Opening statements began over the weekend in the penalty phase of Kevin Daigle’s first-degree murder conviction. Daigle was convicted in 2019 of fatally shooting Louisiana State Trooper Steven Vincent in the face when the officer tried to help him on the side of the road on Aug. 23, 2015.

A unanimous jury gave Daigle the death penalty in the fatal shooting four days after his conviction, but the state and defense worked out an agreement in which the guilty verdict would stand but the penalty phase would be redone because of allegations raised over whether a juror was qualified to serve.

Calcasieu Parish Assistant District Attorney Charles Robinson on Saturday told jurors — who are from Baton Rouge and were brought to Lake Charles for the hearing — Daigle “enjoyed killing Trooper Vincent.”

He “ambushed him in cold blood for no good reason,” Robinson said. “He ruined and then made miserable the final moments of Trooper Vincent’s life.”

Vincent, who was responding to a report of a drunken driver when he approached the parked truck in which Daigle had been driving near the corner of La. 14 and Fruge Road in the Hayes area, had just celebrated his 12th wedding anniversary when the attack occurred, Robinson said.

“Trooper Vincent’s last words were, ‘We’ll call the tow truck, get the truck out and maybe I’ll give you a ride,’ ” Robinson said. “He couldn’t see that Daigle had moved a sawed-off shotgun into his lap and was going to shove it right in his face.”

Daigle was on parole at the time of the shooting for his fourth felony arrest — arson for setting fire to his mother’s home — and had just come from killing his roommate, Blake Brewer, when Vincent pulled him over.

“Daigle used the same shotgun he killed Blake Brewer with to kill Trooper Vincent,” Robinson said. “After he shot Blake Brewer, he washed his clothes and then rolled the dead man over to dig in his pockets to take his keys and steal his truck.”

Dash cam video presented Saturday from Vincent’s unit shows Daigle firing at Vincent then following him as Vincent stumbled back to his vehicle. Daigle can be heard asking Vincent if he was still alive before calling him a “lucky bastard.”

“Kevin Daigle is guilty without a shadow of a doubt of first-degree murder of a police officer,” defense attorney Bruce Unangst said. “But he deserves to spend the rest of his life behind bars in Angola, not the death penalty.”

Unangst said Daigle would never have shot Vincent “if he had been sober,” saying Daigle’s alcohol consumption was four times over the legal limit and prior to getting on the road he had “smoked meth from a broken lightbulb.”

Unangst said Daigle has no memory of the event and “the first time he watched the video, Kevin cried.”

“Tragedy came to Trooper Vincent through no fault of his own,” Unangst said. “Rain falls on the just and the unjust alike. But that day Kevin had given up on life, hope and himself. The officer couldn’t have known how wounded, how broken physically and mentally Kevin Daigle was at that moment when he pulled him over.”

As Daigle wiped tears onto his gray sweater vest, his attorney told jurors Daigle’s father had committed suicide when he was a boy and Daigle was the one who discovered the body. “Kevin found him and that caused damage.”

He said during the course of his life, Daigle has been prescribed 19 different psychiatric medications to treat mental illness, anxiety and depression. Unangst said Daigle had recently become unemployed after hurting his hip while working in the oil field industry.

“He lost his ability to work and survive,”  Unangst said. “He was jobless, homeless and hopeless when he met Vincent. This was not a planned or premeditated attack on a police officer.”

Louisiana State Police Trooper Let. Ben Fox testified he had worked with Vincent for about four years when the attack happened.

“Professionally, you are each other’s lifeline,” Fox said.

He said when he heard over the dispatch radio that an officer was down, he rushed to the scene.

“As a trooper, you’re looking for your trooper,” Fox said. “I can see someone laying on the ground next to a State Police vehicle. There’s blood everywhere; it’s a pretty brutal situation.”

Trooper Camile “Joey” Babineaux, a 19-year veteran of State Police, said when he heard an officer was down he drove his unit 130-140 mph to get to Vincent’s side.

