Denise Gay is a killer from Virginia who along with her daughter LaToya Gay would murder Martre Coles
According to court documents Denise Gay was dating the father of Martre Coles. There was some tension in the household between nineteen year old Martre Coles and the thirteen year old child of Denise
Denise Gay and her daughter LaToya Gay (photo below) would conspire for over a year to murder Martre Coles. The nineteen year old was drugged with GHB and trazodone. When Martre Coles would pass out he would be smothered to death
The body of Martre Coles would be found in a plastic tub near a hiking trail
Denise Gay and LaToya Gay would ultimately be arrested. Denise Gay would be sentenced to life in prison plus ten years and LaToya Gay would be sentenced to thirty years in prison
Denise Gay Now
Personal Information
Denise Monique Gay Alias:
Not Available
Age/Race/Sex
56/Black/Female
Location Fluvanna Correctional Center
Inmate I.D.# 1187429
Release Date Single Life Sentence
LaToya Gay Now
Personal Information
Latoya Shantice Gay Alias:
Not Available
Age/Race/Sex
29/Black/Female
Location Fluvanna Correctional Center
Inmate I.D.# 1893344
Release Date 08/20/2041
Denise Gay Case
A man was walking in the woods in Richmond, Virginia on a break from work on April 2, 2017, when he came across something odd: a Rubbermaid bin with a shoe sticking out of it. Inside, he discovered the dead body of 19-year-old Martre Coles.
“The only way I can describe it is kind of like put in like an accordion. Knees tucked to the chest,” prosecutor Shannon Taylor said on Snapped, airing Sundays at 6/5c on Oxygen.
Coles, who had been reported missing on March 13, 2017 by his sisters, had his wrists bound with tape, and there was a powder covering his body.
The medical examiner determined Coles’ cause of death was asphyxiation. 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. He was 16, and the death left him grieving with his widowed father, Maurice, with his older sisters already moved out of the house.
After his wife’s death, Maurice got closer to his co-worker, Denise Gay.
Denise was kind of Maurice’s shoulder to cry on when his wife died,” explained Jon Burkett, WTVR reporter, on Snapped.
Soon, Gay and Coles started a relationship, and Gay and her daughters moved in with him and his son.
“I don’t know what type of woman would move into a dead woman’s home within a month. She didn’t rub me the right way when I met her,” Michelle Coles, Martre’s sister, said on Snapped.
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. “They got into physical fights where they would push each other and yell and scream.”
At one point, Martre was even stabbed with scissors by the girl — and he received no help from Denise Gay.
“Martre expressed to me that he felt like Denise was like trying to create a wedge between him and my father,” Michelle Coles said.
When he went missing, Martre Coles had been set to visit Full Sails University in Florida to try to get admission as an art student, after exchanging emails with someone there. 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. LaToya Gay and her 12-year-old sister were having a fight, but as police left, the 12-year-old pulled one officer aside.
“I saw my mom kill my stepbrother,” she told one officer, as seen on bodycam footage.
The girl told officers she’d heard a scream coming from Martre’s bedroom, and looked in.
“She had seen her mother and her sister pin him to the ground, one at his feet and one at his chest,” Davenport said.
The child claimed that a few minutes later, she looked out her bedroom door to see her sister, LaToya, pushing a plastic bin down the hallway. At the time, police believed the child was just trying to get her older sister in trouble out of anger and fabricating a story.
“She mentions Martre’s body being put in a bin and taken away from the house, and when they realize how specific that description is, and how closely it matches the way that Martre’s body was found, they then become very concerned that it is possible this little girl was telling the truth,” Davenport said.
With Denise and LaToya Gay as the prime suspects in Martre Coles’ murder, police searched their home on April 3. LaToya came home during the search, and left again, so officers followed her. 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. “The only one who could possibly know where that body was located was the killer.”
One officer had a motion-activated hunting camera with him, so he attached it to a tree, hoping to catch any suspicious people on video. The night of April 7, the camera picked up a parked black SUV and someone wearing a hoodie. 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. Her cell phone location data put her near the site where Coles’ body was found.
A surprising witness comes forward with new evidence at Denise and LaToya Gay’s murder trial
A search of Denise Gay’s computer showed she had made up a fake name and was emailing Martre Coles as a ruse about going to Full Sail University. Her computer also showed she had searched for “GHB” and “suffocation.”
“This case is one of the saddest and most disturbing cases I’ve ever worked,” Davenport said. “She took the time to get to know Martre and learn what made him happy, and she used that as a way to kill him.”
During the murder trial in Dec. 2017, prosecutors argued Denise plotted for weeks to kill Martre and manipulated her daughter into helping her.
“Denise was blaming Martre for everything in the home so my father would kick Martre out of the house,” Marqweisha Coles, Martre’s sister, said on Snapped. “I think Denise wanted Martre gone because that was something of my mother’s left in the home. And she was very jealous of my mom. Denise snapped because jealousy got the best of her.”
Denise Gay’s defense lawyer argued her youngest daughter was the real killer
“Not only was Denise Gay not going to accept any responsibility, but that worse, she would try to pin this case on her 12-year-old daughter,” Taylor said.
But the jury was hung on first-degree murder charges. As prosecutors prepared for a retrial, Maurice Coles called them with new evidence.
“Seeing the actual evidence in front of him made him believe what he had never wanted to believe before,” Davenport said. “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 phone showed the actual text messages she and her daughter exchanged.
“Denise was communicating with her daughter LaToya that she could not find the body on April 7,” Taylor said. “That gave us clear and convincing evidence that that was in fact Denise Gay in that image on the game camera.”
At the second trial, both women were convicted of first-degree murder. Denise Gay was sentenced to life in prison plus 10 years.
“Denise was just pure evil,” Marqweisha Coles said.
LaToya Gay was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/woman-kills-her-boyfriend-son-230129232.html