Two Found Guilty of Bogalusa 2nd Degree Murder and Armed Robbery

District Attorney Warren Montgomery reports that on June 16, 2023 a 12-person Washington Parish jury deliberated for 2 hours before handing down a verdict, finding Aaron Little, Jr., age 19 and Willie Cherry, Jr., age 17, guilty of second-degree murder and armed robbery of Larmond “LG” Godbold. 

In February of 2021, at around 8 P.M., Our Lady of the Angel’s Hospital reported to Bogalusa Police that there was a gunshot victim in the emergency room. By the time officers arrived, the victim had succumbed to his injuries.

The victim’s girlfriend, who was at the hospital with the victim, relayed to police what she’d witnessed. She stated that she drove the victim to a house to meet an acquaintance who wished to purchase marijuana from the victim. After the transaction with the acquaintance was completed in the driveway of a residence, three males wearing dark hoodies exited the house and approached the car. The victim’s girlfriend said that a gun was held up to the victim’s head and one of the attackers grabbed a bag of marijuana from the victim’s lap. She tried to hit the gun away from the victim’s head and put the car in reverse to drive away, but a single shot fired and hit the victim in the chest. She then drove straight to the hospital.

Police investigated the case and learned the identities of the suspects: Aaron Little Jr., known as “JR,” Willie Cherry, known as “Wooski,” and a third perpetrator who cooperated with the prosecution. The three perpetrators were tracked to Slidell at a gas station and taken into custody. Traveling in two different cars at the time of their arrest, the three perpetrators were traveling to Illinois, where they had lived until a few months before the murder. All three perpetrators had weapons at the time of the crime, and all three weapons were recovered from a vehicle in which Little was traveling. A firearms examination determined one of the three handguns to be the murder weapon.

The third suspect cooperated with the District Attorney’s Office, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and armed robbery, received a sentence of forty years at hard labor, and testified against the other two defendants at trial.

During trial, the defense attorneys challenged the truthfulness of the state’s witnesses, and at one point suggested that the victim’s girlfriend was not truthful about events leading up to the shooting. Assistant District Attorney Doug Freese, who prosecuted the case with Assistant District Attorney Luke Lancaster told the jury, “LG was shot when [his girlfriend] knocked the gun away from his head and put the car in reverse. But she is not the reason LG is dead. Three young men decided that they would all carry firearms out to that car, use a show of force to impose their will on LG and then one of them shot him and ended his life.”

The penalty for second degree murder alone, is life imprisonment. The maximum sentence for armed robbery is ninety-nine years at hard labor. However, because the defendants were juveniles at the time of the offense, a determination will be made before the sentence is imposed as to whether either Little and Cherry will be eligible for parole at some point in the future. 

District Judge Ellen Creel presided over the case. The defendants are scheduled for sentencing on July 11, 2023.

The Bogalusa Police Department conducted the investigation.