Tuesday, May 3, 2016

IN LOVING MEMORY OF LACIE C. LAROSE (FEBRUARY 3, 1996 TO MAY 3, 2015)



We, the comrades of Unit 1012: The VFFDP, will always remember Lacie Christabelle LaRose on February 2 every year as it was her birthday. Although she was murdered on May 3, 2015 and taken from this earth, we will remember how she lived on this earth, and not how she died. To treasure her memories, do support her organization, ‘Love ‘em Like Lacie’.


"So long as we live, they too shall live and love for they are a part of us as we remember them."
- Gates of Prayer

Lacie LaRose (February 2, 1996 to May 3, 2015)

Murdered over BEER PONG: Student, 19, fatally shot at college party 'by uninvited guest, 39, following clash about rules of the drinking game'

  • Lacie LaRose was fatally shot at a college party early last month
  • New reports say that her death was the result of an argument over a drinking game
  • Ronald McNeil, 39, showed up uninvited to a college party in Texas and argued with the college-age party goers about the rules of beer pong
  • The man was asked to leave the party and he vowed to return with a gun
  • He fired 15 shots, injuring two and fatally wounding LaRose in the neck 
A Texas man is facing multiple charges after, allegedly shooting dead a 19-year-old girl at a college party following an argument over the rules of beer pong.

Ronald McNeil, 39, of College Station, is charged with murder, deadly conduct for discharge of a firearm, and two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in connection with the May 3 shooting that left 19-year-old Lacie LaRose dead. 

McNeil allegedly fired 15 shots outside the home on San Benito Drive at around 3am. A bullet struck one man in the leg and another was struck in the arm by shrapnel, but LaRose was fatally shot in the neck.

She was pronounced dead at around 5am at the College Station Medical Center, NBC reports.

LaRose, a student at Blinn College studying animal sciences, attended a May 2 house party along with many others gathering to watch the Floyd Mayweather/Manny Pacquiao fight on TV, KWTX.

The 39-year-old McNeil, who lives just across the street from the home, showed up to the party uninvited along with his group of friends, The Eagle reports. 

'It was a little strange that they were at the party but they were really nice, at first, congratulating me on graduating,' Landon Duke, a guest of honor at the party who was celebrating his pending graduation from Texas A&M University, told The Eagle.

The party died down after the fight and its more than 100-person attendance dwindled to 20 or 30, witnesses told The Eagle. 

Around 1am the next morning (Sunday) McNeil, a convicted felon, and some of his friends were playing beer pong with some of the college-age guests.

Witnesses said that one of McNeil's friends argued with one of Duke's friends about the rules of beer pong -- a drinking game in which players attempt to throw or hit table tennis balls into cups of beer.

When the argument got heated, McNeil and his friends were asked to leave the home, The Eagle reports. 

Duke and some of his friends attempted to escort the group out. 

Duke said the argument eventually led to a brief exchange of blows, but he said that the fight was over pretty quickly.

McNeil told police that as he and his friends left, some of the party-goers yelled racial slurs, WTAW reports. 

  

Lacie LaRose (February 2, 1996 to May 3, 2015)
Duke told The Eagle that he did not recall anyone yelling racial slurs, and police reports about what was said as McNeil and his friends left the party vary. 

Duke did, however, recall hearing McNeil say he was going to get his gun. 

McNeil said that he went to his home across the street and retrieved a Glock .40 caliber handgun, WTAW reports. He said he returned to the backyard of the home and saw his friend being assaulted.

He said that his gun accidentally fired once then several more times when he tried to gain control of the weapon. 

LaRose was in the backyard at the time getting beer, The Eagle reports. She was struck by one bullet and someone dragged her partially into a garage.

'Call 911; I can't breathe,' witnesses told The Eagle they heard the 19-year-old say.

  

Lacie LaRose (February 2, 1996 to May 3, 2015)
An officer in a patrol car down the street from the residence heard the shots and responded to the scene to find McNeil and his friend fleeing in separate vehicles, according to the College Station Police Department.

The officer managed to stop McNeil's friend and gave dispatchers a description of McNeil's vehicle. He was arrested a short time later. 

He is being held at the Brazos County jail with bail set at $500,000. 

McNeil was convicted in February 2000 on drug-related charges and later served a three-year sentence for possession of a firearm by a felon in Williamson County, The Eagle reports.  

LaRose' mother, April LaRose, told NBC that her daughter's life was cut short.  

'I want everybody to know how caring she was,' April said of the 19-year-old. 'Ever since she was little she loved animals. It was her dream to become a vet. 

'The vet dream was taken from her.'


Suspect in Lacie LaRose murder trial makes first appearance in court, pleads not guilty

Posted: Thursday, August 27, 2015 12:00 am


A 39-year-old College Station man charged with the May 3 shooting death of a Blinn College student pleaded not guilty to four felony charges Wednesday afternoon in a Brazos County courtroom.

Ronald Wayne McNeil and Houston-based defense attorney Vivian King entered the pleas in Judge Glynis Gore's 85th District courtroom. McNeil faces a murder charge, two aggravated assault charges and one count of discharging a weapon in public.

McNeil, who has been in the Brazos County Jail since his arrest May 3, didn't speak during the trial, according to victim Lacie LaRose's grandparents, who attended the hearing.

LaRose's mother, April Hollinghead LaRose, said she was shaken by the news of McNeil's plea.

"I think he should be charged with lying under oath," LaRose wrote in a Facebook message, adding "this is really eating us all up. It's killing us that we have to fight to get him put away. ... He needs the death penalty; that is what he gave my (precious) little girl."

McNeil isn't the only one being charged in the incident.

Landon Duke, a Texas A&M graduate and guest of honor at the May party on the 900 block of San Benito in south College Station, turned himself into police Aug. 3 in connection with assault charges stemming from a fight that started before the shooting.

According to jail records, McNeil lived across the street from where the graduation party was taking place.

Duke told The Eagle in May that McNeil and a few of his friends attended the party to watch the Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao boxing match. Later that evening, after most of the guests had left, Duke said McNeil's friends got into an argument with some of the college-aged men over a game of beer pong. Duke said the argument got heated and he joined his guests in asking McNeil and his friends to leave. Duke told a reporter McNeil and his friends resisted and Duke admitted to punching one of McNeil's friends hard enough to knock him on the ground.

College Station police wrote in a report that witnesses say they saw McNeil and his friends leave the residence for a few minutes before McNeil allegedly returned with a semi-automatic handgun and open fire in the backyard. Police said LaRose, 19, was hit in the neck and later died at a College Station hospital. Two other men were injured in the shooting. A bullet was recovered from the wall of a neighbor's home behind where the shooting took place, according to a police report.

Duke, who moved to Houston after graduation, turned himself into Brazos County authorities Aug. 3 and was released the same day on $5,000 bail. He is facing a misdemeanor charge of assault.

McNeil, who has not been charged with capital murder, will not face the death penalty if convicted. He does face a maximum sentence of life behind bars.

A hearing has been set for Oct. 7.

OTHER LINKS:


1 comment:

  1. I agree with the Mother. He deserves the death penalty and the legal system needs get on with business. There's not a single article on the internet that I can find about what's happening regarding the sentence of this murderous thug. My heart and prayers go to the family.

    ReplyDelete