Still no arrest in Lockport triple homicide

The Longueville apartment on the fringe of Lockport where a mother and two daughters were killed last month is being gutted.

Blue adhesive tape marked “Evidence” dangles from the open door, and a crew tosses sheetrock out of a window and onto a piece of plywood perched on the second-story sill like a truncated slide. Each time a piece of the wall crashes into a pile on the damp, grassy courtyard, neighbors crane their necks and take a gander.

The victims’ family began removing personal items from the unit two weeks ago, after investigators reopened the home. Many of the belongings were discarded, neighbors said.

A toddler’s purple toy rests on the door’s frame. Beneath a window is a disheveled grouping of glass pillar candles adorned with religious figures, extinguished for now but lit almost every night for weeks after the tragedy.

One family has moved away from the complex, and others are preparing to do the same. Residents often sit on the courtyard swing together and think. Doors are left unlocked no more. A man in his 20s shares his bed with a gun.

In the absence of official word, there is plenty to ponder for this close-knit group of neighbors, who barbecued together, watched television together, rode out Hurricane Isaac together and now wonder together what in the hell happened in the wee hours of Nov. 4, before their friend Jacqueline Nieves and her daughters Gabriela and Izabela were found dead with stab wounds in a smoldering room on their duplex’s second story.

Police have not formally charged anyone in what they have labeled a triple-homicide investigation, but David Brown, a 34-year-old Houma man who investigators consider the sole suspect, remains in custody on unrelated charges. A Department of Probation and Parole hold prevents his release.

Lafourche Parish Sheriff Craig Webre said he believes his office has “sufficient probable cause,” including video footage and DNA evidence, to charge Brown with the murder and arson attempt.

However, the sheriff does not expect charges to be brought forth until early next year. He said because Brown is not eligible for release, investigators have not rushed to file first-degree murder charges against the suspect.

One reason patience is called for is the sheer amount of evidence that must be processed in order to build an airtight case against Brown, the sheriff said.

“Secondly, because this is a capital murder case, once a person is charged with a capital offense, there are certain procedural deadlines and timelines that become involved,” Webre added. “We don’t want to create a situation that puts an undue burden on the prosecution.”

The Jefferson Parish Forensics Center, conducting the autopsies, has not yet filed full reports on the causes of deaths or vital evidence, including some DNA, according to the sheriff.

Investigators have collected roughly 275 pieces of evidence, the sheriff said.

Husband and father Carlos Nieves Jr., the first person to report the fire at 5:30 a.m., was questioned for hours as a “person of interest” but was released, “and there is currently no evidence implicating him in the crime,” Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office spokesman Brennan Matherne said last month.

The sheriff said the first month of investigation has pointed strictly to Brown.

“Our investigation has not indicated any other involvement or participation by any other person,” Webre said.

According to three neighbors, Brown on Nov. 3 joined a small party to watch Louisiana State University and the University of Alabama play football on television at Constantine Costin’s apartment, one building down from the Nieves’ unit.

After the game, Brown, Nieves and a third man went to a bar, according to neighbors.

Webre said the companions “went their separate way” sometime after midnight.

“We speculate that David’s intention was to probably stay over with a friend who was a neighbor to the victims and during the course of the night made the decision to enter into the residence, which led to the murders,” Webre said.

‘I know she loved her baby sister’

Gabriela Nieves’ favorite colors were pink and purple.

The 7-year-old second-grader at Lockport Lower Elementary School liked math and really appreciated anyone who would take her to the park so that she could swing and slide and climb the monkey bars.

Gabriela also delighted in stimulating laughter, mostly for her sake.

“She (Gabriela) was very fun,” her aunt Lacie Gautreaux said. “She loved to joke. Oh my god she loved to play pranks. She always had a smile on her face. She would tease the other little cousins growing up, but she was so fun to be around.”

Gautreaux began dating Jacqueline’s brother six years ago, when Gabriela was a toddler.

She was able to watch her niece grow into a joking, but loving school-aged child, who, among other pranks, frequently hopped from behind doors to elicit scares.

Gabriela often drew and colored pictures of her mom, dad and baby sister.

Gautreaux wasn’t able to talk long before she started crying in front of her 3-year-old child, and she asked to be excused. Other family members, those in blood relation to Carlos Jr. and Jacqueline, have been reluctant to talk to media.

Gabriela, who dressed as Super Woman for Halloween, was “sweet, shy, beautiful and quiet,” said teacher Amber Champagne, who remembered “her smile and bright eyes.”

