Statements offer gruesome details in slaying

Jeremiah Lee Wright’s alleged confession to police includes harrowing details about how and why the unemployed father beheaded and mutilated the body of his special-needs son, 7-year-old Jori Lirette.

Wright, 30, 414 W. Seventh St., Thibodaux, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Jori, who was afflicted with cerebral palsy, suffered from complications with his heart and had a feeding tube.

A first-degree murder conviction carries a penalty of life in prison or death, according to state law.

At about 8 a.m. on Aug. 14, Jori was wrapped in a blanket, asleep, Wright carried the boy to the kitchen where he beheaded and dismembered the child, according to a sworn, written statement by Lt. Kim Favalora, the arresting officer with Thibodaux Police.

Investigators later recovered the saw, with blood on the blade, in a toolbox beneath the kitchen sink, according to the report, submitted into court record last week.

The sink was shipped to the State Police Crime Lab in Baton Rouge.

Wright tossed the head in a gravel lot outside the rented, blue-sided home “so that he could show it off and, so when Jesslyn [Jori’s mother] drove up, she could feel stupid like him when she saw the head,” the arresting officer wrote.

A witness contacted authorities around noon on Monday and reported seeing what appeared to be a human head near the corner of West Seventh and Church streets.

Thibodaux Police Officer Derek Guidry was the first to arrive on scene and identify Jori’s head. After detaining Wright for questioning, Thibodaux investigators found a white garbage bag “about five feet away” that contained Jori’s torso and limbs, Guidry wrote.

“Through the plastic of one of the bags, I observed what appeared to be the rest of the child’s body in the fetal position, wearing a dark colored shirt and a diaper,” Guidry wrote. “The bag still appeared to be sealed, indicating that the body was placed into the bag after the head was removed.”

Jesslyn Lirette, 27, left the home at 8 a.m. to retrieve her pick-up truck. The prior evening, Lirette and Wright had a dispute, and Lirette broke off the relationship, according Wright’s interview.

Jesslyn Lirette planned to drive Wright to his mother’s house when she returned with the truck, he said. Immediately after she left, Wright told investigators, he “went to work.”

Wright told investigators he was “tired of taking care of” Jori, referring to his son as a “dummy” several times while being questioned, according to Favalora.

“Wright said that as soon as he realized Jori was a dummy, and not his son, he ‘started contemplating on killing him,'” Favalora wrote.

Guidry said that shortly after he arrived on scene, Wright walked outside the house to the porch’s railing, “looking at the head with a blank expression.”

Wright was “emotionless” and “very cold,” when he informed Guidry the head was part of a CPR dummy, Guidry wrote. Wright twice said the head belonged to a CPR dummy before he was detained.

The Jefferson Parish Coroner’s Office is conducting the autopsy. The process typically takes four to six weeks, office clerk Gayle Day said.

The preliminary report conducted by the Lafourche Coroner’s Office indicates the cause of death as “blunt force trauma to the head, with extensive bleeding to the right side of the brain, decapitation and dismemberment,” Thibodaux Police Chief Scott Silverii said.

Wright is being held in isolation at the Lafourche Parish Detention Center in lieu of a $5 million bond. “He’s in the facility, and he’s in a cell by himself,” Lafourche Sheriff’s spokeswoman Sgt. Lesley Hill said.

Hill would not say if Wright was on suicide watch.

Shortly after Jori was born, Jesslyn Lirette was granted a restraining order against Wright, according to the Associated Press. In a sworn statement written in 2004, Jesslyn said Wright had called her and said “he was tired of seeing the baby suffer and wanted him dead that I needed to do something about his suffering and end it all,” the AP reported.

Wright had been arrested four times, according to the Louisiana Justice Network master file. His most recent arrest came in 2007 for misdemeanor possession of marijuana.

Twice, Wright was charged with contempt of court.

Wright was also arrested on a simple burglary charge in 2004 and later pleaded guilty to a downgraded charge of theft, according to court records. He was placed on unsupervised probation and was later ordered to serve 10 days in jail after he failed to meet a 96-hour community service stipulation, records show.

Silverii said the police department is continuing to interview family members as part of the investigation and is working with the district attorney to begin compiling a prosecution strategy.

District Judge Ashly Bruce Simpson appointed Kelly P. Cuccia, director of the Capital Defense Project of Southeast Louisiana, as Wright’s defense attorney at the magistrate hearing last Tuesday.

Cuccia said he has met with Wright and reviewed “all the police reports available,” but he would not discuss what Wright’s alleged confession means to the case or any defense strategy.

“We have not seen a complete police report,” Cuccia said. “We have very scattered bits of information and until we gather all of the information, we really cannot make any kind of meaningful assessment of the situation.”

The Capital Defense Project is a non-profit law office funded by the state Public Defender Board. Cuccia has served as its director since it was established in 2002.

Cuccia has practiced law for 35 years and has worked primarily on capital cases for the past 15 years. He previously worked for the Orleans Parish Public Defender’s Office and has been in private practice for his entire career, he said.

Wright is scheduled to appear in court on Sept. 16 pending the state filing formal charges, which will be contingent on a grand jury indictment.

Lafourche District Attorney Cam Morvant II has said he will prosecute the case himself. In a statement released to media last week, Morvant said he would refrain from speaking about the case while it is still pending.

Morvant has not said whether or not the state will pursue the death penalty.

The last capital case tried in Lafourche Parish resulted in Billy Joe Daigle being sentenced to life in prison for first-degree murder in 2009 after he pled guilty to running over and killing sheriff’s deputy Martha Woods-Shareef.

Also in 2009, Amy Hebert received consecutive life imprisonment sentences after she was found guilty by jury of murdering her two children at the family’s home in Mathews.

Jeremiah Lee Wright, 30, father of 7-year-old Jori Lirette, who was disabled and wheelchair-bound from cerebral palsy, and was found decapitated and dumped outside his home with his father sitting nearby, is pictured going into District Court to face murder charges in the boy’s death in Thibodaux last Tuesday. AP PHOTO

Gerald Herbert