A 24-year-old Sulphur man will spend the rest of his life behind bars for fatally shooting a man who he believed had taken his drill and truck keys.
Judge Robert Wyatt sentenced Erron E. Fontenot on Friday to life in prison for his second-degree murder conviction.
It took jurors less than a half-hour in May to convict Fontenot in the fatal 2023 shooting of James Barrilleaux.
Fontenot shot Barrilleaux in the head at close-range as he sat on the porch of Fontenot’s mother’s home.
During the trial, Calcasieu Parish Sheriff’s Office Det. Julius Frazier showed jurors Fontenot’s taped confession. In the video, Fontenot said he went through the back door of his mother’s Sherry Street house and to the front porch where Barrilleaux was sitting in a chair. He said he had a German naval pistol on him and that Barrilleaux saw him coming but remained seated. Fontenot said he walked through the front door threshold, turned, shot Barrilleaux in the head and kept walking.
He said Barrilleaux was making “snoring” sounds as he left.
In the video confession, Fontenot said he knew he was going to kill Barrilleaux that day and before he did he dressed in a yellow sweatshirt, covered with a white Tyvek suit. He also wore red baseball gloves. After the shooting, he lit his backyard fire pit and burned the clothing.
Fontenot said he had allowed Barrilleaux’s dog to sleep at his mother’s house for one day while Barrilleaux slept in a tent in the yard. He said Barrilleaux stayed longer than he was supposed to and then things “came up missing.”
The shooting occurred at around 4 a.m. on Aug. 1, 2023, and Fontenot was captured by 10 a.m. the same day.
Fontenot was eventually captured hiding underneath a mobile home behind vinyl siding a few doors down from where Barrilleaux was shot.
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