Louisiana teen accused of killing ‘God-fearing man’ who repeatedly raped her and got probation

A teenage Louisiana girl is accused of helping her boyfriend kill a man who repeatedly raped her as a child.

Brittany Monk, 17, and 21-year-old Jace Crehan are accused of strangling and stabbing Robert Noce before stuffing his body into a 55-gallon plastic drum and leaving it in the kitchen of his trailer home, reported The Advocate.

The 47-year-old Noce pleaded no contest June 22 to carnal knowledge of a juvenile but avoided prison as part of a plea agreement.

A grand jury indicted Noce in 2013 for the aggravated rape of a child, but prosecutors agreed to allow him to plead no contest – which is not an admission of guilt – to a reduced charge.

Judge Trudy White sentenced Noce to 10 years in prison but credited him for 19 days of time served, and she suspended the rest of the sentence and instead placed him on five years probation.

The probable cause report shows that Noce was accused of forcing a 4-year-old girl left in his care to perform sex acts, and investigators said the abuse continued until the child was 8 years old.

Noce’s nephew said he was shocked by the slaying of his uncle – who he described as “very much a family man" -- but did not want to discuss the accused couple's relationship to the older man.

“He was a God-fearing man,” said 38-year-old Kelton Noce. “This is very tragic, really unexpected. (I’m) really caught off guard, and (it) doesn’t make sense to any of us.”

Authorities have not confirmed that the teen charged in his slaying was the sex abuse victim, but The Advocate reported that court documents provide numerous details, including initials and birth date, that identify Monk as the victim.

Court documents show Monk began living with Noce at age 2, when he and the girl’s mother began a relationship.

The girl’s mother left the following year after she claimed Noce had raped her, but she told authorities she left Monk, then 3, and an infant daughter with her ex-boyfriend because she was unable to care for the girls.

Years later, the girl told authorities that Noce forced her to engage in a wide variety of sex acts on a nightly basis starting about a year after her mother left, sometimes forcing the child to take sleeping pills and sedatives such as Xanax.

Noce sometimes woke her up and ordered her to get dressed because her mother was coming to pick her up, only to tell her later that her mother did not love her or want her.

The girl was eventually able to return to her mother’s care in 2012, when she reported the abuse, and Noce was arrested.

"She mentioned she’s had a bad life," said a former classmate, William Mosley, who said Monk was secretive about her past.

Investigators said they found sleeping pills, opioid-based medications, and three handguns during a search of Noce’s home, and a former girlfriend told police he forced her to watch videos depicting bestiality and that he stored explicit images of children on his computer.

Monk and Crehan were each charged with second-degree murder and remain jailed on $400,000 bond.

Police said Crehan confessed to killing Noce and stuffing his body into the bin, and detectives said Monk participated but declined to say more about the teen’s involvement.

The girl’s Facebook profile and an online baby registry show she is pregnant with Crehan’s child, the newspaper reported.