A Jefferson Parish jury deliberated for 1 ½ hours on Friday night (June 13) in finding Sean Barrette guilty of shooting at the occupants of four vehicles traveling on East Jefferson roadways during a 2-week period in June 2019, killing three men.
Barrette, 28, of Metairie, is guilty as charged of two counts of first-degree murder, one count of second-degree murder, two counts of attempted first-degree murder, one count of attempted second-degree murder and two counts of aggravated criminal damage to property.
He pleaded not guilty to the charges, as well as not guilty by reason of insanity. In addition to finding him guilty, jurors rejected his attorneys’ argument that a mental illness left him unable to distinguish right from wrong during his crime spree.
“He wanted to be remembered for being a serial killer,” Assistant District Attorney Zach Grate told jurors in closing argument Friday evening. “He doesn’t think he’s going to be convicted for it.”
He urged jurors to never mention Barrette’s name again after leaving the courtroom. Notoriety, Assistant DA Grate said, “is the only thing he’s cared about from the start.”
Driving his family’s tan 2005 Nissan Pathfinder sports-utility vehicle, Barrette stalked motorists and all of his victims were strangers. He fired numerous bullets at them using the Smith & Wesson .40-caliber semiautomatic pistol that he purchased from a Metairie sporting goods store less than one month before he used it to shoot at motorists.
It was the ballistics evidence that he left behind, from the bullets recovered at autopsy, to those found in the victims’ vehicles, to the cartridge casings left at crime scenes, that helped investigators identify Barrette as the gunman. He also dropped his cell phone at one of the murder scenes.
Aided by its SWAT team, Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office detectives arrested Barrette at his home on June 18, 2019, just hours after he killed two men. As SWAT deputies converged on his home, Barrette hid the .40-caliber pistol and a bullet magazine in a clothes hamper in his bedroom. In his vehicle, the detectives found two .40-caliber cartridge casings.
“Every single one of these incidents link up, because the same exact gun was fired at every one of these scenes,” Assistant District Attorney Kristen Landrieu told jurors in opening statements Wednesday. “That gun belongs to Sean Barrette.”
Here’s the timeline of Barrette’s crime spree:
June 5, 2019, 11:19 p.m.
A 37-year-old Harvey man and a 34-year-old Mississippi woman were traveling on Airline Drive near Elm Street in his 1998 Mercury Grand Marquis when they noticed they were being followed by the driver of a light color SUV.
The man drove onto westbound Interstate 10 and then exited at Loyola Drive in Kenner. The SUV driver continued to follow them. The gunman began shooting at them in the 3100 block of Loyola, possibly wearing a mask. “Somebody was trying to kill us,” the woman testified, her voice wavering above a cry.
Several nearby residents called 911 to report hearing gunfire. The driver made a U-turn and raced back to I-10 west to escape. As the man drove north on Interstate 55, the woman called 911, reporting that someone had been shooting at them in Kenner and that their tires were blown out by bullets.
Fearing the shooter was still following him, the man exited I-55 at Manchac and hid underneath the elevated interstate. Louisiana State Police responded and notified the Kenner Police Department. His car had been struck by eight bullets, including the rear window and bumper. The victims returned to Kenner, to where the car was towed. Officers found .40-caliber cartridge casings near the shooting scene the following day.
The Sheriff’s Office Crime Lab entered ballistics data from the cartridge casings into the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosive’s National Integrated Ballistics Information Network. NIBIN, as the network is known, helps detectives determine whether firearms are used in multiple crimes.
For shooting at the couple, Barrette was convicted of two counts of attempted first-degree murder and one count of aggravated criminal damage to property.
June 17, 8:15 p.m.
A 24-year-old Algiers woman who had dined with friends at a Veterans Memorial Boulevard restaurant in Metairie was returning home. She merged onto I-10 from Causeway Boulevard and was driving eastbound near the Orleans Parish line when she heard popping on her car. Thinking it was hail from the storm she was driving through, she called her father on her cell phone and continued to the West Bank.
Once at home, she and her father inspected the car and determined the rear window was shot, and the car’s rear end had bullet holes. She returned to Metairie and filed a complaint at the Sheriff’s Office’s 1st District station.
Her father later took the car to a body shop for repairs from the gunfire. A service technician found that bullets not only pierced the car’s body, but they had also lodged in the spare tire in the trunk.
The Sheriff’s Office gathered the ballistics material from the car. The bullets were linked to the Kenner shooting.
For shooting at the Algiers woman, Barrette was convicted of attempted second-degree murder and aggravated criminal damage to property.
June 17, 2019, 11:12 p.m.
Isia Franciso Cadalzo-Sevilla, 22, of Metairie, was driving a 2014 Chevrolet Cruze east on West Metairie Avenue when Barrette shot at him from his SUV. The car Cadalzo-Sevilla was driving left the roadway and struck a tree at Henry Landry Drive.
