AFTER MANY DELAYS: PROSECUTORS TO PURSUE MANSLAUGHTER CHARGE
PINNACLE
Toni Goins knows the exact time -- it was 1:14 a.m. on Nov. 10, 2006.
That is when she found her son shot to death in woods next to a house off Baux Mountain Road.
Geoffrey Lamoreaux, 19, was shot in the head during a fight that left another man with stab wounds.
Colt Lewis Barber, 25, was charged with first-degree murder in connection with Lamoreaux's death, but he has yet to go to trial.
This month, prosecutors told Goins that Barber was going to plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter. That infuriated her. She said she has waited nearly four years to get justice for her son.
"It was a cold-hearted slap in the face when they told me it was manslaughter," she said.
The specific reasons why Barber would be offered a plea bargain are not clear. The Forsyth County district attorney, Jim O'Neill, declined to comment this week, saying that it would be inappropriate to make any statements about a pending case.
But the case is a complicated one, spanning five hours beginning the night of Nov. 9, 2006, and involving a number of people -- including friends, relatives and acquaintances -- who were in the area near where the violence took place.
Goins said that prosecutors told her that they were making a plea deal partly because of conflicting witness statements that would make the case difficult to prosecute. Already, in the part of the case dealing with the stabbing, one man pleaded guilty, another was found guilty, and a third was found not guilty.
Barber had been scheduled to enter his plea on Monday, but that hearing was postponed. It is not clear when the case will next come to court.
The majority of criminal cases are disposed of through plea agreements, said Lisa Griffin, a former federal prosecutor and a law professor at Duke University in Durham. Because trials often require a tremendous amount of resources, prosecutors have to carefully weigh a number of factors, including the strength of the case and the availability of witnesses, before deciding whether to go to trial, she said.
Although prosecutors consider the concerns of the victims and their families, in the end, they have to make the best decision based on the evidence, Griffin said.
"It's their job to make a judgment whether they are likely to prevail at trial or whether (going to trial) risks no conviction at all," she said.
The shooting of Lamoreaux stemmed from a clash on Ozark Road in the Mineral Springs neighborhood between two groups. One included Lamoreaux and his friend, Dustin McGee. The other included Barber, who was charged with shooting Lamoreaux, and Richard Happel, who was stabbed.
It's still not exactly clear what happened.
Dustin McGee and his father, Dueran McGee, were charged in the stabbing. A Forsyth County jury convicted Dustin McGee of conspiracy to commit malicious assault in a secret manner and accessory after the fact of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, inflicting serious injury. The jury acquitted Dueran McGee.
Billy Ray Hilterbrand, who was with Dustin McGee during the fight, testified at McGee's trial.
Hilterbrand said that he stabbed Happel two to three times.
Hilterbrand pleaded guilty in November 2008 to assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury. He was sentenced to three years and two months in prison.
The case has been continued several times because of motions filed in the case and scheduling conflicts. It was scheduled to be tried starting the week of Nov. 30, 2009, but was continued to this month.
A new trial date has not been set, but the prosecutor in the case, Assistant District Attorney Elisabeth Dresel, told a Forsyth Superior Court judge on Monday that issues in the case should be resolved in the next two weeks.
Goins, who filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Barber in 2008, said she wants justice for her son.
"Geoffrey, he was my sunshine," she said. "My only son. My best friend."
mhewlett@wsjournal.com
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