Two murder suspects to be tried together

Published 12:00 am Thursday, April 21, 2011

FERRIDAY — Two of the three men charged in connection with the 2010 murder of a 25-year-old Ferriday man will be tried together at the Seventh Judicial District Courthouse in Vidalia.

Judge Kathy Johnson ruled Wednesday that Bryant Lakeith Bethley, 126 Lee Tyler Road, and Daniel Durans Butler, 359 Doty Road, will both face trial together.

District Attorney Brad Burget requested the consolidated trial because both Bethley and Butler’s testimonies matched and were void of any accusations of blame toward the other.

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“There are no statements implicating each other, and that is the distinction,” Burget said. “This is a very efficient way to try this case.”

Attorneys for both men requested that the judge try the men separately, citing the men’s constitutional right to a trial by jury, but Burget noted that this does not apply in this case.

“They have the right to a trial, not a separate trial,” he said.

The third man involved in the case, Reginald Butler, 359 Doty Road, will face trial alone, because he was the alleged driver of the vehicle that fled the scene after the incident and not involved in the shooting.

A statement from a Ferriday Police Department officer regarding possible cocaine found in the victim’s car was also added as evidence for the case.

A status hearing for all three men is set for 10 a.m. May 6.

According to the DA’s office, a trial for all three men was scheduled for May 16, but that date will be subject to change depending on the May 6 status hearing.

Daniel Butler, Reginald Butler and Bethley were all charged with second-degree murder at their arraignment June 2, while Daniel Butler and Andreas Marquez Cauley, the fourth suspect in the case, were indicted on charges of obstruction of justice.

All four men were arrested in connection to the shooting on the 800 block of Alabama Avenue that left 25-year-old Green dead.

Green was sitting in a parked SUV with three other people at the time of the shooting. While he was shot repeatedly in the head and torso with a .223-caliber rifle, the others in the vehicle were uninjured.

Bethley is believed to be the gunman in the incident, and Daniel Butler and Reginald Butler — who are brothers — were allegedly in the vehicle in which Bethley fled the scene, according to Ferriday Police investigators.

Cauley allegedly threw the gun used in the killing into Black Bayou, but agents with the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries later recovered it.