Claudette Olivier / Church Point News
The trial of the man charged with the 2016 murder of Church Point native Bethany Walters is set to begin Sept. 28.
Michael Anthony Guillory, 32, of Church Point, was scheduled to go to trial on April 28, which would have been the young woman’s 26th birthday, but the trial was postponed due to COVID-19 pandemic.
The trial will begin at 9 a.m. in the St. Landry Parish Courthouse in Opelousas in front of 27th Judicial District Judge Jason Meche. The trial is scheduled to conclude on Oct. 2.
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, Michael Guillory’s father, giving chest compressions to a white female, later identified as Walters, who was on the floor of a bathroom connected to one of the home’s bedrooms.
Walters had suffered a gunshot wound to the head.
According to the case property report from the St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s Office Evidence Manager, the following items were among the evidence collected at the scene: a 9 mm Beretta handgun recovered near the victim’s body; six spent 9 mm shell casings (one in the bathroom, one on a bedroom floor, three in a trash can on the porch of the home and one in another room of the home); a 9 mm magazine with six cartridges plus one removed from the chamber; one empty 9 mm magazine; and one non-spent 9 mm round.
Gunshot residue test kits were also collected on Walters and Martin Guillory. Ten grams of an unidentified substance called Apollo 13 were also recovered at the scene.
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 for unauthorized use of a movable and was jailed on that charge as well as a hold for probation and parole for another, unspecified incident, according to the report.
In a May 29, 2019, Church Point News story, Lafayette attorney John Tilly, who was hired by the victim’s mother, Cindy Walters, to help her find out what exactly happened to her daughter in her final moments, said that following the incident, Michael Guillory ran across the street to his parents’ home, told them Walters had shot herself and then fled in Walters’ car.
Tilly said Guillory was apprehended by authorities in Pointe Coupee Parish several hours later.
“Guillory fled the scene, crashed the vehicle in a nearby neighborhood and stole another vehicle in the area,” Tilly said. “Authorities in Point Coupee Parish found Guillory in the stolen vehicle in his boxer shorts, what he had been wearing the night before. Guillory gave them a false name, but they determined it was him.”
In the same May 2019 Church Point News story, St. Landry Parish Sheriff Bobby Guidroz explained that during the initial investigation, the sheriff’s office collected the evidence in the case, but the district attorney could not convene a grand jury without an arrest.
Guidroz said the sheriff’s office suspected Guillory in the shooting, but the department needed more evidence to make an arrest. Guidroz said once Traylor’s findings were presented to a local judge, the judge signed the arrest warrant.
Guillory was charged with second-degree murder on May 14, 2019. He was indicted on the 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.
During a bond hearing on Oct. 30, 2019, Meche denied bond for Guillory, who has been incarcerated in the St. Landry Parish Jail since Nov. 1 of last year.
The case will be prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Alisa Gothreaux. Guillory’s lawyer is Kenneth M. Willis with Willis Law Firm.
Among those who have been subpoenaed for the trial are Martin Guillory, of Church Point, the suspect’s father. Besides Walters, Martin Guillory was the only other person inside the home when the deputies arrived at the scene on the night of Jan. 25, 2016.
Dr. James Traylor, associate professor of pathology and medical director of Autopsy and Forensic Services at Louisiana State University at Shreveport, will also be at the trial. Traylor was hired by the victim’s mother to determine Walters’ cause of death.
All available evidence in the case was turned over to Traylor, and Traylor recommended further testing on the firearm connected to Walters’ death. After receiving the results of the testing, it was Traylor’s opinion that Walters’ death was a homicide.
A doctor from the East Baton Rouge Coroner’s Office, several area law enforcement officers and a detective from the St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s Office were also subpoenaed for the trial.