Mom tells jury she's waited 18 years for suspect to face trial in Courtney Coco's murder

Courtney Coco's mother was the last witness called by the state Monday in David Anthony Burns' second-degree murder trial, telling jurors how she had waited 18 years for the moment in court.

Burns' defense was set to make its case Monday afternoon. Burns' second-degree murder trial began last week, but recessed for the weekend. The defense is expected to call only one witness.

The state had called other witnesses earlier in the morning, including a lifelong friend of Burns who changed his testimony on the stand at least three times.

Coco's mother, Stephanie Belgard, clutched a photo of her daughter as she took the stand. Coco's body was found in an abandoned building in Winnie, Texas, on Oct. 4, 2004.

Police had pegged Burns as a suspect after several people reported he had confessed to them that he killed Coco, but he wasn't indicted and arrested until April 2021.

"How long have you waited for this?" Rapides Parish Assistant District Attorney Hugo Holland asked Belgard.

"Over 18 years," she said.

Holland had Belgard go over the details of the weekend she last saw her daughter alive and whether it was true, as defense attorney Christopher LaCour said in his opening statement, that Coco only dated Black men.

Belgard said that wasn't true. She described getting ready to go to her parents' camp for the opening of squirrel season and asking Coco if she wanted to tag along. But she declined.

"She wasn't a country girl," said Belgard. "She was a city girl."

Holland had her clarify how Coco was receiving monthly payments from a settlement awarded her father before he died when Coco was a child. She said his legs had been crushed in a workplace accident and, when he died, the settlement went to Coco as his only beneficiary.

She was receiving $1,500 monthly, she testified.

When LaCour cross examined her, he asked her if she hadn't told a detective working the case that she didn't believe people of different races should date. Belgard denied that, saying she'd said she didn't care about that but did believe people around her daughter were using her.

LaCour pressed her, but Belgard held to her answer.

Holland, while questioning Belgard again, asked her how police identified her daughter's body. Belgard held up a hand and pointed to a ring on her finger, Coco's Alexandria Senior High School graduation ring.

"I've been waiting 18 years for this ring," she said, telling how police had to cut it off Coco's hand and how she had it repaired once she got it back from Holland.

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Holland earlier had called Burns' friend, Shamus Setliff, to testify about what he allegedly told his ex-wife, Tiffany Cedars, about the case.

He said he'd known Coco since she was a baby and recalled a trip about a month before her death that he had taken with her, Burns and her sister, Lace Evans, to a now-closed retreat in Forest Hill where they rode four-wheelers.

Previous testimony showed Evans and Burns were living together and that Burns and Coco had an affair.

Holland asked Setliff if he'd seen Burns and Coco together any other time and to characterize their relationship.

"She was a pretty girl. They were flirty," he said. "Who wouldn't be?"

Holland pressed him, and Setliff said there "was something going on" between them. He also asked Setliff where he was on the weekend of Coco's death. He said he was at his Rapides Parish home.

Then he asked him about his job, delivering small and novelty items to convenience stores in Texas and Louisiana, and whether that took him to Winnie. He said no, and Holland asked if he was sure.

Holland asked if he told police he had a route through Winnie and that he'd actually driven three times past the site where Coco's body was found on the day it was found.

He said yes.

LaCour asked Setliff if he had recanted his statement just a few weeks ago, and he said yes.

"Why are you up here if you're a liar?" LaCour asked, leading Setliff to deny he was lying.

LaCour asked him if a pair of women's underwear and cellophane were found in his work vehicle and whether he had "the smell of death" on him when he arrived home the weekend of Coco's death.

"Camping trip maybe, but not the smell of death," he replied.

LaCour told him he'd placed himself in Winnie, and Setliff then said he'd never been to the town.

Cedars testified next, saying Setliff had been gone the weekend Coco was killed and didn't arrive home until early Monday morning. Holland asked her if there was something unusual about him.

She said that he "stunk really bad." She said she told him to take a shower and, as she was retrieving his shaving kit from his work vehicle, she found the underwear and foil. When she confronted him, he claimed the underwear belonged to a friend of hers.

Holland asked what Setliff had told her about the Coco case. She testified he said that Burns had Coco's comforter and that his mother had washed it. She also said he said Burns and Evans killed Coco for her money.

Holland asked her if Setliff's route took him to Winnie, and she said yes. She described a separate incident when Setliff called her from Winnie because he was having a medical emergency.

Also testifying was former Alexandria Police Department detective Tanner Dryden, who began investigating the case again around 2019. LaCour pressed him on dealing with prior witnesses.

Holland brought Evans, who testified last week, back to the stand to answer Cedars' testimony.

"No, I had nothing to do with the murder of my sister," she told jurors.

Timothy Scanlan, a crime scene reconstruction expert, testified at length about what he called the staging of Coco's body in the Winnie building. He said bodies can be staged for multiple reasons, among them for a shock factor, to demean the victim or make it appear to be a sex crime.

He pointed to Coco being nude from the waist down with her arms outstretched at her sides with her legs bent at the knees as signs her body was staged. He noted marks in the dirt covering the floor that showed her feet had been moved.

"Somebody did that to her?" asked Holland.

"That's correct," he said.

He also pointed to photos taken at Coco's Alexandria home as reason to believe it was the primary crime scene where she was killed. And he testified that more than one vehicle probably was used since the trunk of her own car, once recovered from Houston, didn't smell of decay and only had a small amount of bodily fluids traced to Coco.

LaCour asked him if he could rule out two people were involved in the killing, and he said he couldn't.

Holland, in his redirect, asked Scanlan if he saw anything from the scene to tell him the killer was trying to hide Coco's body.

"If they were, they were doing a pretty bad job," Scanlan answered.

LaCour's co-counsel is Willie Stephens. Holland's co-counsel is Rapides Parish Assistant District Attorney Johnny Giordano.

This article originally appeared on Alexandria Town Talk: Mom tells jury she's waited 18 years for trial in daughter's murder