Relative sounds off against convicted killer in court

Jessica Parker’s brother gave Preston Nelson a tongue-lashing Monday before a judge ordered Nelson to serve two life sentences consecutively for his convictions in the 2011 killings of Parker and two other people in two separate shootings in Scotlandville.

Spencer Parker called the 28-year-old Nelson, of Baton Rouge, a coward and said he will “rot in hell.”

“He is dead to the world. Nobody cares if he’s dead or alive,” Parker said inside state District Judge Don Johnson’s courtroom. “Jessica will never die. She will always be in the hearts and minds of those who love her.”

An East Baton Rouge Parish jury found Nelson guilty in July on three counts of second-degree murder in the slayings of Ashley London on June 29, 2011, and Kevin Bowie and Parker on July 29, 2011.

London, 19, was sitting in a car at the Elm Grove Garden Apartments on Elm Grove Garden Drive when she was killed. London’s family has said they believe she was shot by mistake and was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Parker, 25, and Bowie, 32, were shot while they sat in a vehicle in the 9100 block of Kingfisher Avenue in a grassy area near railroad tracks. The engine was running and the vehicle’s headlights were on, police have said.

A Baton Rouge teenager, G’Quan “Tuttie’’ Baker, also was convicted in September of three counts of second-degree murder in the fatal shootings and is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 27.

“It’s a very had place where they’re going to,” London’s aunt, Ebony London, said Monday of Nelson and Baker. “I thank God that justice has been done.”

Nelson maintained his innocence.

“I don’t believe these (trial) witnesses were not telling the truth,” Johnson told him. “I believe you killed these people.”

As sheriff’s deputies escorted Nelson from the courtroom, he smiled at the audience and said, “Have a nice day y’all.”

A second-degree murder conviction in Louisiana carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison without benefit of probation, parole or suspension of sentence.

Baker, who was 16 at the time of the killings, was indicted in adult court in August 2011. The U.S. Supreme Court, however, ruled in June that states cannot automatically impose life terms without the possibility of parole on juveniles in murder cases.

The high court said judges must consider the defendant’s youth and the nature of the crime before putting him behind bars with no hope for parole.

Nelson also was convicted of one count each of attempted second-degree murder and felon in possession of a firearm. Another woman was in the car with London at the time of that shooting but was not injured.

Assistant District Attorney Leila Braswell prosecuted Nelson and Baker.