Ankle monitoring company owner and employee ordered to face negligent homicide trial in woman’s murder

The owner and an employee of an ankle monitoring company will face negligent homicide charges in the death of a woman whose husband murdered her and then killed himself all while free on bail and wearing an ankle monitor, the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled.

The Wednesday ruling stems from the murder of Peggy Rayburn, 70, by her estranged husband, Marshall Rayburn, 63, in September 2021.

“The State alleges that Marshall Rayburn, while wearing a court ordered electronic ankle monitor, repeatedly breached the perimeter of the residence of Peggy Rayburn, from whom he had been ordered to stay away,” the ruling said. “Ultimately, Marshall Rayburn shot and killed Peggy Rayburn, and attempted to kill her neighbor Lanie Cathey. The State further alleges that the electronic monitoring company detected Marshall Rayburn’s perimeter breaches stalking his estranged wife but failed to inform law enforcement of them.”

District Attorney Samuel D’Aquilla told local Fox affiliate WVUE that the system failed the victim.

“We’re doing everything we can to hold somebody accountable for the death of their mother,” he said, the outlet reported.

The murder happened on the night of Sept. 20, 2021, when Marshall Rayburn shot his wife in her home in St. Francisville, more than 100 miles northwest of New Orleans, before turning the gun on himself. Cathey, a neighbor who had been trying to help, was also shot but survived. Marshall Rayburn had been released from custody on $100,000 bail, an ankle monitor and a stay-away order about three weeks earlier after his arrest for the rape of his wife, prosecutors said. Peggy Rayburn had recently learned that Marshall Rayburn had secretly drugged and raped her, the Magnolia State Live reported.

On the night of the murder, officials said he wrapped his ankle monitor in foil and duct tape so the signal wouldn’t go off, The Advocate reported. Authorities alleged the monitoring company had known that Marshall Rayburn repeatedly violated the perimeter but didn’t alert the police.

“He blatantly broke the rules,” the victim’s son, Jared Crow, told Gray Television’s InvestigateTV. “He tested them. He would ride by a certain area just to see if it would trigger, and the GPS data shows that.”

A year after the murder, a rare negligent homicide charge was lodged against the owner of the Mississippi-based American Electronic Monitoring and an employee, with prosecutors saying they should have notified police when Marshall Rayburn’s ankle monitor went off. Marshall Rayburn had violated the restraining as recently as two days before the killing but faced no consequences, The Advocate reported.

The owner and employee of the monitoring company appealed their case and won, with the appeals court saying they could not be charged due to lack of evidence. This week’s Louisiana State Supreme Court’s ruling reversed the lower court’s finding.

A representative from American Electronic Monitoring didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Law&Crime.

The news comes as a new law in Louisiana aims to hold monitoring companies accountable with a penalty of fines and imprisonment for a provider that intentionally withholds or intentionally fails to report timely information about a monitored offender.

The law will take effect in January 2025.

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