 16-year prison sentence in Hutchinson.

But last week, Douglas County Dist. Atty. Christine Kenney’s office filed charges against Boothe for what officials allege he did after leaving his son for dead: launching his car through a fence at 27th Street and Lawrence Avenue in a spectacular crash police said was an attempt to kill himself and his three children. According to investigators, the car hit a curb and went airborne, ripped through two fences and clipped two trees before coming to rest behind a house.

Word of the new charges upset Raymond Boothe’s mother, Carol, who lives in Osborn, Mo.

“We’re very hurt,” she said. “He didn’t try to kill his children. If he had, he wouldn’t have had them in their seat belts. He was insane at the time. It was him physically, but it wasn’t him mentally. He didn’t know what he was doing.”

Kenney said the outcome of the Leavenworth County case and consultations with Lisa Boothe were two factors that caused her to file charges and seek additional prison time. Also, a two-year statute of limitations was about to run out.

Lisa Boothe said it was true that Kenney’s office consulted her, but she said she wouldn’t have fought if Douglas County decided against filing more charges.

“I’m not out for blood. I don’t want terrible things to happen to him,” she said. “I just want the kids to be old enough to be able to deal with all the emotions and everything when he does get out. I want them to be stable enough to deal with this.”

Child killer gets 16 years (1-31-04) Boothe saga comes to an end 6News video: Raymond Boothe pleads no contest (12-25-03) Boothe pleads no contest to intentional second-degree murder (12-24-03) ;6News video: Boothe confession is not suppressed (11-13-03) See more stories on Boothe

Kenney said that if Raymond Boothe didn’t request that the Douglas County charges be addressed immediately, the case would be tried when he’s finished serving his sentence.

The Boothes lived in Cameron, Mo., at the time of the murder. Raymond Boothe told investigators that as he was driving the children to Oklahoma he heard the voice of God on the car radio telling him to kill his son.

Boothe told detectives he stopped his car, pulled Levi into a nearby ditch and stabbed him several times with needle-nosed pliers and a folding knife.

He eventually entered a plea of intentional second-degree murder.

The Boothes’ 9-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter now live with Raymond Boothe’s mother and two of his three sisters.

“That’s where they want to be,” Lisa Boothe said.

The couple’s youngest child, an 8-year-old daughter, lives with her mother in Iowa. Lisa Boothe said the girl still had nightmares about the murder.