Golden Meadow man found guilty of drowning his girlfriend
A Golden Meadow man was convicted of murder over the drowning of his girlfriend.
Jurors deliberated for two-and-a-half hours and found Travis Orso, 47, guilty of the second-degree murder of his then-girlfriend Dione Cheramie on the evening of May 21, 2020. Second-degree murder carries a mandatory life sentence.
The post-trial date is set for July 14, at 1:30 p.m.
Lawyers battled for additional two-and-half hours during closing arguments to win the hearts and minds of jurors. Lafourche Parish Assistant District Attorneys Jason Chatagnier and Morgan Gravois represented the state, and Lafourche Parish Public Defenders George Ledet and Tracy Schwab represented Orso.
The trial took place in Judge Rebecca Robichaux's courtroom at the Thibodaux Courthouse.
Orso stopped his Ford F150 on LA 308 went with his then-girlfriend Dione Cheramie into the Lafourche Bayou and drowned her, Chatagnier argued.
Ledet said Cheramie was taking medicine for anxiety and depression, had been drinking that day, and her drowning was either an accident or suicide.
"There were only two eyewitnesses to what happened in that bayou," Chatagnier responded, pointing to Orso as he finished. "Ones dead. He murdered her."
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For three days, witnesses testified to what had occurred just before and just after the event. Orso and Cheramie had been drinking the entire day, and visited Orso's stepson Shane Hotard.
He had a scuffle with Hotard who then demanded he leave. Orso then had arguments with Cheramie who threw a beer can at him. She was later found dead in Bayou Lafourche with Orso standing near her lifeless body.
Witnesses testified that they performed CPR while Orso drank a beer while calling Cheramie expletives. Cheramie had mud and water packed in her mouth, nose, and lungs hampering rescue. She was pronounced dead shortly thereafter.
"In hindsight, Mr. Orso's behavior was not the best, but did that mean he killed her?" Ledet asked. "That's what the state would like you to think."
The defense argued that Cheramie was suicidal, and somehow drowned herself. Orso, they argued, mistook her behavior as overdramatic and didn't react in time to help her.
Chatagnier responded that people don't commit suicide through drowning without weights or bindings. This, he said, was an attempt at smearing Cheramie's character.
"It was an effort to drag Dione Cheramie through the mud, as if she hadn't been drug through the mud enough already by Travis Orso," he said.
This article originally appeared on Daily Comet: Golden Meadow man found guilty of drowning his girlfriend
