RICHMOND, Va.
-- A Henrico County mother and daughter have been sentenced for their roles in the 2017 murder of 19-year-old Martre Lamonte Coles.
Denise Gay, 49, was sentenced to life in prison, while her daughter, LaToya Gay, 23, was sentenced to 30 years in prison in connection to the killing.
LaToya was sentenced to 20 years for first-degree murder and 10 years for conspiracy to commit murder.
Coles, a Highland Springs High School graduate, was found April 2, 2017 in a plastic storage container stashed behind an electrical box in eastern Henrico.
So, they were tried separately, with Denise being convicted of first-degree murder in April 2018 and LaToya being found guilty of the same offense later in the year.
Martre’s sisters told police he had issues with Gay’s daughter taking and destroying his belongings.
“Whenever Maurice would discover something had happened, Denise would say that the problems were Martre’s fault, to cover for her daughter,” Davenport said.
The killers were unaware that the cops had already found the body, and the deputies were waiting for Denise at the dumping ground when she turned up with a shovel. The prosecution’s star witness was Alana, who testified that she heard Martre cry out while at home, and when she looked in his room, she saw Denise and LaToya sitting on top of him, holding him down.
Later, she saw them move a plastic container into the kitchen as well. Inside, he discovered the dead body of 19-year-old Martre Coles.
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“The only way I can describe it is kind of like put in like an accordion. She went right to the spot where Coles’ body was found.
“Investigators hadn’t released any information to the family about the body,” Burkett said.
He had GHB, better known as the date rape drug, as well as trazodone, a sedative and antidepressant, in his body.
“Potentially what happened was this person was drugged, passed out, and maybe even put in the box in that particular accordion position, while still alive, and suffocated inside of the box,” explained former assistant prosecutor Stacey Davenport on Snapped.
Law enforcement struggled to understand the murder of Martre Coles.
“The callousness of the actions — why did a 19-year-old have to die like this?” Taylor said.
Martre Coles' strained relationships with Denise Gay and her family
Three years before he was murdered, Martre Coles’ mother died of a heart attack.
And she was very jealous of my mom. But detectives soon realized the emails Martre was receiving were fake.
“Someone went through a lot of trouble to make it look like Martre had gone on a trip to Florida for school,” Burkett said.
A 12-year-old witness describes Martre Coles' murder to police
Soon after Martre Coles’ body was discovered on April 2, two officers remembered a call to which they had responded at the Coles’ home just three days earlier.
At this point, her mother asked her to leave. Police checked the security footage of Maurice Coles and Denise Gay’s workplace on April 7, and saw footage of her leaving work, getting in his black SUV, and driving away. “The woman that he had brought into his home, and he thought cared for him and his family had actually killed his son.”
Maurice Coles offered Denise’s purse, with her wallet and cell phone inside.
The investigators didn’t inform the family that Martre’s body was found but instead placed a camera at the site, hoping that the killer would return. Denise was sentenced to life in prison, and LaToya received 30 years.