Month: September 2025

Former teacher’s assistant Dawn Barriere convicted of possessing child pornography

A Jefferson Parish jury on Wednesday night (Sept. 24) found Dawn Barriere guilty as charged of possessing pornographic videos depicting children under age 13.

Barriere, 24, formerly of Metairie, was a preschool teacher’s assistant at St. Andrew’s Episcopal School Cottage program in Uptown New Orleans when she was arrested in October 2023.

The Louisiana Bureau of Investigation’s Cyber Crime Unit opened its investigation in August 2023 after receiving a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

The report stated that pornographic videos involving prepubescent girls being sexually abuse were uploaded to Dropbox, a commercial file hosting service. Dropbox flagged the suspect videos in April 2023. Evidence showed that Barriere created the Dropbox account in 2015 and uploaded the illegal materials. Child pornography had been uploaded to that Dropbox account as long as six years prior to April 2023. She was arrested at her apartment in Metairie on Oct. 9, 2023.

During her interview with a state agent, Barriere admitted she had periodically viewed child pornography and was sexually aroused by it, but she felt “disgusted” afterward. She told the agent that she had viewed child pornography as recent as a month before her arrest.

However, at trial, Barriere denied the charge. She testified that as a teenager, she engaged in video chats with a man she knew as “Nate.” She described him as “an old, chunky white guy with very thin glasses and balding,” who began sending her stories about child sex abuse, leading her to sexually abuse a 2-year-old at the man’s request. She testified that “Nate” instructed her to set up the Dropbox account and she provided him with the password to it so he could share child pornography with her. She said she acted out of fear the man would find and harm her. She said she never sought out child porn and masturbated while viewing the illegal videos “only when I was instructed to.”

She never mentioned “Nate” to the state agent during the interview because the agent never asked, she testified.

Barriere had hundreds of photographs of children at the Uptown school, but none were sexual in nature. None of these images were related to the charge for which Barriere was prosecuted. The Cottage program is designed for children ages 1, 2 and 3. After her arrest, parents withdrew about 25 students from the school, according to trial testimony.

Jurors deliberated about 2 ½ hours before returning with their unanimous verdict. Judge E. Adrian Adams of the 24th Judicial District Court ordered a presentence investigation and set sentencing for Oct. 28.

Assistant District Attorneys Leo Aaron and Molly Love prosecuted the case.

Joshua Every pleads guilty to brutally murdering Taylor Friloux while robbing Kenner Raising Cane’s

A Jefferson Parish judge on Thursday (Sept. 18) sentenced Joshua Every to life in prison after he admitted to brutally stabbing Taylor Friloux to death at the Kenner fast food restaurant where she worked as a shift manager nine years ago.

In pleading guilty as charged to first-degree murder, Every, 32, of Laplace, averted a potential death sentence had he been convicted at his trial of killing Friloux, 21, on June 29, 2016.

In a negotiated agreement with the state, Every pleaded guilty as charged in exchange for the state withdrawing its intent to seek the death penalty. In doing so, Every agreed to be sentenced to a mandatory life sentence in prison at hard labor with no chance of probation, parole or suspension of sentence. His trial had been scheduled to begin on Oct. 14.

Every and his codefendants planned to rob the Raising Cane’s in the 3300 block of Williams Boulevard. As employees were discarding the garbage during closing time, Every and his cohort Gregory Donald entered the rear of the business.

Without provocation, Every stabbed Friloux at the rear entrance and then forced her at knifepoint inside the business and to the manager’s office. After forcing her to give him $1,000, she collapsed onto the floor, at which time he brutally and repeatedly stabbed her, causing injuries that ended her life hours later at a hospital intensive care unit.

“She was not yours to take, but you did it anyway,” Friloux’s mother told Every in victim-impact testimony, having carried the urn containing her daughter’s ashes with her to the witness stand. “I will never forgive you.”

She was one of six people to provide victim-impact testimony during the hourlong sentencing hearing. Friloux’s mother’s partner also expressed an unwillingness to forgive Every. “Enjoy your stay in your new gated community of Angola,” she told Every.

Said one of Friloux’s coworkers at Raising Cane’s and a victim of the armed robbery, “The person you took away was a good person who deserved to be here today.” Every had worked at the business previously and knew his victim. The coworker said Every killed her “over a grudge and anger you couldn’t let go.”

Friloux’s cousin was in the ICU when she died and recalled hearing the doctor announce “the words no family should have to hear: ‘Time of death, 8:41 a.m.’”

“You got to hear her last words. What did she say?” the cousin asked Every, who said nothing in return.

“You didn’t just murder her. You robbed the world of a bright, vibrant woman,” a family friend testified.

Every was charged in a separate indictment with two counts of armed robbery, conspiracy to commit armed robbery, false imprisonment while armed with a weapon, witness intimidation and obstruction of justice.

Judge Lee Faulkner of the 24th Judicial District Court sentenced Every to 50 years for each of the two armed robbery counts, 25 years for the conspiracy to commit armed robbery, 10 years for false imprisonment, 20 years for witness intimidation and 20 years for obstruction of justice. Judge Falkner ran the sentences concurrently and concurrent with his life sentence.

