BOSSIER PARISH, La. (KTAL/KMSS) – A Bossier Parish man was found guilty Tuesday of savagely beating an elderly motel employee to death.
The Caddo District Court found Wesley Harper III, of Princeton, guilty of the murder of Robert Dehn. He attacked and robbed the elderly man in the Regency Inn on Monkhouse Dr. on Oct. 15, 2019.
Harper entered the motel lobby a little after 2:00 a.m. and asked to rent a room. When Mr. Dehn asked for an ID, Harper walked out of the front door, returned, and told Dehn, “Don’t make a wrong move. I need everything you got.”
When Dehn picked up the phone to call 911, Harper knocked the phone from his hand. Dehn told him he had no money, and Harper leaped over the counter. He beat the elderly man several times, knocking him unconscious. Dehn never regained consciousness and died in the hospital on Nov. 30.
Afterward, Harper went through the motel drawers and Dehn’s pockets looking for money. Hotel surveillance video, containing audio recordings, captured the attack and attempted robbery. The footage showed Harper holding a registration card, where investigators found his fingerprints.
Officers arrested Harper two weeks after the attack. He confessed to attempting a robbery and repeatedly striking Dehn in a recorded statement.
Harper faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison at hard labor without parole or reduction of sentence. His sentencing will take place on Nov. 17.
