A judge in state district court found a Lake Charles man guilty of a July 2012 murder at Chateau du Lac.

John Landry III, 40, admitted tying up and robbing 83-year-old Preston LeBleu at the downtown high-rise, but said he did not know he had killed him.

Judge Ron Ware, who presided over the one-day trial instead of a jury at Landry’s request, found Landry guilty of second-degree murder and simple burglary. The murder was a “violent, vicious act,” Ware said.

Landry waived the 48-hour sentencing delay, and Ware sentenced him to the mandatory term of life in prison and seven years on the burglary charge, to run concurrent.

LeBleu, called “Pops” by the other tenants of the seven-story apartment building, had a history of keeping cash in his apartment and lending money, Vernon Morris testified. Morris, who called himself LeBleu’s best friend, said that a few days before LeBleu’s murder, he took him to the bank, where LeBleu withdrew $3,700, bringing his total on hand to $5,000.

Deborah Proctor, who told police that Landry had come to her apartment the day of the murder, testified that Landry said he had found $5,000 in an envelope.

Landry, who also lived at the apartment complex, took the stand in his own defense, telling Ware that he went to LeBleu’s apartment and robbed him for money for cocaine, but that he had not intended to kill him.

“I had one thing on my mind, to get high,” Landry said.

Landry said he had been doing cocaine with another person when he decided on the “spur of the moment” to rob LeBleu.

When LeBleu opened the door, he put the 83-year-old on the bed, and tied his hands and feet.

“He said, ‘Don’t kill me,’ and I was like, ‘I’m not going to kill you,’ ” Landry said.

Landry said he shoved a sock in LeBleu’s mouth to keep him from yelling for help. Landry claimed that he could tell LeBleu was still alive when he left because his chest was still moving up and down. He believed that the bonds were loose enough that LeBleu would be able to free himself and remove the sock from his mouth.

“I assumed he would just take (the sock) out of his mouth,” Landry said. “Nonetheless, he passed.”

No sock was found near LeBleu’s body, Lake Charles police Sgt. Richard Harrell said.

Photos of LeBleu showed him on the bed with his feet on the floor and his head covered by a comforter. LeBleu’s hands and feet were bound so tightly that the skin had been broken and a comforter and sheet were shoved deep enough into his mouth to cause suffocation, Calcasieu Coroner Terry Welke testified. LeBleu had bruises inside his mouth as though the bedding had been pressed against his mouth or he had been struck, Welke said.

The story of the sock “doesn’t hold up under scrutiny,” Ware said.

Searching the apartment, Landry found money in an envelope in a suitcase, he testified. He said he admitted killing LeBleu to his sister and mother later because he had heard LeBleu had died.

Landry admitted that his original story to police that he tied up LeBleu to teach him a lesson for not paying him to wash his dishes was a lie.

Prosecutor Rick Bryant’s cross-examination of Landry was often testy. At one point, Landry told Bryant, “I’m done talking to you.”

After Bryant’s next question, Landry looked to Ware for help, but Ware told him that he had been warned that if he took the stand he would be subject to cross-examination and instructed him to answer Bryant’s questions.

Landry said he had planned to plead guilty to the crime, but that others at the Calcasieu Correctional Center had told him he should wait until prosecutors revealed what information they had.

“I don’t know if I killed him or not, because when I left he was alive,” Landry said, although he admitted he had contributed to LeBleu’s death.

Bryant read part of a letter that Landry had sent to the District Attorney’s Office: “As I am guilty for murder and robbery, I want to be shipped away from Calcasieu Correctional Center as soon as possible.”