Pair get 40 years in man’s slaying
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ST. FRANCISVILLE — A state district judge sentenced two high school dropouts to 40 years in prison Thursday in the 2006 slaying of a man whose body was found partially stuffed into an open septic tank.
Kurt E. Neher, 19, and Hunter Everette, 20, both pleaded guilty before 20th Judicial District Judge William G. Carmichael to a reduced charge of manslaughter in the beating and shooting death of Michael Gore, 55.
The defendants were facing trial this year for second-degree murder in Gore’s slaying, but District Attorney Sam D’Aquilla said members of Gore’s family agreed to the reduced charge provided the defendants were both sentenced to the maximum 40-year sentence.
D’Aquilla also said he would not let one of the two plead guilty to manslaughter before the other’s trial for second-degree murder, which carries an automatic life sentence.
Everette held out for several weeks but recently decided to join Neher in accepting the 40-year prison term, the district attorney said.
Alvin Gore, the victim’s brother, said he believed Everette would have attempted in a trial to pin the blame on Neher, if Neher pleaded guilty to manslaughter before him.
“All I can say is they ruined three lives. They killed him and ruined their own lives,” Gore said.
Everette, formerly of Denham Springs, told Carmichael he went to school through the ninth grade, while Neher said he went until the eighth grade.
West Feliciana Parish Sheriff J. Austin Daniel said Neher, who was 16 when Gore was killed, lived with his mother in a mobile home next to Gore’s mobile home on La. 421 east of St. Francisville.
Records show Michael Gore gave Neher’s mother a half-interest in his three-acre tract. Daniel said Neher told detectives he and Everette got mad at Gore because the victim would not let them use his car. Gore was shot and beaten, but managed to call 911 before he died.
The victim was unable to communicate with the dispatcher, and deputies sent to the home found Gore’s body stuffed in his septic tank, Daniel said. The two also were accused of taking Gore’s car and about $350, the sheriff said.
In December 2007, the state Supreme Court, with three justices dissenting, declined to consider whether prosecutors should have been barred from using Neher’s taped statement about the killing.
A dissenting opinion in the case says the statement to detectives should have been thrown out because Neher told a state child-protection case worker he needed a lawyer before the questioning began.
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