A Louisiana mom was shot dead by hitmen whom her accused-rapist brother had hired to kill her daughter — pretending to be the target to save her child’s life, officials said.
Brittany Cormier, 34, was found shot to death in her Montegut home on Jan. 13 along with a 37-year-old neighbor, Hope Nettleton, who had been visiting her at the time, Terrebonne Parish Sheriff Timothy Soignet said.
Investigators quickly focused on Cormier’s brother Beaux Cormier, 35, a convicted sex offender accused of raping his niece, the sheriff said.
They have accused him of hiring two friends to kill the girl — even helping carry out surveillance as he joined them on the first planned mission, which was aborted.
When the killers struck on Jan. 13, Brittany Cormier pretended to be their target — as her daughter and stepdaughter hid in a closet, the sheriff told the Advocate.
“Brittany Cormier was murdered as a result of telling the shooter she was in fact the rape victim, likely saving the life of the actual rape victim,” Soignet said in a release.
Nettleton was shot dead while trying to fight off the gunmen, he said.
Samantha LeMaire, a friend who said Cormier was “like a sister” to her, told the Advocate that the mom “would do anything for her kids.”
“I like to think she locked them in the closet to protect them,” she said of the daughter and stepdaughter. The girls’ names and ages were not disclosed.
Soignet told the Advocate that Cormier quickly became a suspect because there was a “pretty solid rape case” against him “which provided motive.”
Fellow suspects Andrew Eskine, 25, and Dalvin Wilson, 22, later confessed to being hired for the hit, the report said. All three are being held on $2 million bond on two counts of first-degree murder.
“The death penalty is definitely on the table,” District Attorney Joe Waitz Jr. said.
Cormier — already a convicted sex offender — still also faces third-degree rape for the alleged attack on his niece, the sheriff said.
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