Joseph "New New" Adkins
May 19, 2009
Irene Marie Deroche Lajaunie
May 22, 2009
It took a Lafourche Parish jury less than two hours Friday to find Amy Hebert guilty of stabbing her two children to death the morning of Aug. 20, 2007.
After almost as much time deliberating Saturday, the jury determined it was unable to sentence her to death for killing 9-year-old Camille and 7-year-old Braxton. District Judge Jerome Barbera issued a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole, probation or suspended sentence from the bench.
Hebert’s sentencing is scheduled for June 18 at 2 p.m.
During 13 days of testimony, jurors heard from District Attorney Cam Morvant that Hebert used 11 kitchen knives to repeatedly stab her children inside their 118 St. Anthony St. home in Mathews. A Jefferson Parish assistant coroner testified Camille had more than 30 stab wounds in her torso and another 30 to her scalp, while Braxton had more than 30 wounds to the front of his body and an additional 20 to 25 puncture wounds in his back. Both children had defensive wounds on their arms where they had attempted to prevent Hebert from stabbing them, the coroner testified.
Hebert told one psychiatrist that her children begged for their lives as she killed them, “Mommy, I love you. Please, I don’t want to die.”
Morvant assigned revenge as the motive for the crime. Vitriolic suicide notes found at the scene the morning of the murders indicated that Hebert harbored anger at her ex-husband for allegedly having an affair prior to their divorce in 2005. Chad Hebert, her ex-husband and father of Camille and Braxton, subsequently married the woman he was seeing, Kimberly Mendoza.
The defense team, lead by attorney Richard Goorley, the executive director of the Capital Assistance Project of Louisiana, argued it was severe depression – not revenge – that guided Hebert on Aug. 20, 2007.
Hebert claimed a man’s voice – either God or Satan she told psychiatrists – commanded her to kill her children that morning before her ex-husband arrived to take them away forever.
Defense attorney George Parnham told jurors in closing arguments that losing her family caused her to become psychotic the day of the killings.
“Mental illness and the command hallucination caused her to take the lives of these children whom she loved more than anything in the world,” he argued.
Ultimately, it was the absence of the children’s blood and the angry tone of Hebert’s missives to her ex-husband and former mother-in-law that Morvant reasoned proved the woman’s intentions on Aug. 20, 2007.
“You are telling me that you want to move on with your life, go ahead, but you are not getting the kids, too,” Hebert wrote.
At one point, Hebert suggested her ex-husband use the monies collected from selling the house and the children’s life insurance policies to “buy some more” children, Morvant noted, displaying the note on a courtroom wall.
“That is not the note of a psychotic, delusional person,” he told jurors. “That is someone with rage and anger who wants to hurt someone.”
As family members, friends and co-workers took the stand Friday begging jurors to show mercy and spare Hebert’s life, Goorley contended that life in prison “would be a daily punishment of living with what she has done.”
It was a point he echoed Saturday on the courthouse steps after the judge issued the life sentence.
“Amy has to live with what she did every day,” Goorley said. “There is no doubt that this woman suffered from deep depression. She needs to be in an institution where she can get the proper treatment.”
As his client was escorted back to jail Saturday, the attorney said she turned to him and said, “Thank you. I’ll pray for you.”
Despite not getting the death penalty in the case, Morvant expressed satisfaction with the decision as well Saturday.
“The jury deliberated and they just could not come to a conclusion,” he said. “They did their jobs and I’m satisfied with the final verdict.”
Lafourche Parish deputies escort Amy Hebert (in black suit) from court Friday shortly after jurors declared her guilty of stabbing her children, 9-year-old Camille and 7-year-old Braxton, more than 30 times each on Aug. 7, 2007. Hebert was sentenced to life in prison for the murders.
