A Prairieville man convicted of manslaughter in the 2022 shooting death of his girlfriend's ex has been sentenced to 40 years in prison. Jerome Lilly, now 41, was sentenced following his June conviction in a case that began with a phone argument over custody of children and ended with a man dead in a home's entryway.
According to WBRZ, the sentencing came after Lilly's manslaughter conviction this past June. An Ascension Parish jury had found him guilty on Friday evening, June 26, according to WAFB, closing out a case that had dragged on for years after the original shooting.
A Deadly Confrontation on Cherry Creek Drive
The shooting happened on July 13, 2022, when Ascension Parish sheriff's deputies responded to a residence on Cherry Creek Drive in Prairieville after reports of a shooting, according to the Ascension Parish District Attorney's Office. Deputies found Tarrence Williams lying in the entryway of the home with multiple gunshot wounds; he was pronounced dead at the scene, per the same office.
Lilly called 911 himself and told deputies he had fought with Williams, his girlfriend's ex, before shooting him, the district attorney's office said. Detectives later learned the two men had a heated phone conversation about Williams's children before the confrontation. Williams had traveled to the residence to retrieve his kids when a verbal argument broke out between the two men.
Prosecutors Said There Was No Evidence of a Physical Fight
The district attorney's office said there was no evidence the argument turned physical before Lilly opened fire, striking Williams multiple times. That detail became central to the case, since Lilly was originally arrested and booked on suspicion of second-degree murder, as The Advocate reported at the time, describing Cherry Creek Drive as sitting in a neighborhood near the intersection of Louisiana highways 42 and 44.
Sources have identified Lilly's age differently across the life of the case — 37 at the time of his 2022 arrest, 40 in a later charging report, and 41 by the time of his conviction this year, according to the Ascension Parish District Attorney's Office and The Advocate. Reports have also varied in spelling the victim's first name, with the district attorney's office using Tarrence while an earlier Advocate report used Tarrance.
An Appellate Fight Over Self-Defense
Before the case reached trial, it detoured through Louisiana's First Circuit Court of Appeal over whether Lilly could even present a self-defense argument to jurors. A trial judge had granted the state's motion limiting that defense, prompting Lilly's attorneys to seek a stay and appeal, according to a Louisiana First Circuit opinion posted on CourtListener. The appellate court ultimately reversed that ruling and sent the matter back for further proceedings, citing a criminal defendant's constitutional right to present a defense.
Despite that appellate win for the defense, the Ascension Parish jury that eventually heard the case rejected Lilly's account and convicted him of manslaughter rather than the more serious second-degree murder charge he originally faced. Louisiana law caps manslaughter sentences at imprisonment at hard labor for not more than 40 years, according to the Louisiana State Legislature's statute — meaning Lilly received the maximum term allowed under that provision.
Lilly was arrested and booked into the Ascension Parish Jail shortly after the shooting in 2022, and he remained in the justice system through conviction and sentencing four years later. The case closes a years-long chapter for a Prairieville neighborhood shaken by a custody dispute that turned fatal.
