HollyMatkinBaton Rouge, LA – A Louisiana man said he is “not sorry” that he murdered a man who raped his girlfriend when she was a child, because he believed that the justice system “failed” her.
Jace Crehan, 23, admitted to having stabbed and strangled Robert Noce Jr., 47, less than two weeks after Noce was convicted for sexually assaulting Crehan’s girlfriend, 20-year-old Brittany Monk, the New York Daily News reported.
A jury found Crehan guilty of the July 4, 2015 second-degree murder on Tuesday. He faces life in prison.
Monk testified that Noce was a former boyfriend of her mother, The Advocate reported.
Even after Monk’s mother and Noce split up, Monk said her mother left her with Noce and his daughter for about a decade.
Noce sexually abused Monk from the time she was four until she was 12, and eventually began paying her as much as $100 per hour to have sex with him, Monk said.
The man she knew as “daddy” turned her into a “sex slave,” Crehan’s attorney, Franz Borghardt, said during the trial.
Although Noce was convicted for sexually abusing Monk, he never pleaded guilty or admitted to having victimized the young girl. Instead, he entered a “no contest” plea, as a concession that he would likely be convicted if the matter had proceeded to trial.
After the years of abuse he subjected her to, Monk said she expected Noce would be imprisoned for 10 years.
State District Judge Trudy White suspended noce’s 10-year jail term, and put him on probation for five years.
Noce was essentially free to live his life.
Thirteen days later, on July 4, 2015, Crehan and Monk snuck into Noce’s trailer home at about 1:30 a.m.
Monk, who was seven months pregnant with Crehan’s child at the time, said that the couple intended to intimidate Noce so that he would never bother them again.
She noted that she willingly participated in Crehan’s plan to bind and assault Noce, even after he told her that she didn’t need to go along.
“I want to go,” Monk said during her testimony. “I want to see him suffer.”
Monk said that Noce was asleep in the residence when Crehan attacked him and wrestled him into a choke hold. Monk, who was 17 at the time, admitted that she punched Noce 10 to 15 times, and that she sprayed men’s cologne into his eyes.
“He was staring his actual penalty in the face,” Crehan told investigators, according to The Sacramento Bee. “He knew exactly why.”
“I just kept screaming, ‘You ruined my life!’” Monk testified.
“You got the wrong guy!” Noce yelled back, according to Monk.
She said they never intended to kill Noce, and that neither of them brought weapons to the home.
But as the altercation escalated, Crehan told Monk to bring him a knife, so she grabbed one from Noce’s kitchen, Monk said.
“I heard the knife stabbing him, like crunching on leaves that are brown,” she testified.
Crehan then strangled Noce with a belt, and the couple stuffed the deceased child rapist into a 55-gallon barrel that Noce had used to make wine.
Police arrested the couple four days later.
Crehan spoke with The Advocate after his arrest, and portrayed himself as Monk’s “guardian, her protector, her hope,” the paper reported.
He saw Noce as a potential threat to his girlfriend and their unborn child, and noted that the court “failed” Monk when it allowed Noce to walk free with just a slap on the wrist.
Crehan admitted to investigators that he killed Noce, but also said he did nothing wrong.
“I feel a lot better,” Crehan said. “It’s not regret. Is it remorse? I’m not sorry for what I did.”
“I made her life better by what I did,” Crehan said of Monk, according to The Sacramento Bee. “That’s enough for me.”
Monk pleaded guilty to manslaughter in June and faces up to 40 years in prison, while Crehan faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.
The couple is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 18.