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'It's very disheartening;' EBRSO responds after family members arrested in connection with murder
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BATON ROUGE - Deputies arrested three family members for the murder of 41-year-old Gerard Nicholas Richard, whose body was found 'mangled' on the Huey P. Long Bridge Thursday.
He was discovered around 7 p.m. wrapped inside a blanket, with his wrists tied with rope and tape. His body was run over by multiple vehicles. Investigators found blood smears along the bridge railing.
The East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office's investigation led to an apartment on Shilo Drive in Baker, where they found the victim's girlfriend 36-year-old Coshelia Conley, her son Da'Sean Conley and her mother Cathy Conley.
"They did a fingerprint on the deceased, they got his identity and they talked to his family in Acadia Parish and they said his connection to Baton Rouge was his girlfriend so that's how we got Conley's name," Hicks said.
Detectives found a trail of blood and bleach from the parking lot to the apartment. Deputies said that Conley's 18-year-old son Da'Sean had been fighting with Richard that evening. Da'Sean was hitting Richard before the two went to a vehicle in the parking lot. A gunshot was heard.
EBRSO said the Conley family then destroyed evidence and tried to dispose of the body.
"It's a sad case, it's an unfortunate case when you see all of this family involvement in criminal activity, it's very disheartening," Hicks said. "Just a lot of missteps that showed a lot of intentionality in the case. There was a murder, but then there were all these steps taken to conceal the murder," Hicks said.
Coshelia Conley was arrested as an accessory after the fact of second-degree murder. Da'Sean Conley was booked with second-degree murder, and Cathy Conley was booked as a principal to second-degree murder.
"It is very sad when you see the level of family involvement here, that someone in the family didn't say, 'Hey, this is not how we handle this'," Hicks said.
The sheriff's office says it has not yet found a motive for the killing.
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