Man pleads guilty to killing brother
Megan Strickland
Harry Lozeau changes his plea to guilty Wednesday, Jan. 21 in Lake County district court. Lozeau was charged with deliberate homicide in the shooting death of his brother, Terry.
Megan Strickland
Harry Lozeau changes his plea to guilty Wednesday, Jan. 21 in Lake County district court. Lozeau was charged with deliberate homicide in the shooting death of his brother, Terry.
Megan Strickland
Harry Lozeau changes his plea to guilty Wednesday, Jan. 21 in Lake County district court. Lozeau was charged with deliberate homicide in the shooting death of his brother, Terry.
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RONAN — A Ronan man will spend most of the rest of his life in a place described by Lake County Attorney Steve Eschenbacher as reserved for the "most dangerous, most evil" criminals, after pleading guilty Jan. 21 to shooting and killing his brother Terry Lozeau, 51.
In the courtroom Harry Lozeau, 54, gave a softly-spoken, one sentence answer to Lake County District Court Judge James Manley's question of what crime he was pleading guilty to as part of a plea bargain.
"I shot and killed my brother," Lozeau said.
When Eschenbacher asked if there was any legal justification for the crime, Lozeau gave a barely audible, one-word answer of "no."
Eschenbacher explained that he could have taken the case to trial and try to get a tougher sentence for Lozeau, who was accused of shooting and killing his brother after an alcohol-fueled squabble over a pick-up truck. Lozeau led authorities on a two-day manhunt through the Mission Mountains after fleeing the scene.
Instead Eschenbacher said the plea agreement will require Lozeau to contemplate his crimes in the state's highest security prison with between six and eight other inmates. The unit includes a small strip of window where prisoners can see out into a fenced yard. Eschenbacher said he hopes Lozeau will want to redeem himself and work to be released into the yard and maybe, eventually back into society. If Lozeau is released, the probation requirements will be so stringent that if he commits a violation as small as visiting a liquor store authorities will throw him back into jail forever, Eschenbacher said.
"I want him to know his freedom has been killed by his actions," Eschenbacher said. "He loves alcohol so much that he would kill his own brother over a dispute about a truck. I want to take away from him the thing he loves most."
Eschenbacher was doubtful a parole board would ever let Lozeau out of jail, and said that if a board did vote for release it would be more than a decade down the road.
"I want him to have a chance to explain that alcohol has killed his brother, his family," Lozeau said.
Manley did not sentence Lozeau and said a pre-sentence investigation of Lozeau's criminal history will have to be completed before a punishment is decided.
Lozeau has a laundry list of alcohol fueled previous crimes that occurred since the late 1980s. His has previously been convicted in multiple drinking and driving accidents that killed a pregnant woman, unborn child and injured several others.
