PALM BEACH, Florida — A former University of Maine running back faces life in prison after a Palm Beach County jury convicted him of murder and other charges in the brutal 2014 stabbing death of the man he caught having sex with his ex-girlfriend.
Jurors convicted 26-year-old Zedric Joseph of West Palm Beach in the stabbing death of 23-year-old Richardy Chery after about three hours of deliberations Wednesday in the trial that began last week. The panel convicted Joseph as charged of first degree murder and armed burglary, but returned a conviction on a lesser charge of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon for the charge of attempted second degree murder in the stabbing of Vashti Laurore, the mother of his daughter.
Circuit Judge John Kastrenakes set a hearing for Friday to determine when to sentence Joseph, who based on the conviction will receive a life sentence.
According to arrest reports, on March 7, 2014, the knife-wielding Joseph broke into Laurore’s locked apartment in the 1600 block of Quail Lake Drive in Westgate and found her and Chery having sex.
Laurore told police that Joseph immediately began stabbing Chery, who rolled off the bed in an attempt to get away and begged his attacker to stop, according to an affidavit filed in the case by the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.
Joseph then told the victim he was going to die and he was going to “learn.”
After ordering both Laurore and Chery to get on their knees on the floor, Joseph kicked Chery in the abdomen and spit on him, according to the police report. Laurore begged Joseph to stop, but he put the knife against her throat and told her she was going to “die today.”
She grabbed the knife to pull it away, and Joseph allegedly cut her severely in the thumb and palm of her left hand before he left.
Laurore and Chery were transported to St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach, where Chery died from his injuries. She was treated and released.
Joseph was arrested in Georgia five days after the attack and extradited to Florida on June 4, 2014.
In closing arguments Wednesday, Assistant State Attorneys Aleathea McRoberts and Lauren Godden urged jurors to reject defense claims that Joseph acted in the heat of passion.
“For 40 minutes that boy suffered,” McRoberts said of Chery. “What reasonable person wouldn’t have cooled off in that time?”
Assistant Public Defenders Noble Parsons and Renee Sihvola said prosecutors’ theory of what happened that day didn’t quite tell the entire story. Parsons said branding Joseph as “the jealous ex-boyfriend who killed” was taking the easy way out of the case.
“It’s easy to fit certain facts in your head, but to think of it this way you’d have to set aside a lot of other facts that don’t fit,” Parsons said.
Laurore and Joseph had been in a relationship for about five years and had one child together, according to news archives from the Bangor Daily News.
He transferred to UMaine in 2011 after two years at Erie Community College in Orchard Park, N.Y., and appeared in a total of five games for the UMaine football team during the 2012 and 2013 seasons, according to university officials in 2014. He broke his leg in the first game he started on Sept. 14, 2013, and missed the rest of the season.
Back in 2012, Joseph had been accused of attacking Laurore while they lived together with her son from a prior relationship and their daughter in Orono. UMaine police arrested Joseph on charges of domestic violence assault, domestic violence criminal threatening and misdemeanor assault on Dec. 17, 2012, after Laurore told officers that Joseph had tried to strangle her twice and threatened to kill her in a jealous rage.
Joseph took a plea bargain on a disorderly conduct charge, for which he spent 48 hours in jail. He also was suspended from the school and the football team on an interim basis after the 2012 incident, according to UMaine officials. He returned to the football field the next season.
After being named a suspect in the West Palm Beach stabbings, Joseph was suspended again on March 8, 2014, from UMaine, where he was studying child development and family relations.
As a teenager, Joseph set Palm Beach Central High School records for single-game receiving yards and kick returns for touchdowns. He also set the school mark in the 100-meter dash.
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