A Waggaman man who set out to rob an acquaintance of a gun instead found himself the victim of a robbery planned by his intended target before suffering a “survivable” gunshot wound that ultimately killed him because his getaway driver didn’t take him to the hospital until it was too late, according to authorities.
A Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office detective recently recounted the bizarre details surrounding the Marrero murder of 29-year-old Jeremy Norrman and identified the cast of suspects accused of playing a role in his death.
Tommy Encalade, 24, of Lafitte, is accused of shooting Norrman when the two robbery plots collided in the kitchen of a Marrero home during the early morning hours of Feb. 16, according to Detective Scott Bradley, who testified during a probable cause hearing in Jefferson Parish Magistrate Court.
Tommy Encalade, left, is accused of planning the robbery of Jeremy Norrman with the help of Marlon Borras Jr., right. Authorities say Encalade fatally shot Norrman during the encounter on Feb. 16, 2024.
Encalade will be booked with second-degree murder once he’s extradited from Lafayette, where he was arrested March 15 while on the lam, jail records said.
Marlon Borras Jr., 21, is accused of setting up the gun sale/robbery that ended with Norrman’s shooting. He was booked with being a principal to second-degree murder, armed robbery and obstruction of justice.
The shooting happened at the Dolores Drive home of Johnney Cates, 37, according to authorities. Cates and suspect Seth Fridley, 35, were booked with obstruction of justice, accused of not notifying authorities about the shooting and cleaning up Cates’ bloody kitchen in the aftermath.
Booker McKinley, 57, was Norrman’s friend and the alleged getaway driver for Norrman’s robbery plan. He’s accused of waiting almost an hour to take Norrman to a hospital and faces several charges, including failure to seek assistance for an injured person, conspiracy to commit simple robbery, simple robbery and obstruction of justice, authorities said.
Booker McKinley is accused of plotting with Jeremy Norrman to commit a robbery and not taking Norrman to the hospital to get treatment after the latter had been shot during the hold up. Norrman died on Feb. 16, 2024.
Last week’s probable cause hearing was for McKinley, Borras and Fridley, who were still being held at the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center in Gretna. Cates was released March 12 on a $25,000 bond.
Two robbery plots
It was McKinley who drove Norrman to West Jefferson Medical Center in Marrero on Feb. 16, arriving about 4:10 a.m. with his injured friend in the front passenger seat of his pickup truck, Bradley told the court on Monday. But Norrman was already dead and had likely been that way for approximately an hour before his arrival.
Though McKinely at first denied knowing Norrman, he later admitted being friends with him and confessed the robbery plot that had gone awry, Bradley said.
Norrman had made plans through Borras to buy a gun, but he told McKinley that he was actually going to rob the people selling the weapon, Bradley testified. McKinley drove him to a house in the 2800 block of Dolores Drive in Marrero about 3 a.m. and waited outside for Norrman.
Seth Fridley, left, and Johnney Cates, right, are accused of obstructing justice in a murder investigation. Authorities say they didn't call Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office investigators to tell them about the robbery and shooting of Jeremy Norrman in Marrero and cleaned up the bloody scene inside a residence.
Fridley, who had been living with Cates at the house, was inside and told investigators that he overheard Encalade, Borras and a third person discussing their plan to rob Norrman once he got to the residence, Bradley testified. Alarmed, Fridley told investigators he walked outside to warn Cates what the men had planned as Norrman and McKinley pulled up.
“As [Fridley] was speaking to Cates, shortly after the victim arrived, he heard two gunshots,” Bradley said.
Deadly delay
Norrman was shot in the leg but managed to make his way outside and back into McKinley’s pickup truck. Encalade and Borras told investigators Norrman was armed when he entered the house, though McKinley said his friend didn’t have a gun, Bradley testified.
“[McKinley] drives off from the house, and he claimed he was trying to find his way to the hospital,” Bradley testified.
But detectives say that instead of seeking help for his wounded friend, McKinley drove around the neighborhood for almost an hour. They know so, Bradley testified, because a deputy stopped McKinley for driving in the wrong direction down a Marrero Street about 3:15 a.m. — about 50 minutes before he finally arrived at the hospital.
The deputy pulled alongside McKinley’s truck and told him to turn around but didn’t order him out of the vehicle. Though Norrman was in the front passenger seat, McKinley didn’t tell the deputy about his injured friend, according to Bradley. He was allowed to drive away without a citation.
Nothing occurred during the traffic stop that would have indicated the need to remove any of occupants from the vehicle, the sheriff’s office said Tuesday.
Automated license-plate recognition cameras also captured McKinley’s truck driving around the area. The Dolores Drive home is just 5 miles or roughly 11 minutes from West Jefferson Medical Center. It’s not clear why McKinley didn’t drive Norrman straight to a hospital, but the delay was deadly.
“The pathologist said the wound [Norrman] had was survivable if he was treated in time,” Bradley testified.
A great dad
Though McKinley couldn’t provide investigators with an address for the house where the shooting occurred, detectives located the residence in part because Norrman had left his cellphone behind, according to Bradley. They used triangulation and McKinley’s description of the house to identify it.
Fridley was there when investigators arrived and served a search warrant. He admitted that he and Cates fled the house after the shooting, returning just before daybreak to find a bloody scene in the kitchen, Bradley said. The two men cleaned up the evidence but didn’t dial 911, authorities allege.
Norrman’s relatives and friends were still trying to make sense of his loss Tuesday. His former wife, Erica Norrman described him as sweet, loving and outgoing person who fell into the grip of a heroin addiction that erased the good man she knew.
“He was a great father and partner. He was a great husband before the drugs,” she said.
Erica Norrman said she’d known Jeremy Norrman since she was 12. He was raised in Avondale and Hammond. The pair eventually married and raised a blended family of four before separating four years ago.
“This just hurts so much because there’s no hope of him ever being that dad that he was, again,” she said. “He was such an amazing and good-hearted person.”