Man charged with brutal 2016 murder of Jennifer Coleman walks free

Posted: Wednesday, March 2, 2022. 9:29 am CST.

By BBN Staff: The man accused of murdering 51-year-old mental patient Jennifer Coleman, is a free man after the prosecution dropped the case.

Fifty-seven-year-old Donald Heredia, appeared in the Supreme Court on Tuesday along with his attorney Darrell Bradley, before newly appointed Supreme Court Justice Ricardo O’Neal Sandcroft.

In court, the prosecution filed a nolle prosequi, indicating to the court that the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions no longer wished to proceed with the matter. No reason was given for the nolle prosequi, though we later learned that the prosecution was unable to locate four of its witnesses, including the key witness.

Outside, Bradley explained that, though his client is a known mental patient himself, his mental state was not the key factor in the prepared defense. Bradley explained that if the matter had gone to trial he would have submitted that police arrested and charged the wrong man for the crime, as his client was not responsible for Coleman’s death.

Heredia had been waiting 5 years and 6 months for his trial, spending a total of three years, 11 months in jail before being able to obtain bail.

Coleman, a resident of Caye Caulker at the time of her death, was stabbed to the neck on the night of August 23, 2016. She ran to her neighbor’s house following the injury but later collapsed in the street.

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