Belle Rose man guilty of strangling woman

NAPOLEONVILLE — A Belle Rose man was sentenced Tuesday to serve life in prison after he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the strangulation death of an 84-year-old woman, District Attorney Ricky Babin said.

Dean Hue Sr., 32, of Belle Rose, who is related to the victim, Anna Mae Hidalgo, had faced a first-degree murder charge, which could have brought the possibility of the death penalty.

Hue’s son and ex-wife have been charged with first-degree murder in Hidalgo’s death, prosecutors have said.

Hidalgo’s body was found along Rocky Canal in a remote part of Iberville Parish on March 13, 2011. Sheriff’s investigators said at the time that her body had been dumped there a little more than a day earlier after she was hit on the head and strangled.

Hue entered the plea Tuesday before Judge Thomas Kliebert Jr. of 23rd Judicial District Court at the Assumption Parish Courthouse in Napoleonville.

Babin said Kliebert handed down the sentence afterward.

Babin said Hue apologized in court to Hidalgo’s relatives. He lived next door to Hidalgo on La. 1 in his mother’s house.

His mother was Hidalgo’s niece.

Babin said Hue also made a statement that his son, Dean Hue Jr., who was 12 at the time of his arrest in March 2011, had nothing to do with the slaying.

Babin said Hue Jr. is set for trial in June.

Babin said Hue Sr.’s ex-wife, Raven Blanchard, who was 23 at the time of her arrest in March 2011, is set for trial in September.