“When I got there, there was a man assisting Steven while two others were atop Daigle. It was obvious who was the bad guy and who wasn’t,” Babineaux said. “I was taking out my handcuffs and the gentleman sitting on Kevin Daigle said he was already in handcuffs. I was taken aback until I realized Daigle was handcuffed with Steven’s own pair.”

Babineaux said when he got to Vincent he could see a towel wrapped around his head and blood coming out of his ears.

“He had a hole in the center of his forehead and one over his left eyebrow and scratches on his jaw,” Babineaux testified with a quivering voice. “I prayed with him twice, saying ‘Our father who art in heaven,’ and then I tried to shield the others from seeing him this way.”

Babineaux said Vincent wasn’t conscious, but he was breathing.

A former emergency medical technician, Babineaux rode with Vincent in the helicopter that evacuated him to Lake Charles Memorial Hospital, continually squeezing a bag valve mask over Vincent’s face to help him breathe.

Once Vincent arrived at the hospital, Babineaux also had the task of telling Vincent’s wife about the attack.

“I told her I wasn’t going to sugarcoat it. I told her it was not good.”

Babineaux said he isn’t as close to Vincent’s family as he was before the attack.

“It hurts me every day,” he said. “Not a day goes by that I don’t think about it. I also hurt for his family. I don’t want when they see me to be constantly reminded of what happened to Steven. I don’t want them to be having a good day and I call and then all the sudden I’ve caused them to have a bad day because I’m a reminder.”

Robert LeDoux, often referred to as “the Good Samaritan” by former State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson for being the first person to stop and render aid to Vincent after the shooting, testified when he drove up to the scene of the attack, he saw a person laying on the ground and a man standing over him.

“He reached over and put his hand on the trooper’s gun then looked at me and stopped,” LeDoux testified. “When I got out of my Jeep, he tried to grab the trooper’s holster and he was jerking at it so hard that he was lifting the body off the ground.”

LeDoux said he took off running at Daigle and tackled him to the ground with his left shoulder. He kept Daigle pinned to the ground with his face on the pavement until motorists from another passing vehicle stopped to help.

A former volunteer firefighter, LeDoux said the two men kept Daigle on the ground while he rendered aid to Vincent.

“He started to vomit so we rolled him over on his side and cleared his airways,” LeDoux said. “When I rolled him over on his side, I saw his name tag. He was the last person to give me a ticket. He had pulled me over 10 years ago when I was running late to get to the airport to catch a flight to Colorado. He told me if I gave him a good excuse he might not give me a ticket. I guess being late to the airport wasn’t a good excuse.”

He said he was able to get to Vincent’s car radio through the passenger side door and called dispatch to let them know an officer was down and to send for AirMed. When he returned to Vincent’s side, he said he watched as Daigle nearly bucked one of the men guarding him off his back.

“I took Trooper Vincent’s gun, pointed it at Kevin Daigle and told him if he didn’t stay down, it wasn’t going to be pretty,” LeDoux said.

The fellow motorists who helped LeDoux — Charlie Bercier and Sam Edmondson — testified they had never been more scared than they were that day.

Daigle “looked right at us and it was a look of evil,” Bercier said.

Bercier said Vincent never opened his eyes after he was shot, “but he seemed there to me. Whether he could hear me or not, I like to think he could hear me, and I wanted to comfort him.”

He said he constantly talked to Vincent, wiping the trooper’s face as they waited for help.

“He was laying still and would clench his fists and was breathing very heavily, almost hyperventilating,” Bercier said. “I really thought he was going to make it because he was still breathing the whole time.”

Edmondson testified he made sure Daigle stayed on the ground, lying on his stomach until help arrived. He also pulled a pocketknife from the pocket of Daigle’s jeans and threw it into a nearby ditch.

“Every minute seemed like an hour, waiting for help to get there,” he said. “I know it got there fast, but at the moment it felt like forever.”

The penalty phase of the trial will continue at 9 a.m. today.

•

American Press Executive Editor Crystal Stevenson is sending live tweets from the courtroom. Follow her on Twitter @CrystalAmPress