At the end of next month, a woman accused of killing her boyfriend in 2009 will be back in court. The Louisiana Supreme Court remanded Mary Henderson Trahan’s murder conviction in August back to the Lafayette Parish 15th Judicial District Court.
Mary Henderson Trahan was arrested in 2009 in Lafayette by police after they found her live-in boyfriend, George Barbu, dead from a gunshot wound to his back.
A jury found Trahan guilty of second-degree murder in 2010 and the judge sentenced her to life in prison.
In 2011, the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeal vacated her conviction, according to court records. The judges ruled the prosecutor failed to present enough evidence supporting the murder charge or even lesser charges of negligent homicide or manslaughter, according to The Advocate. They overturned both the jury’s decision and her life sentence citing insufficient.
However, the case then went to the Louisiana Supreme Court for review. The supreme court reversed the lower court’s decision and reinstated Trahan’s conviction and sentence.
Records show in 2014, Trahan filed a notice of appeal, which was ultimately granted.
In the summer of 2015, the lower court issued a rule to show cause why the matter should not be dismissed, as the judgment at issue was not an appealable judgment. This appeal was ultimately denied.
Trahan then filed an application for timely review in the fall of 2015, which cited several court errors including a lack of insufficient evidence and violations of her right to due process, stated in court records.
In the spring of 2016, the matter was placed on the docket for consideration.
On Aug. 31, 2018, the case was remanded on Supervisory Writ to the 15th Judicial District Court in Lafayette to reconsider its ruling conducting a full evidentiary hearing, which is now set for Jan. 31, 2019.
