2 get 10 years in killings
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Two 19-year-old Baton Rouge men pleaded no contest Monday to negligent homicide charges and were sentenced to 10 years in prison in the 2006 slaying of a 61-year-old man and his teenage son.
Julius Thomas and Kenny Kyser were 16 and 15, respectively, when Hillery Soileau and 17-year-old Brandon Soileau were shot to death at their Greenwell Street home on Feb. 21, 2006.
Thomas and Kyser were indicted on second-degree murder charges, but East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar Moore III said they were allowed to plead no contest to two counts of negligent homicide because of evidence problems.
“We were in a very difficult position in this case,’’ Moore said. “The (Soileau) family understood the situation. We had very little choice.’’
A no-contest plea has the same effect as a guilty plea in criminal court but cannot be used as an admission of guilt in civil court.
The district attorney called Monday a “sad day’’ for the Soileau family and said he wished he could have given them the closure they deserve.
“This was a cold-blooded murder. Two innocent people lost their lives. I would have liked the outcome to have been different,’’ he said.
State District Judge Richard Anderson sentenced Thomas and Kyser to the maximum five-year sentence on each count and ordered the terms to run consecutively.
A third man, 20-year-old Eujames Jefferson-Hardin, pleaded guilty in the case last year to a charge of criminal conspiracy to commit armed robbery and is scheduled to be sentenced next week.
Sheriff’s officials said Hillery and Brandon Soileau were killed while two children, ages 7 and 10, hid in a bathroom. The motive for the shootings was robbery, authorities said.
One of the children was forced to help the robbers find money in a bedroom, according to a search warrant application.
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