Two young defendants who were 15 and 17 when a drug deal robbery caused a murder have learned a very hard lesson.
On Tuesday of last week, Aaron Little, Jr., now age 19 and Willie Cherry, Jr., now age 17, were sentenced by District Judge Ellen Creel of Franklinton to life in prison without the benefit of probation, parole or suspension of sentence on their second-degree murder convictions and 50 years in prison on their armed robbery convictions.
The sentences are to run concurrent with each other, giving each of the two young men a total of life plus 50 years in prison. The defendents were juveniles at the time of the murder but the decision was made to try them as adults, resulting in the sentences of life in prison.
The defendants were earlier found guilty by a Washington Parish jury on June 19th for the murder and robbery of Larmond “LG” Godbold.
The robbery and homicide occurred in February of 2021. The Bogalusa Police Department was first notified when Our Lady of the Angel’s Hospital reported there was a gunshot victim in the emergency room. By the time officers arrived, the victim had died.
The victim’s girlfriend, who was at the hospital with the victim, told investigators what she had witnessed.
She stated that she drove the victim to a house to meet an acquaintance who wished to purchase marijuana from the victim. After the transaction with the acquaintance was completed in the driveway of a residence, three males wearing dark hoodies exited the house and approached the car. The victim’s girlfriend said that a gun was held up to the victim’s head and one of the attackers grabbed a bag of marijuana from the victim’s lap. She tried to hit the gun away from the victim’s head and put the car in reverse to drive away, but a single shot fired and hit the victim in the chest. She then drove straight to the hospital.
Police investigated the case and learned the identities of the suspects: Aaron Little Jr., known as “JR,” Willie Cherry, known as “Wooski,” and a third perpetrator who cooperated with the prosecution. The three perpetrators were tracked to Slidell at a gas station and taken into custody. Traveling in two different cars at the time of their arrest, the three perpetrators were preparing to travel to Illinois, where they had lived until a few months before the murder. All three perpetrators had weapons at the time of the crime, and all three weapons were recovered from a vehicle in which Little was traveling. A firearms examination determined one of the three handguns to be the murder weapon.
The third suspect cooperated with the District Attorney’s Office, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and armed robbery, received a sentence of forty years in prison, and testified against the other two defendants at trial.
