State District Judge Rex Peveto declared a mistrial in a murder case last week after a jury could not decide on a verdict for 23-year-old Keondrick Arabian Ali Barlow.
Ali was charged in April 2019 for murder in connection with the shooting death of 37-year-old Octavias Lamont Williams.
The jury was hung with a 7-5 vote. State law requires a criminal trial to have a unanimous decision among 12 jurors.
Williams’ family found his body in December 2018 in his apartment at the Sabine Park complex on Pine Avenue. Family members told police he had not answered his cell phone and they went to check on him.
Police said Williams had been shot in the torso and his car was found abandoned about two blocks from the complex.
Barlow may be tried again or make a plea bargain for the murder charge.
He has been in the Orange County Jail since January 1, 2019, when he was arrested for an unrelated aggravated robbery plus animal cruelty. That case is in connection with an April 2018 home invasion in which two men were hit with pistols. Also, one of the victim’s Labrador retriever was shot and killed as the robbers left.
-Margaret Toal, KOGT-
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