People have many reasons for committing crimes. Violent crime is often the result of a surge of emotion prompted by something like anger, jealousy, or revenge. Odd as it may seem, some crimes are the result of unexpectedly altruistic intentions. Yet no matter how noble the reasoning, a crime is still a crime; but that doesn’t mean it isn’t justified.
A Louisiana man who killed his girlfriend’s molester when she was a child said he isn’t sorry for what he did.
Jace Crehan did not testify in his defense at a court hearing, but the jury heard a recording of him saying that the criminal justice system had failed his girlfriend and that he did not want her to suffer any longer.
Crehan was 21 years old when he and his girlfriend Brittany Monk, 17 at the time and seven months pregnant with Crehan’s baby, snuck into Noce’s trailer the night of July 4, 2015. In the initial trial, a jury learned that Noce was stabbed multiple times and choked with a belt before his body was later stuffed inside a 55-gallon barrel.
Noce had allegedly molested Brittany Monk between the ages of 4 to 12 while she was in his care.
Thirteen days before being murdered, Noce, 47, was convicted of sexually molesting Monk and was sentenced to five years of probation. Noce was a former boyfriend of Monk’s mom and raised her for about a decade.
Crehan said that he does not regret killing Noce. He described himself as Monk’s “guardian, her protector, her hope.”
“I feel a lot better, It’s not regret. Is it remorse? I’m not sorry for what I did,” Crehan told The Advocate.
Crehan reportedly said his initial intention was not to kill Noce, but to tie him up and beat him “for him to feel the fear that she felt.” But after choking him unconscious, Crehan said Noce awoke and lunged for Monk, so he stabbed Noce with the knife she retrieved from the kitchen.
Prosecutor Darwin Miller said in a statement:
“We do not live in a country where we as a society are allowed to take the law into our own hands to do justice. That’s what happened here. This is not a Shakespearean tragedy. This is not a Hollywood movie. This is the killing of a human being, whether you like him or not.”
Crehan’s attorney, Franz Borghardt, argued that his client did not commit cold-blooded murder, saying, “Revenge is an act of passion, and this is very much an act of passion. We don’t believe this is second-degree murder. We believe it’s something else.”
The jury found Crehan guilty of second-degree murder. He is facing a mandatory life sentence. While Monk pleaded guilty to manslaughter, for which she faces a sentence of up to 40 years.
Sources: OpposingViews, The Advocate, BizPac Review
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