Champagne, who called the tragedy the most-difficult thing she’s dealt with in her 22 years at the school, said Gabriela’s classmates were devastated when they learned what happened the following day.

“Several broke down crying, and we took them out individually to talk with the different counselors on campus,” Champagne said. “She was loved by all her peers. … I don’t think she had missed a minute of the school year up to this point. Just having her empty desk in the classroom …”

The counselors also brought Play Dough into the classroom to help take the children’s minds off their lost classmate. They were shown how to make rose petals and other creations to distract from the tragedy, but it wasn’t long before the line was blurred.

“Then they started making things for Gabriela and they wanted to put it on her desk,” Champagne said. “Once the children got the hang of it, several of them started making Play Dough creations that look like roses. All of that is on her desk.”

The children released two dozen balloons – half pink and half purple – in the courtyard and used their thumbprints to put the finishing touches to a remembrance tree painted by a student’s parent cast against a pink canvas.

“I know she (Gabriela) loved her baby sister,” the teacher said. “She talked about Izabela a lot. That was probably her favorite playmate.”

At 20 months old, Izabela didn’t get to realize her personality’s potential, but the foundation was being set. The toddler liked to tail her sister and other neighborhood children when she was not hanging out with the adults, and she is also remembered for her glowing smile.

One neighbor fondly remembers the way “Izzy” would ride her plastic pink-wheeled bicycle across the courtyard until she found a suitable place to park. Then, she would leave the toy and run across the yard to satisfy whatever request was on her mind.

“I remember the night we put Halloween decorations up, she came over here and was just staring at them,” the neighbor Tammy Markley said. “She was a happy, happy, happy baby, always had a smile.”

Gautreaux remembers Jacqueline and her family being receptive of her when she began dating Jacqueline’s brother.

“She was very quick on her feet,” Gautreaux said of her sister-in-law. “She always had something funny to say. She held the family together.

“It was a joy to be around them.”

All three victims had at least one stab wound, according to deputies. The fire caused interior smoke damage, but it didn’t materialize to engulf the building in flames, and its effects on the family are currently unknown.

Suspect in custody arrested more than 30 times

While Brown has not been formally fingered as a murderer or arsonist, the sheriff’s office has maintained for a month that he was involved. The theory has crystalized over time, and the sheriff isn’t mincing his words as they pertain to Brown.

“Some time in the early morning hours of the day in question, it’s believed that he gained access into the apartment, went up and committed the homicides and then left and returned to set the place on fire, and then would have left after that,” Webre said, adding that there may have been as many as three hours separating the two events.

Brown was arrested Sunday, Nov. 4 and charged in an unrelated crime, one that also allegedly took place in the Longueville complex on the night Jacqueline and her children were killed.

Deputies levied Brown with unauthorized entry into an inhabited dwelling and simple battery. The 6-foot, 2-inch suspect, after a month on suicide watch at the Lafourche Parish Detention Center, was arraigned on a charge of aggravated burglary last week. He pleaded not guilty.

The Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office, leading the investigation, has thus far guarded specific details of the investigation, citing the complexity and necessary delicacy of its ongoing inquiry.

Leroy Hebert shared a building with the Nieves family. On the same night Hebert’s neighbors were murdered, Brown walked into Hebert’s unlocked apartment, adjacent to the Nieves’, and touched his wife, who was sleeping on the living room couch, Hebert said.

“He (Brown) reached around the lamp and just touched her,” the 48-year-old said. “She didn’t explain (where he touched her), she just said she cursed him out. She said ‘What the Eff are you doing here?’ He just took off.”

Webre corroborated the account but could not say the nature of the touch.

“Essentially it was, a battery is an offensive touching, and I think what he did is he went to where one of the occupants was sleeping and either groped them or shook them,” Webre said.

Hebert said he first saw Brown on Nov. 3. Brown watched the football game at Costin’s house and went to the bar afterward with a small group, including Carlos Nieves Jr., according to Costin, who said he did not go with them.

It was sometime after Brown was at the bar that the suspect allegedly entered Hebert’s house, Hebert said.

Brown has been arrested more than 30 times since Nov. 7, 1994 – less than a month after his 17th birthday – when he was charged with simple battery in Terrebonne Parish, according to state Department of Corrections records.

Some of the charges include stiff-arming child-support and court-date obligations. But roughly half are violent in nature, mostly battery charges.

