3rd defendant convicted of murdering Harvey handyman

A Port Allen man was convicted Friday for his role in the death of a Harveyhandyman who was beaten and shot by intrudersseeking $12,000 in his house. Terrol "Nasty" Cole, 33, faces spending the rest of his life in prison for second-degree murder.

A Jefferson Parish jury of seven women and five men deliberated about three hours to find Cole participated in the home invasion and armed robbery that led to the death of Donald Bates. Judge Michael Mentz of the 24th Judicial District Court will sentence Cole on Sept. 4.

Bates, 53, was killed on the morning of Jan. 29, 2010, inside his Eastmere Drive home in the Woodmere subdivision. He was beaten with a baseball bat and shot five times. His wife returned home from her job hours later and found the front door was ajar and blood on the floor and walls. Deputies found Bates' body on the floor of a bathroom.

Sheriff's Office detectives solved the case by tracking mobile phone records and using information derived from phone towers to pinpoint the suspects' locations. Bates' phone records showed Rhonda Skinnerwas the last person to whom he spoke, detective Solomon Burke testified.

Arrested in a West Bank motel with her boyfriend, Skinner eventually admitted she knew about Bates' cash and that she enlisted Cole and Darnell Turnerto get it, Burke testified. Two other witnesses, Katrice Baptist and Tanisha Stamps, testified that they dropped Cole and Turner off on Post Drive, down Eastmere from Bates' home.

Later that morning, Baptist testified, Cole and Turner called her to pick them up from a house on Marine Street in Marrero. That was just blocks from where deputies found Bates' partially burned work van the day after the homicide. The van had been stolen during the home invasion, authorities said.

Cole, Turner, Stamps and Baptist were arrested a week later at a hotel in Little Rock, Ark., prosecutors Clif Milner and Michael Morales said. Stamps testified that Cole admitted to her, as they showered together, that Bates resisted the robbery and so was killed.

Skinner pleaded guilty in 2012 and agreed to testify against Turner and Cole in exchange for averting a murder charge. She lived up to that agreement Wednesday, when she testified that Cole admitted to her that they killed Bates.

When he was arrested in Arkansas, Cole told detectives he was in Baton Rouge at the time that Bates was killed. His phone records showed otherwise, Morales said. "The cell phone records prove conclusively he was not in Baton Rouge the day of the murder," the prosecutor argued Friday.

Cole's attorneys, Bobby Hjortsberg and Jason Williams, argued that Skinner was a liar who blamed the crime on their client and Turner to protect her boyfriend, Kenneth Devore. Williams described Devore as "the real culprit."

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3rd defendant convicted of murdering Harvey handyman