Georgia man found guilty of fatal 2021 shooting in Navarre
A Georgia man was found guilty Thursday of a fatal 2021 shooting in Navarre Beach, according to a news release from the State Attorney's Office.
John Patrick Guillebeau, 62, was convicted of second-degree murder with a firearm in the death of Victor Trial.
On Nov. 14, 2021, law enforcement responded to Trial's Navarre Beach residence and found him deceased with a single gunshot wound to his back. Surveillance cameras and forensic evidence revealed that Guillebeau had entered the apartment building at 12:58 p.m. and fired a single shot at 1:01 p.m., the news release said.
Guillebeau left the scene and was apprehended several days later in Alabama.
In a news conference shortly after the arrest, Sheriff Bob Johnson said that Guillebeau and Trial grew up together in a small town in Georgia, and that "some incident that occurred in the past" had led Guillebeau to kill the other man.
Guillebeau's arrest report indicates that he claimed Trial had committed a violent crime against him when he was 15, and that in recent years he began "obsessing" over it. Guillebeau reportedly hired a private investigator to locate trial in Navarre Beach shortly before the shooting.
Guillebeau is tentatively scheduled for sentencing on April 29, 2024, in front of Circuit Judge Scott Duncan. He faces a minimum mandatory sentence of 25 years in state prison and a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. The defendant is not eligible for any form of gain time or early release for the minimum mandatory portion of his sentence.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: John Guillebeau convicted of Victor Trial murder
