Gibson shooting won’t be capital

The trials of three people facing charges in connection with the February shooting death of a man from Cut Off will not likely commence until autumn, prosecutors said.

But a decision not to pursue the death penalty against the accused triggerman is final.

Sergio Castellano, 22, was believed to have been the victim of a robbery, according to initial statements by police, when the defendants allegedly lured him from a La. Highway 182 bar to the pickup one was driving the morning of Feb. 24.

Troy Jackson, 26, of Gibson, faces a first-degree murder charge. Ciegie Cheramie, 25, of Jones County, Miss., and Brandy Perdue, 18, of Destrehan, face second-degree murder charges.

“It is not going to be a capital case,” said Mark Rhodes, District Attorney Joe Waitz’s Jr.’s trials chief. “We have had some difficulties because of the logistics and the language but we made that decision early on. It just didn’t fit our profile, in terms of the length and expense of a capital trial and the appeals.”

Castellano spoke Spanish primarily and, at the start of the case, detectives had difficulty verifying his identity. U.S. Customs agents were able to make a fingerprint identification through records in their database, detectives said.

According to Larpenter, the trio met Castellano at the New Horizons bar on La. Highway 182 Saturday night. He left the bar with them, headed for Jackson’s Gibson home but was shot en route, according to the synopsis officials provided.

Jackson, Larpenter said, shot Castellano.

Deputies were alerted through a telephone call Sunday that a woman matching Cheramie’s description was driving a truck with a body in it.

After pulling Cheramie over, investigators said they were told where to find the body, just off of Bayou Sale Road in Cocodrie, where it was believed to have been dumped.

On the basis of the initial phone call, police stopped the truck, which investigators said still had blood in the passenger area, in Chauvin.

Subsequent interviews resulted in the apprehensions of Jackson and Perdue.

Jackson has in the past been booked for simple battery, and is also a registered sex offender, according to information in law enforcement databases.

Investigators familiar with the case said they believe Castellano, seated in the passenger seat of the truck, was talking on a cell phone when Jackson became “nervous” and shot him.

Rhodes said attorneys are still preparing their cases.

“I don’t expect the trial to begin until the fall or possibly winter,” he said.