FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — A convicted murder is on the run after he slipped away from the courthouse before the judge's verdict was read.
According to the Fulton County District Attorney's Office, Verlaine Laguerre, 26, was set to receive the guilty plea from the judge, but ran away during a lunch break. Laguerre’s whereabouts are unknown at this time, and Fulton County Sheriff's deputies and U.S. Marshal's are searching for him.
Laguerre, along with 28-year-old Prentice Baker, was convicted in the 2011 murder of 19-year-old Matthew Hardeman, a football player at Avondale High School in DeKalb County.
On Oct. 15, 2011, Hardeman and Laguerre got into a fist fight outside Hardeman’s Lakewood Terrace home in Southeast Atlanta. The fight was allegedly the result of dirty looks between him and Laguerre.
At the end of the fist fight, Laguerre told Hardeman he was coming back with his “red eye,” referring to a scope-like object for a gun. A short time later, Laguerre returned with Baker, and both opened fire, hitting the victim nearly 50 times. A third man who also fired shots at Hardeman, but that suspect was never identified.
Hardeman was left for dead. The victim’s family found his body in the front yard of their home, lying dead in the grass.
A Fulton County Superior Court Judge granted Laguerre and Baker bond in 2012, though the District Attorney’s Office wanted to have the bond revoked.
The case against Laguerre and Baker first went to trial in December 2014 in Fulton County Superior Court. However, the Fulton County Superior Court Judge declared a mistrial because the proceedings extended into the Christmas holiday. After the mistrial, the D.A. pursued a new trial, but in June 2015 the defense appealed the State’s attempt to retry the case, citing Double Jeopardy.
While out on bond in 2015, Laguerre was arrested for Manufacturing Marijuana and Possession of a Firearm During the Commission of a Felony. Laguerre and Baker had both been wearing ankle monitors and were required to follow a curfew.
Two years after that in May 2017, the defense lost their appeal and the case went to trial in Fulton County Superior Court last week. That's where both Laguerre and Baker were found guilty of murder, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and possession of a firearm during commission of a felony.
They were both sentenced to serve life in prison plus five years.
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