Conviction, sentence stands in death of woman, unborn child
Published 12:20 pm Thursday, December 21, 2023
- The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeal serves 21 parishes in Southwest and central Louisiana.
The 40-year sentence for a Lake Charles man convicted of killing a woman and her unborn child will stand.
Vernell Arconze Chatman Jr. was convicted by a unanimous jury in 2020 of manslaughter in the death of Kayla Mackenzie Jones and of second-degree feticide for the death of her baby. He was sentenced to 32 years at hard labor for the manslaughter conviction and eight years at hard labor for the second-degree feticide conviction. The trial court determined the feticide represented “a separate life … lost” and ordered the sentences be run consecutively.
Charles Hunter Jr., then the chief investigator for the Calcasieu Parish Coroner’s Office, testified that Jones’s body was discovered in a park on Nov. 16, 2019. Because of the “tremendous amount” of dirt and leaves in her hair that did not match the surrounding area where her body was found, Hunter said she did not die where her body was lying and opined she “may have been dropped off at that location.”
Hunter said she was found lying stretched out with her legs straight and her hands above her head and had “numerous scrapes and abrasions and bruises across most of the surfaces of her body.”
A 9-year-0ld witness, whose videotaped interview was played for jurors, testified he saw a “man beating on a woman, kicking her in the side and slapping her in the face” outside his apartment door. The apartment complex is across the street from the park.
According to the boy, the woman was on the ground close to the apartment and Chatman was standing over her. He testified he went back inside, and about two minutes later, the woman stopped screaming for help. He said he told his father what he saw, then they locked the door and turned off the porch light.
Calcasieu Coroner Dr. Terry Welke testified that he listed Jones’s cause of death as “blunt force injuries-asphyxia-hypothermia” and identified her death as a homicide. He testified Jones’s injuries were consistent with someone sitting or lying on her chest and cupping their hand over her mouth and nose.
Welke said Jones either died from the asphyxia, or the asphyxia caused enough damage that her brain could not tell her body to protect itself once hypothermia set in during the freezing temperatures that night while she was woefully underdressed.
He said her unborn child, a boy, was at the eighth-month mark of development.
Jasmine Jack, a former live-in girlfriend of Chatman’s brother, testified she saw Jones outside the apartment that night “on the ground hollering and screaming in pain, and Vernell was right there with her.”
She said she heard Chatman, while leaning over Jones, yell, “Die, bitch, die.”
Following sentencing Chatman filed a motion for a new trial contending the verdict was contrary to the law and evidence, but the motion was denied by the trial court.
In his filing with the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeal, Chatman claimed the evidence was insufficient to find him guilty of manslaughter and second-degree feticide, his conviction for second-degree feticide was a violation of double jeopardy, and his sentences are both excessive individually and should be run concurrently rather than consecutively.
In rejecting his first claims, the court determined Chatman’s conviction of manslaughter was just based on testimony and presented and his conviction of feticide was predicated on the fact that the unborn child died as a result of the mother being strangled to death.
For the double jeopardy claim, the court ruled that second-degree feticide requires proof of the killing of an unborn child whereas manslaughter requires proof of the killing of an individual. Accordingly, they found, Chatman’s convictions of second-degree feticide and manslaughter do not violate the constitution prohibitions against double jeopardy, and both convictions are affirmed.
The court also ruled that when imposing consecutive sentences, the trial court “noted the defendant’s cruelty and disregard for Ms. Jones and her unborn child, who was sufficiently developed to survive on his own with appropriate care. Thus, the defendant caused the death of two individuals, Ms. Jones and her unborn child.” The court, therefore, ruled the sentences can be served consecutively.
