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State will retry Tigerland double homicide case after hung jury
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BATON ROUGE — Despite Monday's deadlocked jury, District Attorney Hillar Moore is confident the state can get a conviction on a retrial in the double homicide trial of Brian Lavergne.
"We believe in the strength of our case and we'll go for it again," Moore said.
Lavergne is accused of killing his ex-girlfriend LaQuincia Jackson and her boyfriend Fredrick Hollins at a Tigerland apartment in 2021.
After three days of testimony, the jury deliberated for eight hours before announcing they could not come to a unanimous decision, which is required for a conviction.
"If you guys couldn't convince them off of the evidence that was there, let him come home," a friend of the family said after court Friday evening. "If y'all are not gonna let him come home, then find him guilty."
The exact split of the jury is not known, however, paperwork filed by the state Monday afternoon states "court placed on the record that the juror vote count...was a majority in favor of guilty as charged."
The lack of a decision was a punch in the gut for the defense and the friends and family of the victims.
"It seems like we're not getting closure. As the days go by, the months, the weeks, and the years, we're not getting closure," a friend known as "Jo Jo" said.
During the first trial, Lavergne's defense team claimed they didn't have all the information they were supposed to have and would be better prepared this time around.
"I think that we will be in a better position if we are able to try it this time. In preparation for this trial that started last week, we had to file some motions based on some late disclosures. We didn't have all the discovery when we started," one of Lavergne's defense attorneys, Ladeisha Woods, said.
A motion filed Monday afternoon by the state asks a judge to return Lavergne's cell phone back to Baton Rouge Police so they can continue to try and break into it. Police have not been able to crack the passcode and want to continue running a certain software on it to see if it contains any new evidence they could use in the re-trial.
A hearing is set for the case this Thursday.
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