GRETNA, La. (AP) – A jury Friday night found a Louisiana man guilty of killing and dismembering a stripper he lured from a New Orleans French Quarter bar along with his ex-girlfriend, a crime only discovered when pieces of her body washed ashore.
Terry Speaks and his ex-girlfriend, Margaret Sanchez, were charged with the second-degree murder of 22-year-old Jaren Lockhart, a gruesome killing in which prosecutors say the couple lured her from the club where she was working, killed her, cut her up and then drove the body parts to Mississippi where they dumped the pieces.
Lockhart’s head, lower legs and left thigh washed up on Mississippi beaches in June 2012, triggering an investigation that eventually led authorities to Speaks and Sanchez. Sanchez’s trial has not yet been scheduled.
Both were also charged with obstruction of justice for trying to derail investigators by dismembering the body, cutting tattoos from her skin and scrubbing down their apartment and Sanchez’s vehicle.
Investigators were eventually able to identify Lockhart through a tattoo behind one ear and DNA.