Decade-old Port Arthur cold case solved with surrender of alleged suspect – Port Arthur News

A 10-year-old cold case in Port Arthur has been solved after the suspected shooter gave a statement to police Friday.

Port Arthur Police Chief Tim Duriso said Damond Lewis of Beaumont turned himself in to police in connection with the Feb. 14, 2014, murder of 29-year-old Eric Darnell Noel.

Lewis awaited his arraignment Friday at 3:30 p.m.

“This brings closure to the victim’s family,” Duriso said.

Police don't know why Lewis turned himself in to police after 10 years.

Duriso said although the case was cold, it was never closed. Detectives will continue to investigate Noel's death.

The victim's mother, Lula Noël, spoke several times with the media in the hope of finding her son's killer.

The crime

Police received a call about a “man down” shortly after 1 a.m. on Feb. 14, 2014, in the 800 block of 9th Street. Police found the victim suffering from a gunshot wound. He was sent to Christus St. Elizabeth Hospital in Beaumont, where he later died.

Police said there were several altercations in the parking lot of the nearby BJ's Grocery Store at 1201 Seventh St., and at one point Noel walked away. A few minutes later, gunshots were heard. When police arrived, they found Noel on the ground.

Lula Noel said in a 2017 interview that she heard there was an altercation that night and that someone told her her son got into an argument with a man and left.

He left in the direction of his girlfriend's house, as he had done several times before.

“They think the same guy came around the corner and opened fire, just like that. Because of an argument,” she said in the interview.

Lula Noël and her husband were in bed when they received the call. She said she couldn't get out of the house fast enough. The police were trying to get information from her and posted her son's photo. There was confusion. By the time she got to the hospital, he was dead.

There was no one to comfort them, she said.

“I didn’t get to say goodbye to him,” she previously said. “That’s how it happened. The only time I got to see him, he was already embalmed and I saw the body and that was it.