Jeremy Guillory

Case background and investigation

Jeremy Guillory, age six, was killed on February 7, 1992, near the town of Iowa in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana. According to the facts set out by the Louisiana Supreme Court, Jeremy went to a neighboring house to look for two children he often played with. The family was away, and Ricky Joseph Langley, a tenant who rented a room there, let him in. Langley later told investigators that he strangled the boy and hid his body in a bedroom closet.

The court record states that Jeremy's mother, Lorilei Guillory, went to the house looking for her son and used the telephone there to report him missing, and that Langley told her he had not seen the child. Deputies, volunteer firefighters and neighbors searched the area through the weekend, and the FBI joined the case when he had not been found by Monday. A Louisiana parole agent then alerted police that Langley, who had a prior child molestation conviction and an outstanding Georgia parole violation warrant, was living in the area. He was arrested at the truck stop where he worked, admitted the killing, and led officers to the body, according to the opinion.

A Calcasieu Parish grand jury indicted Langley for first-degree murder on February 20, 1992, and he pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity. After a change of venue to East Baton Rouge Parish, a jury convicted him on July 9, 1994, and he was formally sentenced to death on September 26, 1994. Court filings show that conviction was later set aside and the indictment quashed because of the way the grand jury foreperson had been selected.

At a second trial the jury did not convict Langley of first-degree murder and instead returned a verdict of second-degree murder. A state appeals court threw out that verdict in 2004 because of the trial judge's conduct, including absences from the courtroom, according to court filings and KPLC. The Louisiana Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that he could be retried only for second-degree murder. Jeremy's mother publicly opposed a death sentence for Langley and testified on that point at the retrial, KPLC reported.

Langley chose a bench trial the third time, and on December 10, 2009, Judge Robert Wyatt found him guilty of second-degree murder and imposed the mandatory sentence of life without parole, the American Press reported. Langley argued in federal court that the second jury's verdict meant the state could not again try to prove specific intent to kill. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed in 2018, but the full court reheard the case and on June 6, 2019, upheld the denial of habeas relief.

The U.S. Supreme Court denied Langley's petition for review on April 20, 2020, according to the court's docket, leaving the 2009 conviction and life sentence in place.