La. father found not guilty of decapitating disabled son

NEW ORLEANS - A Louisiana father accused of cutting off the head of his disabled 7-year-old son has been found not guilty by reason of insanity, his defense attorney said Friday.

Attorney Kerry Cuccia said the ruling by state District Judge John LeBlanc came Friday in the case against 32-year-old Jeremiah Wright of Thibodaux, La.

Wright has been in custody since August 2011, when his son, Jori Lirette, was killed at the home Wright shared with the boy's mother. The boy's head was found in the driveway of the home. His other body parts were found in nearby trash bags. Jori's disability required him to need around-the-clock care, including being fed through a tube.

Cuccia says prosecutors agreed to the ruling of insanity and that Wright will be returned to the state mental hospital in Jackson where he had been held.

A call seeking comment from District Attorney Cam Morvant was not immediately returned.

Wright faced a first-degree murder charge in the Aug. 14, 2011, death.

According to a sworn police statement, Wright told investigators he had recently seen signs that made him believe he was living with a CPR dummy rather than his son.

Those signs, he said, included being defecated and urinated on the morning he decapitated and dismembered the boy, whom he referred to throughout the statement as "the dummy."

He also told police he and the boy's mother had fought the evening before, and that she had told him she was moving him out of the house.