Every’s codefendants already have pleaded guilty:

  • Mark Crocklen, 33, of Baton Rouge, pleaded guilty in 2018 to manslaughter, two counts of armed robbery, conspiracy to commit armed robbery, false imprisonment, witness intimidation and obstruction of justice. He received a received a 40-year prison sentence.
  • Gregory Donald, 27, of Kenner, pleaded guilty in 2019 to manslaughter, two counts of armed robbery, conspiracy to commit armed robbery, false imprisonment, witness intimidation and obstruction of justice. He received a received an 89-year prison sentence.
  • Ariana Runner, 31, of Laplace, pleaded guilty in 2018 to conspiracy to commit armed robbery and obstruction of justice. She awaits her sentencing. UPDATE: Runner was sentenced to five years in prison on Oct. 16, 2025.

Assistant District Attorneys Tommy Block, Rachel Africk and Lindsay Truhe prosecuted the case.

Michael A. Harris sentenced to two life sentences for murdering couple

A Jefferson Parish judge on Wednesday (Sept. 3) sentenced Michael A. Harris to two back-to-back life sentences for his conviction of shooting a couple from the back seat of a pickup truck parked in a Marrero home’s driveway. 

Harris, 36, of Terrytown, was convicted by a jury on Aug. 1 of two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of David Sumera, 36, and Alexxis Eymard, 26. 

Sumera was driving a rented 4-door Ford Ranger that he had borrowed and was delivering heroin to someone in the 2600 block of Bay Adams Drive on the afternoon of Sept. 24, 2022. Eymard sat to his right in the front passenger’s seat. Behind her sat Harris, who was acquainted with the couple. 

Armed with a 9mm semiautomatic pistol and without provocation, Harris shot the Belle Chasse couple in the backs of their heads at about 1:45 p.m., minutes after they pulled into the driveway.  

“Their last moments on Earth were filled with the smell of gun smoke and the sound of gunfire,” Assistant District Attorney Matt Clauss told jurors in opening statements. 

For four hours, their bodies remained in the pickup, its engine running, until the woman who lived at the Bay Adams Drive residence found them and called 911. The woman, who slept through much of the day, did not hear the gunfire. She did notice the pickup in her driveway at one point during the day and assumed Sumera was in the neighborhood. 

Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office detectives canvased the neighborhood in search of residences with video surveillance systems. They found videos showing the pickup being driven into the driveway. 

Minutes later, Harris, concealing his identity with a cloth over his head, got out of the rear passenger’s side door, video shows. He opened the front passenger door, stayed there momentarily, closed it and then walked around to do the same to the driver’s side. 

Surveillance video also shows him walking away into the neighborhood carrying a black bag, similar to one that Sumera owned. Nearby, Harris is seen in surveillance video rummaging through that bag before making his escape.  

Harris walked on and discarded the cloth in the street. Upon seeing this video recording, detectives immediately recovered the cloth. It was a shirt. On it, Sheriff’s Office Crime Lab DNA analysts found genetic material consistent with Harris’s. 

The analysts also found DNA consistent with Harris’s on the rear passenger’s side door handle, where the shooter was seen stepping out of the pickup. 

Detectives learned that Sumera and Harris were acquainted. Days before the murders, a witness socialized with Eymard, Sumera and a man introduced to her as “Mike.” The witness then drove “Mike” to his home in the 800 block of Mystic Avenue in Terrytown – Harris’s home. 

Additionally, geolocation data obtained from the pickup truck’s infotainment system and from a cell phone that Harris used at the time suggested that Harris and Sumera were together in the hours leading up to the murder. Harris stopped using that phone shortly after he committed the murders.  

Armed with an arrest warrant for the murders, a U.S. Marshals fugitive task force located and arrested Harris in Memphis, Tenn., on Feb. 16, 2023. He was armed with a 9mm pistol and apparently was living on the streets. That pistol he had in Memphis was not the murder weapon, which has not been found. 

In addition to the two murders, the jury found Harris guilty of being a convicted felon in possession of the firearm used in the homicides. He was prohibited from possessing firearms because of his convictions of possession of heroin and distribution of heroin, both in Jefferson Parish. 

During the trial, Harris’s attorneys challenged the evidence linking him to the murders, saying there were no eyewitnesses and that Harris’s DNA could have been left on evidence at any time prior to the murders. The attorneys suggested that Sumera might have been targeted by someone other than Harris because of the assistance he had given to law enforcement previously. 

The jury deliberated almost three hours before reaching their verdicts on Aug. 1. 

In victim-impact testimony given during Wednesday’s sentencing hearing, Sumera’s younger sister and the mother of his child to the court that he was not perfect. But he didn’t deserve to be murdered by a man he considered a friend, they said. 

“David was my protector through a traumatic childhood,” his sister testified. “He made me feel safe. He made me feel loved. Now because of the choices made by the man sitting before you, that safety is gone.” 

The mother of his son said he “made a lot of mistakes in his life … but his life mattered.” 

“He was kind,” she said. “He was funny. He was talented. He was loved.” 

“You didn’t just take David’s life. You shattered ours,” she told Harris. 

After denying a defense motion for a new trial, Judge Raymond Steib of the 24th Judicial District Court on Wednesday sentenced Harris to life in prison without benefit of probation, parole or suspension of sentence for each of the two murder counts. He ran the sentences consecutively. 

Judge Steib also sentenced Harris to 20 years for the conviction of being a felon in possession of a firearm. That sentence was run concurrent with the two life sentences. 

Assistant District Attorneys Matt Clauss and Theresa King prosecuted the case.