UPDATE: The parents of a man accused in a fatal shooting have been arrested and booked in connection with a battery their son allegedly committed just days before.
Gage Quebdeaux was booked with first-degree murder and attempted murder, accused of shooting his child's mother and of killing her grandmother in a Henderson business parking lot on November 1. He's also accused of violating a protective order - one of several that have been filed against him involving the relationship between him and his child's mother.
Monday night, his father, Jason Quebedeaux, 48, of Breaux Bridge and his mother, Tabatha Miller, 46, also of Breaux Bridge, were arrested and booked by St. Martin Sheriff's deputies into the parish jail. Both were booked with one count principal to second-degree battery.
Louisiana law states that "all persons concerned in the commission of a crime, whether present or absent, and whether they directly commit the act constituting the offense, aid and abet in its commission, or directly or indirectly counsel or procure another to commit the crime, are principals."
Earlier this week, KATC Investigates reported about the court record of the suspect.
Our investigation found that Gage Quebedeaux currently faces multiple counts of violation of protective orders, including one violation that allegedly occurred just a few days before the shooting.
The police report we found about that incident, which happened October 23, mentions both Jason Quebedeaux and Tabatha Miller, and it's this incident that they were booked in connection with, deputies say. The investigation into this incident was ongoing when the November 1 shooting happened, deputies tell KATC.
Court records show Quebedeaux was arrested on October 23 and booked with second-degree battery and violation of a protective order by simple assault. That arrest happened after Kalin Cormier, the grandmother who was slain last week, called deputies because she was worried that Quebedeaux was hurting her daughter.
The deputy found her daughter at Miller's home with two black eyes and a laceration under one eye. Quebedeaux wasn't there, but Miller and Jason Quebedeaux were, and the deputy had to take the victim into another room before she would tell him what happened. She told the deputy she had tried to get her clothes from Gage Quebedeaux's house because she was leaving, but when she heard someone trying to get in the home she saw it was him and ran out the back door.
She said Gage Quebedeaux chased her down, and she called her mother for help.
But he caught up with her, she said, and he "began to swing at her, punching her in both eyes several times." Then his mother drove her vehicle into the back yard and Gage Quebedeaux forced the victim into the vehicle, which his mother drove to her home. That's where the victim "began to clean the blood from her face when Gage put both of his arms around her neck and took her to the ground," the victim told deputies.
Miller called his father, who came and got Gage Quebedeaux to leave, the record states. After talking to the victim, the deputy located Quebedeaux, who told him that the victim had tripped in the backyard, and because she has "low iron" that fall caused her to have two black eyes and a cut.
"After looking at Gage's hands/knuckles I observed his knuckles to be red, with a small cut," the deputy wrote. "From my previous law enforcement experience, when someone has red knuckles with a cut it usually means that the person had been punching on something or someone."
The deputy said the victim was taken to the hospital to get stitches in the cut on her face, and he took Quebedeaux to jail and booked him with second-degree battery, as well as violation of the protective order.
On October 26 a "Gwen's Law" hearing was held, during which 16th Judicial District Judge Lewis H. Pitman Jr. heard argument from the prosecutor and Quebedeaux's attorney, read the deputy's affidavit, saw Quebedeaux's arrest record and saw photographs of the victim's face. He then set Quebedeaux's bond at $151,000. Records at the St. Martin Parish jail show that bond was posted and Quebedeaux was released on October 27. The shooting incident happened a few days later, on the morning of November 1.
Gwen's Law was passed in 2014 and requires that an automatic "contradictory" bail hearing is held in domestic violence cases. At that hearing prosecutors present evidence and the judge decides if the accused should stay in jail, without bond, because the victim is in danger. The law allows the judge to hold the accused abuser in jail without bond for up to five days.
We reached out to Pitman to see if he had any comment, but he told us he's prohibited by the court's code of ethics from making any statement.
Court records show that the District Attorney's office objected to the October 26 setting of the bond - and following the slaying filed a motion to revoke it.
