Claudette Olivier / Church Point News
The trial of Michael Anthony Guillory, charged with second-degree murder in the 2016 shooting death of a Church Point woman, has been reset for Dec. 7-11.
This is the second time the trial has been reset. The trial was originally set to begin April 28, which would have been the victim’s 26th birthday. The trial was then postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and reset for Sept. 28.
On Sept. 15, a motion to continue was filed by Assistant District Attorney Alisa Gothreaux, prosecutor in the case, and the motion was granted during a Motion to Continue hearing on Sept. 16.
During the hearing, the court heard an oral motion for reconsideration of bond, and the court took the motion under advisement. During a bond hearing on Oct. 30, 2019, 27th Judicial District Judge Jason Meche denied bond for Guillory, and as of Oct. 20, 2020, no bond had been set.
Guillory has been incarcerated in the St. Landry Parish Jail since Nov. 1 of last year. In the minutes from the Motion to Continue hearing, it was noted that the defense’s counsel, Kenneth M. Willis with Willis Law Firm, objected to the continuance.
The motion to continue listed several reasons to continue the trial including an opinion provided by an expert for the defense, new technology that may allow access to the cell phones of both the victim and the defendant, as well as a tablet collected at the scene, and the issue of a material witness not being able to be present for the previously scheduled trial dates of Sept. 28-Oct. 2.
The motion also cited COVID-19 concerns as a reason for the motion to continue.
Jury selection for the trial will be Dec. 3-4. The trial is set to be heard in the St. Landry Parish Courthouse in Opelousas in front of Judge Meche.
More than 25 people have been subpoenaed to testify at the trial. Those individuals include Martin Guillory, defendant Michael Guillory’s father, who was at the residence where the shooting occurred when deputies from the St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s Office arrived the scene, and Dr. James Traylor, associate professor of pathology and medical director of Autopsy and Forensic Services at Louisiana State University at Shreveport, who was hired by the victim’s mother to determine the victim’s cause of death.
Others subpoenaed include several individuals from the St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s Office, the St. Landry Parish Coroner’s Office, the Acadiana Crime Lab, the St. Tammany Parish Crime Lab and members of other law enforcement agencies in the region, including the Henderson, Leonvillle, Lafayette and Livonia police departments and the Lafeyette Parish Sheriff’s Department.
On May 14, 2019, Guillory, 32, of Church Point, was charged with second-degree murder in the death of Bethany Walters.
On the night of Jan. 25, 2016, deputies with the St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s Office were dispatched to a home in the 1400 block of Prudence Highway near Church Point in reference to a subject possibly shooting herself.
When deputies arrived at the home, which Walters shared with Guillory, they observed a black male, later identified as Martin Guillory, administering chest compressions to a white female, later identified as Walters. The victim was on the floor of a bathroom connected to one of the home’s bedrooms. She had suffered a gunshot wound to the head.
According to a Eunice News report from February 2016, Capt. Clay Higgins, former public information officer for the St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s Office, said, “This is a death with suspicious circumstances. It’s potentially a homicide, but it could still turn out to be a suicide.”
Walters’ death was originally reported as a suicide, but investigators were waiting on laboratory tests before making a final ruling, Higgins said in the report.
Higgins said Guillory, who was 27 years old at the time, was named as a person of interest in the case.
Guillory was arrested Jan. 27, 2016, for unauthorized use of a movable and was jailed on that charge as well as a hold for probation and parole in connection with another, unspecified incident, according to the report.
The victim’s mother, Cindy Walters, later hired an attorney to help find out what happened to her daughter in her final moments. All available evidence in the case was then turned over to Traylor, and Traylor recommended further testing of the firearm connected to Walters’ death. After receiving the results of the testing, it was Traylor’s opinion that Walters’ death had been a homicide.
In a May 2019 Church Point News story, St. Landry Parish Sheriff Bobby Guidroz said that once Traylor’s findings were presented, a local judge signed the arrest warrant.
Guillory was indicted on the second-degree murder charge on July 18, 2019. He entered a plea of not guilty during his Sept. 26, 2019, arraignment before Judge Meche. At the time, Guillory was serving out a sentence on felon in possession of a firearm and unauthorized use of a moveable charges related to the 2016 incident.