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Inmate testifies Hebert said he murdered Massena woman over stolen money

Posted 3/15/19

Hebert, 47, is being tried for second-degree murder in St. Lawrence County Court, accused of killing 25-year-old Lacey Yekel sometime around June 7, 2014. Jason Smith, 40, testified that Hebert came …

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Inmate testifies Hebert said he murdered Massena woman over stolen money

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Hebert, 47, is being tried for second-degree murder in St. Lawrence County Court, accused of killing 25-year-old Lacey Yekel sometime around June 7, 2014.

Jason Smith, 40, testified that Hebert came to his house the night he is alleged to have slain Yekel.

"I answered the door, I seen him in a state I'd never seen him in before, crying and emotional," Smith testified. "He said he did something bad ... Told me that he killed a girl."

Smith told the court that Hebert gave him a motive for the killing.

"He told me he was partying and he'd passed out and when he woke up money was missing. He told me he'd brought Lacey out to the industrial park. He said he freaked out on her, started hitting her over the head with a rock," Smith testified. "He said after that he realized with his criminal history that it didn't make a difference with first-degree assault or just to kill her ... he said he choked her to death."

Smith said Hebert asked him to help dispose of Yekel's corpse, but he didn't want to get involved.

"He asked me if I would help him get rid of the body ... said he needed to dismember it, bury it, before it started decomposing," Smith said. "At first I told him I would help ... there was a lot of things going through my mind at that point. I wanted him out of my house, I didn't know what he'd try with me if I told him no."

Smith testimony was linked with another witness who has already taken the stand. On Thursday, Justin Lashomb testified that Hebert went to his residence that night and told him he had killed someone with a rock, and then asked for a shovel.

"He explained to me that he went to my friend Justin's house and asked him for help. He said he needed some shovels and other things to take care of the body," Smith said from the witness stand on Friday morning. "He asked me if I wanted to know who it was ... I said yes ... he said it was Lacey Yekel."

Smith also corroborated Lashomb's story that the two had been stealing catalytic converters from vehicles parked near the ARC building in August 2014, about two months after the murder. He said a car pulled up while they were in the act, and Lashomb went to hide a Sawzall tool in the nearby woods.

"I told Justin to grab it, it's not a place we wanted to be," Smith said. "I told him that's where Chris told me his disposed of the body."

The prosecution also played a recording of a phone call from the summer of 2014 made by Hebert from the St. Lawrence County jail to Smith.

"That's just gonna pop out of nowhere ... unless our animal friends do their job," Smith says on the tape. "It's just out there haunting me."

He said they also discussed whether or not Lashomb had talked to anyone about his encounter with Hebert on the night of Yekel's death.

"He asked me if my friend out there, Justin, if we'd spoke about anything he talked about that night," Smith said from the witness stand.

Smith also testified that he spoke with state police from the Oswego County Jail after being picked up in that county in August of 2014 on a possession of stolen property charge. He said Lashomb contacted police about the whereabouts of Yekel's body, and he also spoke with investigators. They were each released with the charges dropped there and in St. Lawrence County in exchange for giving that information to police, Smith testified, adding that he hasn't been offered anything in exchange for testifying in the Hebert case.