A Jefferson Parish judge on Wednesday (Oct. 9) sentenced Jerry Gelpi to life plus 40 years in prison for his conviction of brutally stabbing his neighbor Charles Davis to death in Old Jefferson and then obstructing justice by eliminating evidence tying him to the crime.

“Mr. Gelpi, you’re going where you deserve to be,” 24^th Judicial District Court Judge Frank Brindisi told Gelpi in sending him to prison for the rest of his life.

A Jefferson Parish jury last week rejected Gelpi’s insanity defense and found him guilty as charged of the first-degree murder of Davis, 68. Gelpi and Davis lived in the same apartment building in the 400 block of Highway Drive in February 2021.

Click here to read about the trial.

Gelpi, 42, gained access to Davis’s apartment and attacked him in the bathroom, stabbing him at least 16 times. Gelpi initially took steps to hide his involvement, including cleaning blood from the kitchen floor and discarding his bloody clothing and the murder weapon.

But when Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office detectives gathered evidence tying him to the crime, Gelpi began feigning a mental defect to escape criminal liability. He later pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. He testified that he is the “son of God” and that Davis was “a demon” who needed to die.

“You accused this man of being a demon,” Judge Brindisi told Gelpi on Wednesday. “You were the only demon that day.”

The judge rejected defense motions to overturn the jury’s verdict and for a new trial. He additionally heard victim-impact testimony from four of Davis’s family members, including a daughter who’ll mark her birthday next week without well-wishes from her father.

“Knowing that I can never get that phone call again is heartbreaking,” she testified.

Davis’s sister told the court, “I will never get a chance to hug him to speak with him to tell him how much I love him … or just to hear him say, ‘Sis, you alright?’”

Judge Brindisi sentenced Gelpi to the mandatory life sentence in prison without benefit of probation, parole or suspension of sentence. He additionally sentenced Gelpi to 40 years in prison for obstruction of justice, which is the maximum punishment for that offence. He ran the sentences consecutively. The judge also fined Gelpi $100,000.

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

A Jefferson Parish jury on Wednesday (Oct. 2) found Kintez “Kutta” Johnson guilty of shooting a man as he sat in a car outside a Marrero convenience store two years ago, killing him.

Johnson, 23, of Harvey, was convicted as charged of the second-degree murder of Reginel Golman, 30.

On the evening of Sept. 23, 2022, Golman and his girlfriend were seated in a vehicle parked outside a business at Fourth Street and Ames Boulevard when Johnson, wearing a mask, approached. He and Golman spoke for a moment. Johnson then brandished a semiautomatic pistol and shot Golman as he sat in the front passenger’s seat.

Johnson’s girlfriend tried to drive away but then sought refuge inside the store – its owners rushed to lock the doors after hearing gunfire. She returned to the car. Golman was still alive.

“Take me home by my momma,” Golman told her. She sped to his mother’s home on nearby Silver Lilly Lane, where 911 was called. Golman died there, slumped over in the front passenger’s seat.

Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office detectives quickly identified Johnson as the suspect, through witnesses and through the convenience store’s video security system. Johnson was arrested days later at a motel in New Orleans East.

About an hour before the homicide, Golman and his girlfriend were at a home in Marrero when Johnson appeared at the home. It was during that time that Golman’s brother happened to call their niece from the north Louisiana prison where he is incarcerated. Golman then got on the phone with his brother.

Prison phone calls are recorded, so jurors were able to hear Golman tell his brother that Johnson told him that there was “a bag on my head,” meaning someone wanted him dead. Golman’s family urged him to not leave with Johnson, whose identity was acknowledged during the recorded phone call.

Nonetheless, Golman and his girlfriend drove to the convenience store, with Johnson in the back seat. Golman got out of the car and went inside. He asked his girlfriend to drive Johnson to a nearby apartment complex. She did so and returned to the store, where Golman got into the front passenger’s seat.

