ST. MARTIN PARISH, La. (KLFY) — The family of a Breaux Bridge man is protesting after they say his girlfriend bonded out of jail just hours after being accused of killing him.
Monifah Mitchell, 23, was released from jail on bond the very same day authorities say she stabbed her boyfriend to death.
The victim has been identified as 24-year-old Darius Tre Richmond.
Richmond’s family says they are outraged. They’re now protesting in hopes of getting answers about how a woman accused of a violent murder was able to bond out of jail so quickly and easily.
“What we found out in the middle of the night, the day Darius was taken from this family, was that after Monifa was charged, hours after she admitted to his family to stabbing Darius, she was charged with second degree murder. She was able to go to the hospital from what we understand and be with him. His mother didn’t even have the opportunity to be with her own child,” Devon Norman, a close family friend said.
Deputies responded to a domestic disturbance call at 9:45 a.m. Friday.
Richmond was found with a stab wound in his chest and pronounced dead at the hospital soon after.
By 7:30 Friday night, Richmond’s girlfriend had been booked into jail for second-degree murder with no bond set.
Just three hours later, however, she was released from jail after Judge Suzanne de Mahy set her bond at $250K.
“We’re here to make a declaration to not only the city of Breaux Bridge but the parish that what happened to Darius is not only heinous, but we understand that somehow, some way there is either a cover up that is taking place or there is some type of corruption that is happening between Monifa and the parish of St. Martin,” Norman added.
Darius’s family says they’re protesting because they haven’t gotten any answers.
“I’ll stand in the rain everyday if I have to because we know that Darius was murdered, and we know that somehow Monifa is almost about to get away with it,” he added.
Darius Richmond’s family also says they feel that if the roles were reversed and if this was a man who stabbed his girlfriend to death, the alleged killer would not be allowed to bond out of jail this quickly or for such a low bond.