One of the women accused of setting a fire that killed a Louisiana woman and her three granddaughters now has a trial date.
31-year-old Tamielya Alis Brevelle will face trial on a first-degree murder charge on November 29.
Brevelle was arrested after a February 29, 2020, fire destroyed a home and killed the four people inside — 48-year-old Verlana Inell Cooper, 7-year-old Jayda Kelis Cooper, 4-year-old Brooklyn Elise Cooper and 4-month-old Dreya Reign Russaw. Authorities have said the fire was intentionally set.
And an arrest affidavit filed with that memorandum reveals the father of the youngest fire victim confessed to an affair with the first woman arrested in the case, Tamielya Alis Brevelle, which resulted in a pregnancy.
Brevelle’s niece, 28-year-old Dorothy Denee Bosby, later was arrested too. Both women were initially arrested on four counts of second-degree murder and one count of manufacturing or possessing an incendiary device. But a Rapides Parish grand jury indicted them each on one count of first-degree murder in Verlana Cooper’s death.
The Affair
Included with the memo was the affidavit for Bosby’s arrest warrant. It states that the father of Dreya Reign Russaw, Andre Russaw, admitted during an interview that he had an affair with Brevelle while still involved with his baby’s mother.
Brevelle became pregnant, according to the affidavit.
Investigators obtained video surveillance footage “from different security systems throughout the neighborhood and surrounding businesses” on the night of the fire, it reads.
Footage showed a car similar to Brevelle’s 2011 Chevrolet Camaro parked a few houses away from the victims’ home and then leaving after the fire could be seen, it reads.
Similar: ‘FUCK THEM KIDS,’ Woman Said Before Setting House on Fire With Children Inside
It also states that phone records showed a connection between Brevelle, Andre Russaw and the father of another of the deceased children. Russaw said he last had contact with Brevelle on March 7 through the social media app Snapchat.
Brevelle was interviewed by investigators on March 23, at which time a search warrant was served to get a DNA sample from her. Comparing her sample to a sample taken from an incendiary device found at the fire scene showed a match with “an apparent genetic direct female relative of Ms. Brevelle,” reads the affidavit.
Brevelle denied ever being at the Wainwright location. She told investigators that she had picked up her child from Bosby’s house and then went to a birthday party in Oakdale that day.
But the affidavit states Brevelle’s phone records are inconsistent with that, showing her phone in Ball until late that evening and then in Alexandria. Phone records for Bosby show her phone connecting to at least one of the same cellphone towers as Brevelle’s on the night of the fire, it reads.
Similar: Man Charged With First-degree Murder After He Set His Wife on Fire in Illinois
It also contains Facebook Messenger messages from Bosby to other people on the day of and after Brevelle’s arrest.
The messages show Bosby was scared. That she was mad at Brevelle and accused Brevelle of taking her daughter with her that night. In one, she alluded to the relationship with Russaw as a reason for the fire.
“She pregnant and hurt!!” reads the message contained in the affidavit. “She knew that Mane was with that girl in New Orleans and she went with her move and idk wtf came over her to do some Evil lifetime Story sh*t like that!!”
On the same day the memo was filed with the Rapides Parish Clerk of Court, a letter Bosby wrote to Beard was filed. In it, she talks about how she needs to get home to help her mother and boyfriend with her two young children. She also tells Beard that she’s pregnant and can’t see a specialist for a high-risk condition “while being locked away for such an evil crime I didn’t commit.”
Bosby writes that she prays for the victims more than she prays for herself. She and her boyfriend were in New Orleans during the last weekend of February, arriving back in late on the night of the fire.
The cases involving the children still could go before a grand jury, prosecutor Hugo Holland has said.
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