DA says ankle monitoring service fumbled key evidence in unsolved toddler's murder
BATON ROUGE - Key evidence in the murder of Devin Page Jr. was revealed to be missing this weekend as East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore filed a 41-page report showing a weapon used at the crime scene was found during a traffic stop.
The gun is not believed to be the one that fired the fatal shot but could lead to more answers about what happened.
The weapon was found on Johnny Brown, who was released on bond in March of 2021 for second-degree murder by Judge Eboni Johnson-Rose. Brown's bond included 365 days of ankle monitoring under Criminal Tracking Service LLC, but the company continued to track Brown well into April of 2022. However, there are no records from April 11 to April 23 of 2022, including the night of Devin's murder.
Frederick Hall, the owner of Criminal Tracking Service LLC, says he was only supposed to monitor Brown for a year from March 2021 to March 2022 but continued because he did not have the bond file.
"An individual with that type of charge normally stays on bond supervision throughout the duration of their trial, technically I was supposed to be done supervising him but I never had this so I never knew this. If I would've had this my equipment would've come off him on March 23 of 2022," Hall said.
District Attorney Hillar Moore says the company continued to show up to court with the defendant and file reports well into 2023.
"For him to say now, 'Oh I went and looked back and I was only supposed to monitor for 365 days, yet I kept doing it on my own.' I cannot make any sense of that whatsoever," Moore said.
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Hall says neither the judge nor the district attorney extended Brown's supervision.
"If you look in the records [sic] that happened on neither side. So everybody's blaming just me," Hall said.
However, Moore says a judge would've extended supervision under these circumstances.
"I know that the judge would've ordered him to continue, particularly if he received negative feedback, and I'm sure that that's what happened. I'm not sure why he's saying what he's saying but he really needs to have his day in court with us and the records there will speak for themselves," Moore said.
A bill that would enforce stricter regulations on ankle monitoring is expected to be signed by Governor Edwards later this week.