Sadie Roberts-Joseph’s accused killer to face trial in March in civil rights activist’s dying | Courts

A Baton Rouge man accused in July 2019 of murdering local civil rights activist Sadie Roberts-Joseph has been given a hearing on March 14th.

Ronn Jermaine Bell, 40, is charged with second degree murder in the murder of Roberts-Joseph, 75. He is also charged with failing to register as a sex offender.

The man accused of killing civil rights icon Sadie Roberts-Joseph confessed Thursday to the murder of the woman who …

Roberts-Joseph was found in the trunk of her car behind an abandoned house on 2300 block on North 20th Street on July 12, 2019. According to the police, she was suffocated. Bell’s DNA was found on her body, an arrest report said.

Bell was renting one of Roberts-Joseph’s properties and was about $ 1,200 behind on his rent, police said. Bell admitted this during an interview with detectives, but said Roberts-Joseph agreed that he could stay in the house as long as he paid her something, police said.

Video evidence shows Bell near the place where Roberts-Joseph’s car was found – about three miles from their home in Scotlandville, police said. The house is down the street from the house Bell rented.

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Bell later admitted to detectives that he was where the car was dumped, but said he was not in the vehicle and did not see Roberts-Joseph for several days before her death, police said.

A search warrant indicated that bleach had been doused on her body to destroy evidence. Detectives later found two empty bleach bottles in Bell’s house.

The man accused of killing 75-year-old civil rights activist Sadie Roberts-Joseph, the founder of the Baton Rouge African American History Museum …

Roberts-Joseph was best known for establishing the Odell S. Williams African-American Museum in downtown Baton Rouge in 2001 and for organizing an annual June festival to celebrate the end of slavery in that country.

Bell faces life imprisonment if found guilty of second degree murder. State District Judge Kelly Balfour, who heads the case, has set the trial date for Thursday, according to the court records.