On April 30, 1996, Brown was arrested for attempted second-degree murder.

Court minutes stemming from this charge show that Brown pleaded guilty to aggravated battery, a lesser charge for which he received an 18-month prison sentence with credit for time served, 18 months of probation, community service and a $400 fine.

The case file was not available at the Terrebonne Parish Clerk of Court’s Office.

The guilty plea was April 7, 1997, and Brown has been incarcerated, out on parole or on probation since that day.

A theft of goods charge preceded a revocation of his probation in October of last year, and he was imprisoned from Dec. 1, 2011 until Feb. 2, when he was cleared for the Terrebonne Parish Work Release Program.

Brown was granted parole from that program on Oct. 26, one week before the triple homicide in Lockport, according to DOC records.

“He’s a dangerous predator who will never be able to live outside of an institutional setting,” Webre said.

Brown, of 115 Marcel Lane, Houma, was working as a welder for Bollinger Shipyards and living in a company bunkhouse, according to his case file.

Costin works at Bollinger, and Nieves was a pipefitter for the Lockport shipyard company until he was fired earlier this year, Costin said. A Bollinger spokesman could not address employment history because of the ongoing investigation.

Neighborhood shrouded in loss, fear and shock

Tammy Markley awoke to a ghoulish sight Nov. 4.

After sleeping in her living room for only one hour, the hubbub outside prompted her to open the door and peer outside.

“When I came to the door, they were putting the blue tarp up and I seen the body bags that were laying there,” she said.

Markley lives with her boyfriend in an otherwise empty nest. They were aware of the football-watch party the day before and had seen David Brown around the neighborhood one other time, on Halloween.

They didn’t think anything was out of the ordinary, even as they went to sleep about a half-hour before the fire was first reported. Still, fueled by neighborhood rumors, she can’t stop thinking about the timeline even as it hurts to do so.

“There are so many pieces that is not fitting together, and it’s like, fill in the blanks, but you really don’t want to know details,” the 49-year-old said.

A deep sense of loss wrapped in shock and fear has befallen Longueville residents in the month since the tragedy. Holiday expenses and leases have stopped some from leaving now, but the once-tranquil courtyard isn’t held in the same esteem it once was.

“We’re all neighbors that look out for one another, so nobody was really scared here because everybody knew everybody,” Markley said. “It changed a lot, and now I find every time someone comes in, we’re asking, ‘Who’s that?’ … It affected everybody.”

Constantine Costin, after being interviewed by police that Sunday and reporters that Monday, appeared to faint during a spontaneous prayer session on Nov. 5. Paramedics treated Costin, who recovered.

Costin had told the Tri-Parish Times that he took out a cash-advance loan to help the Nieves pay their rent earlier this year and that his door was always open to the family. He said he wired his cable service into one of the family’s bedrooms, where Jacqueline, Gabriela and Izabela would gather to watch cartoons.

He recalled being awakened Nov. 4 by Carlos Nieves’ frantic pounding on his door. After Carlos Nieves, wearing no shirt and blue jeans, told him about the fire, Costin tried to ascend the staircase, but the smoke was too thick. First responders arrived by the time he walked out of the unit, Costin said.

The neighbor and close friend of Carlos and Jacqueline Nieves has since moved away from the Elliot Drive apartment complex.

Leroy Hebert, the unwitting linchpin to Brown’s arrest, said the tragedy has inflicted profound wounds on his family, amplified by the suspect’s appearance in his living room. They, too, plan to flee from Longueville.

“My little girl (who is 11), she wouldn’t come home for the first two weeks,” Hebert said. “She stayed at a friend’s house. She’d come and get her clothes and stuff. We finally got her back home. My stepson (who is 22), he sleeps with a gun in his bed now. It’s, like, nothing’s the same. It’s not home.”

While the crime and proximity to the only named suspect have facilitated fearful nights, his close bond with the Nieves family has prompted heartache.

“Jacqueline, we lived in the same subdivision,” Hebert said. “I remember when she was a little kid, when her mom used to push her around in a buggy.”

He has known Carlos for about 10 years. Gabriela was his stepdaughter’s playmate, and Izabela spent a lot of time with Hebert and his wife.

“Those two girls were special,” he said. “It’s like a nightmare. … We sit outside, and it’s hard not to even see them over there.“

Izabela, Carlos, Jacqueline and Gabriela Nieves are pictured in this photograph provided by a family member.

COURTESY PHOTO