In the early morning hours of July 6, 2014, a disturbance on Big Cypress Street in Houma, Louisiana, ended in the tragic death of 29-year-old James Conrad Rube II. Rube, a resident of nearby Gray, was knocking on the door of his ex-girlfriend's house at approximately 3 a.m., which awakened a neighbor across the street.
The neighbor, 58-year-old Ray Carlos, was disturbed by the noise and yelled at Rube from his own home.
According to police reports, Rube then began to approach Carlos's residence. In response to the advance, Carlos fired a single shot, which struck Rube in the head and killed him instantly. After the shooting, Carlos himself contacted the authorities by calling 911 to report what had happened. He then waited at the scene for the police to arrive. When officers reached the location, they discovered Rube deceased on the sidewalk.
Following an initial investigation, Ray Carlos was arrested and charged with second-degree murder. He was subsequently booked into the Terrebonne Parish jail to await a bond hearing. If convicted of the charge, he would have faced a mandatory life sentence in prison. However, the legal proceedings took a significant turn when the case was presented to a grand jury. After reviewing the evidence and the circumstances of the shooting, the grand jury determined that Carlos had acted in self-defense. As a result of this finding, the grand jury cleared Carlos of the second-degree murder charge, and he was not prosecuted for the death of James Rube.
