Cisco pleads not guilty
The man accused of the murders at KK's corner was in court today as the ball starts rolling toward his second trial. Thomas Frank Cisco's arraignment is in State District Court.
It's hard to believe, but it's been more than ten years since the triple murder at KK's corner in which three people were killed-- Stacie Reeves, Marty LeBoeuf and Nicole Guidry. The only man ever arrested and charged, Cisco, was convicted of first degree murder-- but he appealed and was granted a new trial.
The local DA's office was recused and the case is now being handled by the State Attorney General's Office. David Caldwell is prosecuting. "This time Cisco's charged with three counts of second degree murder. It's still a murder case. You do have two other people who were there when this crime was committed. And so that's always been something that's surrounded this case from the very beginning. We're still making efforts to find out who those individuals are. But that does cause a lot of distraction. What we're doing here is we're focusing on this defendant now."
And once we're done with him we'll move forward with some of the other information. Cisco entered a plea of not guilty to second degree murder and requested a trial by jury. The defense attorney will have at least sixty days to go through the voluminous records accumulated in the case. "We've got to give the new defense attorney time to review all that information in addition to us being able to catalog it. So we look forward to being able to move forward with a trial date in the near future."
Caldwell says they'd like to bring Cisco to trial by the end of the year, but admits that may not be possible. The murder at the store formerly known as KK's corner took place on July 6th 1997. In Cisco's first trial the state put on 40 witnesses and introduced 128 pieces of evidence. If Cisco's is convicted of second degree murder he faces automatic life in prison. Cisco's court appointed defense attorneys declined to comment.