2 victims had ties to Fourmy murder
Baton Rouge Advocate. May 31, 2008, Page 1A.
Four women have been murdered in a four-block area of a rough north Baton Rouge neighborhood in the past six months.
All four killings remain unsolved and authorities have identified two of the women as witnesses to the October murder of Jason Fourmy.
The women were killed along Cedar and Lobelia avenues, streets peppered with empty lots and shuttered houses, signs of blight in the neighborhood just south of the ExxonMobil refinery.
The latest victim, 23-year-old India Richardson, was riding her bike in the 2700 block of Lobelia Avenue around 11:30 p.m. May 22 when someone shot her in the head, police have said.
Richardson was pronounced brain dead Sunday night and was taken off life support Tuesday after her organs were harvested Police Department spokesman Sgt. Don Kelly said Tuesday.
Richardson is the fourth woman to be killed in the neighborhood since Nov. 23, when Freida Robertson was found slain inside a house in the 2600 block of Lobelia.
On Nov. 28, the lifeless body of Dimonique Hardnett, 22, was found the next street over in the 2700 block of Cedar Avenue. And on Dec. 21, someone shot and killed 36-year-old Donna Wilson in the 2700 block of Lobelia.
No arrests have been made in any of the deaths and many who live in the neighborhood are afraid to talk about the murders.
Jimmy Johnson, 54, who said he recently returned to the neighborhood from Houston, said the number of murders in the small area seems unusually high.
“You can’t even walk the streets at night,” he said, standing near his home on Cedar. “The kids can’t even walk the streets.”
Others approached by The Advocate on Friday declined to give their names, saying they feared for their safety if they talked about the killings.
The first two women killed, Robertson and Hardnett, were named in court as witnesses to another murder in the neighborhood, the brutal beating and burning death of Fourmy, 39.
A worker with the city-parish Department of Public Works found Fourmy’s remains in a wooded area in the 1400 block of Gayosa Street on Oct. 31.
Fourmy had been beaten for more than 24 hours in his house at 2618 Cedar, suffering a brain hemorrhage, two broken ribs and ruptured spleen, according to an arrest warrant.
An autopsy showed he was alive when taken to the woods and set on fire.
Three men, Denako Duheart, 23, Andrea Deon Williams, 39, and Dearius Duheart, 19, have been arrested in connection with his death.
The three were initially booked on first-degree murder, but the charges have since been reduced to attempted second-degree murder because of the two dead witnesses, prosecutor Mark Pethke has said.
“If we still had witnesses, (the charge) would still be first-degree murder,” Pethke said at an April 23 bond hearing for the younger Duheart brother.
Police have not reported any connection between Wilson and Richardson’s deaths and any other crimes.
“We do not believe (Richardson’s) murder is directly linked to any others, including Fourmy. It’s still open, so that’s all I can say,” Kelly said.
While the men accused of attempting to murder her son await trial, Trudy Fourmy searches for closure.
“My head accepts it but my heart won’t,” she said. “I had to say goodbye to a body bag. I had to kiss a body bag goodbye.”
On Friday, she recounted the details of her son’s death.
On the morning of Thursday, Nov. 1, four days after she last spoke to her son, Trudy Fourmy drove to his house and found that it had burned down the night before, she said. Fire investigators have ruled the fire an arson.
Hardnett was one of the passers-by who she asked about her son’s whereabouts, Fourmy said.
“(Dimonique) said, ‘You need to find Jason, and you need to find Jason fast’,” Fourmy recounted.
Hardnett’s roommate had seen Jason Fourmy the night before and that he had been beaten beyond recognition, Trudy Fourmy recalled Hardnett as saying.
Fourmy said she gave Hardnett a card with her cell phone number written on it and was shocked a few weeks later to learn of Hardnett’s death.
Trudy Fourmy accompanied homicide detective Matt Johnson Friday to the wooded area where her son’s body was found.
After climbing through the bramble and debris, Fourmy placed a small granite marker engraved with her son’s name there.
Charred vegetation and burnt pieces of fabric were still visible in the spot her son’s body was found seven months ago.
Fourmy collected burnt pieces of her son’s leather jacket from the site. These pieces, along with two T-shirts she has at her home, are all she has left of her son’s possessions. Everything else was lost when his house burned down.
“I just can’t believe my baby lost his life here,” she said.
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