That’s when Johnson walked up, spoke with Golman and began shooting. Johnson then fled on foot. In total, 10 spent bullet casings were recovered that were tied to Johnson’s pistol. Golman suffered from 15 bullet wounds, some caused by the same bullets that entered his body, exited and entered other body parts.

In addition to second-degree murder, jurors found Johnson guilty of three other charges:

• Aggravated assault with a firearm. The victim was Golman’s girlfriend, who was seated in the driver’s seat when Johnson opened fire but was not physically injured.
• Convicted felon in possession of a firearm. Johnson was prohibited from possessing firearms because of a prior felony conviction. In 2020, he pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm while possessing heroin and to six counts of illegal discharge of a firearm.
• Obstruction of justice. Johnson hindered the investigation into Golman’s death by tampering with evidence — getting rid of the firearm. The firearm turned up in a bar in Kenner on Oct. 7, 2022. Police were summoned to the bar because an intoxicated customer passed out. That customer had a duffle bag that contained a firearm. Ballistics experts determined that the firearm was used in Golman’s killing. The intoxicated man had no connection to Golman’s homicide and no known connection to Johnson.

Suggesting self-defense, Johnson’s attorney told jurors that Golman had a gun in the vehicle with him when he was shot; a gun was never found. The attorney said witnesses lied, and there was no forensic evidence tying Johnson to Golman’s death. He urged jurors to acquit Johnson.

The jury, which was seated on Monday, deliberated about 2 1/2 hours before returning with its unanimous verdicts.

Judge Shayna Beevers Morvant of the 24^th Judicial District Court is scheduled to sentence Johnson on Oct. 29.

Assistant District Attorneys Matt Whitworth and LaShanda Webb prosecuted the case.

A Jefferson Parish jury deliberated 24 minutes Wednesday night (Oct. 2) in finding Jerry Gelpi guilty of fatally stabbing his neighbor in an Old Jefferson apartment, rejecting his assertion that a mental defect prevented him from knowing right from wrong when he murdered the man.

Gelpi, 42, was convicted as charged of the first-degree murder of Charles Davis, 68, who died in the bathtub of his second-floor apartment in the 400 block of Highway Drive in February 2021.

In his final months of life, Davis struggled with Covid-19 and its lingering effects. A forklift driver who rode his bicycle to work several miles from his home each day, Davis became infected with Covid-19 in April 2020 and was hospitalized for three months. The virus killed his live-in girlfriend while he was hospitalized. Although he survived, he was severely weakened, having lost 70 pounds. He required auxiliary oxygen and was undergoing long-term rehabilitation.

Gelpi, who lived in the apartment beneath Davis’s, gained access to Davis’s apartment. According to the crime scene reconstruction, Gelpi attacked Davis in the entrance to his bathroom. During the struggle, Gelpi stabbed Davis in the neck. Davis’s sink was knocked off the wall. Davis was either pushed or fell into the bathtub, where Gelpi continued to stab him – in all, at least 16 times. Davis’s wounds included cuts to his right hand, showing that he was trying to defend himself.

Gelpi then went to the kitchen sink to clean the blood from his hands and returned to his apartment seven minutes after he walked up to Davis’s apartment.

Davis’s daughter found his body on the morning of Feb. 9, 2021, when she investigated why he was not responding to phone calls. She found the front door unlocked and discovered his clothed body curled in the fetal position in the bathtub. His wallet was missing.

In the early stages of the investigation, Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office detectives questioned neighbors and looked at surveillance videos to determine who went to Davis’s apartment. Someone was seen walking from Gelpi’s apartment at 1:27 a.m., and then returning to Gelpi’s apartment at 1:34 a.m., carrying a bag.

When questioned by detectives, Gelpi denied knowledge of the homicide. He initially denied ever being in Davis’s apartment. He gave detectives the name of a local homeless man as a suspect. He presented no hint of mental illness.