His face hidden behind a mask, Barrette stopped in the roadway, got out of his SUV, reloaded his pistol and shot Cadalzo-Sevilla – and in the process, he dropped his cell phone. Caldalzo-Sevilla suffered 12 gunshot wounds and later died at a hospital.
An expert in crime scene reconstruction testified that Barrette’s first gunshots, fired from within his SUV, likely led Cadalzo-Sevilla to drive off the roadway and into the tree.
While at the homicide scene, detectives heard music rising from the West Metairie drainage canal bank. It was the cell phone. The Sheriff’s Office’s Digital Forensic Unit later determined that the mobile device belonged to Barrette.
The Digital Forensic Unit investigators also discovered that in the early morning of June 17, Barrette made an entry in his cell phone memo app: “June 17-grimest day of 2019.”
The ballistics data gathered by the Sheriff’s Office Crime Lab was entered in the NIBIN database, with the results linking Barrette’s pistol to this shooting.
For killing Caldalzo-Sevilla, Barrette was convicted of second-degree murder.
June 18, 2019, 4:16 p.m.
Manuel Caronia, 45, of Metairie, and Nicky Robeau, 57, of Harahan, were traveling in a 2008 Chevrolet Escalade east in the 8600 block of West Metairie Avenue when Barrette. drove alongside them. Caronia was driving.
Barrette extended his pistol out of his passenger’s window and began shooting. A witness frantically called 911, reporting that the SUV driver was shooting at another vehicle.
Deputies found the Escalade stopped in the eastbound lanes, its driver’s side riddled with bullet holes. Both Caronia and Robeau were shot twice and died at the scene.
Ballistics data the Sheriff’s Office Crime Lab obtained from a bullet removed from Caronia’s body was entered in the NIBIN database. That bullet was fired by Barrette’s .40-caliber pistol, investigators determined.
For killing Caronia and Robeau, Barrette was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder.
Insanity Defense
At trial, Barrette’s attorneys argued that he has been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and twice involuntarily committed for mental illness before his crime spree. The attorneys suggested that his behavioral changes, which his family noticed later in his life, could be rooted in the blows to his head he experienced playing football in high school and at the handful of colleges he attended.
To find Barrette not guilty by reason of insanity, the jury first had to find that he has a mental disease or defect, and second, that the disease or defect hindered his ability to determine right from wrong.
In rebuttal, the prosecution provided the testimony of Dr. Gina Manguno-Mire, a forensic psychologist. She found that Barrette has mental illness, but not a qualifying mental disease or defect as required under state law.
“It was more along the lines of a serious personality disorder and a substance abuse disorder,” Dr. Manguno-Mire testified Friday. “Neither of those things I diagnosed Mr. Barrette with would interfere with his ability to determine that what he was doing was wrong.”
As part of her evaluation, Dr. Manguno-Mire reviewed numerous records related to his mental health. These include “progress notes” written by staffers who interacted with Barrette during his pre-trial commitment at the Eastern Louisiana Mental Health System hospital in East Feliciana Parish. Jurors were shown the notes.
While there, Barrette indicated he was aware that what he did was wrong but would game the criminal justice system so he could be released. On one occasion, a staffer noted a discussion with Barrette during which he said he would intentionally fail a mental evaluation test “so I can get NGBRI” (not guilty by reason of insanity). He said he would be sent to a group home “and then home.”
“I know that killing those people was wrong but I’m to [sic] young to go to prison. I wouldn’t make it,” the hospital staffer quoted Barrette as saying.
Dr. Manguno-Mire discounted the two involuntary commitments in 2018 and 2019 and highlighted that most of the information contained in the records from those hospital stays were from statements made by Barrette’s family members and not from symptoms observed by medical professionals.
“Not one, and I mean one, psychotic symptom was ever noted by any professional observing Barrette. Not a lone, solitary one,” Assistant DA Grate told jurors.
To help her reach her conclusions that Barrette knew right from wrong, Dr. Manguno-Mire looked at evidence of his behavior at the time of his crime spree.
During the period of the shootings, his family noted nothing was amiss. He fled the scenes of the crimes. After the Kenner shooting, he used back streets to return to his home instead of using I-10 to avoid being seen. He kept his crimes quiet, returning to his home afterward as though nothing had happened. On the day he killed the two men, he chatted with his sister about his new hair style.
On the night of his arrest, Barrette spent almost two hours in an interview room at the Sheriff’s Office. He was alone for most of that time in that room, which was equipped with video cameras. He exhibited no signs of psychosis, Dr. Manguno-Mire noted after watching the video recording.
“He was calm,” Dr. Manguno-Mire testified. “He was seated throughout the entire time he was in the room. He was well-dressed. He was well-groomed. … During that time, he engaged in no bizarre behavior.”
The jury that was seated on Wednesday returned with its verdicts at 9:30 p.m.
Judge Jacqueline Maloney of the 24th Judicial District Court set sentencing for Wednesday (June 18).
Assistant District Attorneys Zach Grate and Kristen Landrieu prosecuted the case.