VERMILION PARISH, La. (KLFY) — Three families waiting eight years for justice in the deaths of their loved ones left the Vermilion Parish court today with heavy hearts.
Derek Viator, accused of three murders, accepted a plea deal with the state to lower his sentence.
News Ten’s Neale Zeringue was inside the courthouse and shares the details of the plea deal and how the families feel about it.
Derek Viator, his attorneys, and the district attorney’s office all signed this plea deal in 2019.
It broadly says in exchange for giving the location of Tyler Domingue’s remains, you will give me 30 years in prison for three killings.
“He’s the devil. He had to make a deal with the devil to get Tyler back.”
Derek Viator was accused of three first-degree murders of Tyler Domingue in 2014 and months earlier the combined murders of Abigail Clark and Cody Fell.
Each crime more gruesome than the one which before.
“He is a brutal killer. Not only did he murder Cody and Abby. He then set them on fire and left them for 8 hours.”
“She was cut up in a barrel. She was cut up in a barrel and put where no one would have found here.”
For five years, no one did find Domingue until this deal was struck and signed by District Attorney Keith Stutes.
In exchange for Dereck Viator, Monday a judge upheld a plea deal signed by former District Attorney Keith Stutes.