A Louisiana man hired two murderers to kill his niece and prevent her from testifying in a rape trial, police said. Instead, the girl’s mother was shot to death after pretending to be her daughter.
The mother, Brittany Cormier, was killed on January 13 at her home in Montegut, some 70 miles southwest of New Orleans. Hope Nettleton, a neighbor who was visiting Cormier at the time, was also killed.
Cormier’s brother and convicted sex offender, Beaux Cormier, was arrested along with two of his friends, Andrew Eskine and Dalvin Wilson. They have been charged with two counts of first-degree murder and each is held on $ 2 million bail.
Beaux Cormier, 35, was initially arrested in March and accused of raping her niece, according to a press release from the Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Office. The case is still pending in the Vermillion Parish court.
He requested and paid Eskine and Wilson to kill the victim, officials said.
On the day of the murders, Cormier was at home with his daughter, stepdaughter and Nettleton, according to Acadiana Advocate.
The Terrebonne Parish press release states that Wilson used Eskine’s truck to drive home. Eskine was out of town to work that day, but “facilitated the transportation of the vehicle and planned to carry out the murders,” the statement said.
The sniper asked for the rape victim’s name “and Brittany Cormier tells the sniper that he is the rape victim,” Sheriff Timothy Soignet said at a news conference on Monday. He said the 34-year-old mother accepted “her destiny to save the life of the real victim”.
Nettleton, 37, was killed after trying to fight the sniper, Soignet told reporters. Cormier’s daughter and stepdaughter hid in a closet during the murders, the lawyer reported.
During the investigation, authorities found that Beaux Cormier and his friends had traveled to Brittany Cormier’s home before the January 13 shooting to conduct surveillance.
In November, Eskine and Wilson returned to carry out the murder, but it was a failed attempt.
Terrebonne parish officials said Eskine, 25, and Wilson, 22, confessed their involvement. The lawyer’s information was not available to them or to Beaux Cormier.
Samantha LeMaire said she was a longtime friend of Brittany Cormier. She described her as a person who would do anything for her children. “But up to this point? I never would have thought it would come to that,” she said.