Detectives investigating Gelpi’s background then found two criminal matters that involved his use of knives in crime:

• On Sept. 11, 2020, Gelpi got into an altercation with two young men of Middle Eastern descent who were browsing video games at a Walmart in Kenner. Gelpi stood close to the men without wearing a mask, leading the men to ask Gelpi to step back because of their concerns about Covid-19. Gelpi then asked them about their language and struck one of the men in the head without provocation, leading to a physical altercation where Gelpi brandished a knife and began to threaten the men. One of the men pulled out his mobile device and began videotaping the encounter. Once Gelpi saw he was being recorded, he put the knife away and fled. Kenner police arrested Gelpi.
• On Nov. 8, 2013, Gelpi was in Springfield, Ohio, where he was caught shoplifting at a pharmacy store. He used a knife to cut open packaging for teeth whitening strips before pocketing them. When confronted by the loss-prevention officer, Gelpi brandished the knife, threatened to stab the man and ran out with the stolen goods. Gelpi later was convicted of felony robbery, and as such, his DNA profile was entered into a national database.

Later in February 2021, detectives got a hit from the national DNA database that linked Gelpi to Davis’s apartment. Gelpi’s DNA was under Davis’s fingernails and on the kitchen faucet he used to wash the blood from his hands. They obtained an arrest warrant and returned to the apartment building in time to find Gelpi arriving on a bicycle. He was carrying a knife.

They searched his apartment and found five tactical knives. The Sheriff’s Office’s Digital Forensic Unit searched Gelpi’s computer browser history and found searches for information about knife fighting and about stabbing people in their kidneys, hearts and lungs.

It was only after his arrest that Gelpi began asserting mental illness. He pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

At trial, Gelpi testified Wednesday that he is “the son of God,” that he was not in control of himself when he killed Davis, and that he did so because he believed that Davis was “the strongest demon in my experience.” He pointed to detectives seated in the courtroom and said they were demons. Gelpi’s attorney argued that he was insane at the time he stabbed Davis and so could not be held criminally responsible for Davis’s death.

In rebuttal, prosecutors presented evidence about Gelpi’s pretrial stint in the state mental hospital in Jackson, La., to where he was sent for the sole purpose of determining whether he was mentally competent to stand trial.

While in the hospital, Gelpi alleged there were demons present but otherwise exhibited no true signs of mental illness. The doctors concluded that Gelpi was malingering, or fabricating mental illness symptoms to achieve his needs.

A separate doctor evaluated Gelpi to determine whether he was criminally insane when he killed Davis. That doctor also concluded Gelpi is malingering and found that Gelpi’s behaviors when killing Davis and afterwards show he knew right from wrong. For instance, he waited until late at night when no one was around to kill Davis, and he cleaned up the blood afterwards to conceal his involvement in the crime. Further, he disposed of his bloody clothing and the murder weapon, which he threw in the Mississippi River.

Prior to his arrest, Gelpi was never diagnosed with or treated for a psychotic disorder. However, he had a history of such feigning disorders.

After enlisting in the Navy to avoid punishment for a criminal matter, Gelpi faked a mental illness so he could be discharged in 2004. After his arrest for killing Davis, the Sheriff’s Office’s Digital Forensic Unit discovered an email Gelpi sent to an acquaintance in which he boasted about lying to the judge overseeing the Ohio robbery case. Gelpi told the judge he had a substance abuse problem in order to get leniency, “and the judge bought it,” he told the acquaintance.

The jury that was seated on Monday returned with its unanimous verdicts at 9:15 p.m. The District Attorney’s Office did not seek the death penalty, meaning life without parole, probation or suspension of sentence is mandatory for the murder.

Gelpi also was found guilty as charged of obstruction of justice, for eliminating evidence.

Judge Frank Brindisi of the 24^th Judicial District Court is scheduled to sentence Gelpi on Wednesday (Oct. 9).

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