An Orleans Parish Grand Jury indicted a dead man on Thursday, one day before his funeral, because the Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office was unaware of his death.
NOLA.com reports that 36-year-old Steven Burns, Jr. was indicted on a second-degree murder charge in the September 2011 death of Michael Marshall, an employee of a scrapyard on Poland Avenue in the Bywater neighborhood.
Burns died on March 20.
Assistant district attorney Christopher Bowman told NOLA.com that the office had not been told of Burns' death before prosecutors took the case to the grand jury.
3 other men were convicted in Marshall's murder last year in federal court.