Parolee in slaying held on drug charge
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A judge found probable cause Tuesday to hold a figure in the 1993 slaying of Baton Rouge police Cpl. Betty Smothers on a felony drug charge.
West Paul, 36, was arrested in August for possession of cocaine.
He is being held in Parish Prison on $20,000 bond and is scheduled to stand trial July 20.
Paul was paroled in 2006 after serving 13 years of a 25-year sentence for attempted armed robbery in Smothers’ killing. His parole supervision is scheduled to end in 2018.
Smothers is the mother of free-agent NFL running back and Baton Rouge native Warrick Dunn, who played football at Catholic High School and Florida State University before joining the NFL.
Baton Rouge police officer Gayton Montgomery testified Tuesday before state District Judge Tony Marabella that he and a fellow officer discovered crack cocaine and drug paraphernalia after stopping Paul on Aug. 8 for running a stop sign on Somerset Street at 71st Street.
Paul’s passenger, Quentily Sept, pleaded guilty in the case in October. State District Judge Don Johnson sentenced him in December to 45 days in Parish Prison.
Smothers, 36, was working an off-duty security job when she was shot shortly after midnight on Jan. 7, 1993, while driving grocery store manager Kimen Lee to a Jefferson Highway bank to make a night deposit.
Lee was shot several times but survived the ambush.
Henri Broadway and Kevan Brumfield were convicted of first-degree murder at separate trials in 1995 and sentenced to death.
Paul, who initially was charged with first-degree murder in Smothers’ death, testified he drove the getaway car. He identified Brumfield and Broadway as the gunmen.
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