MS Coast man going to prison for execution-style murder of teen, district attorney says

A Mississippi Coast man pleaded guilty this week to the execution-style murder of a teenager in a Harrison County field, the District Attorney’s office announced Friday.

Johnte Pouerie, 23, of Gulfport, pleaded guilty in Harrison County Circuit Court to second degree murder in the shooting death of Lazarius Smith. Pouerie also pleaded guilty to aggravated assault in a shooting at the River Chase Apartments in Gulfport, according to a news release.

Pouerie will spend 25 years in prison. Judge Lawrence Bourgeois sentenced him to 40 years on second degree murder and 20 years for aggravated assault but suspended part of that sentence, according to the release.

Authorities arrested Pouerie and a teenager from Gulfport in December 2021 after they found Smith dead near Highway 15 and Posey Bridge Road in Saucier -- a part of the county where, the release said, “individuals were known to go shooting.”

Smith was 16 when he died.

Police accused Pouerie and the teenage co-defendant of an execution-style slaying, according to testimony in the case from 2022. Sheriff’s investigator Michael Giardini testified then that the pair were connected to a group of rappers tied to gun and drug crimes on the Mississippi Coast.

Investigators found social media posts and photos that showed both defendants performing in a rap group called “Wicked” with guns and ski masks, according to the 2022 testimony. The ski masks matched those Pouerie and the teen had when U.S. Marshalls arrested them at the end of 2021, Giardini said in his testimony.

Other footage showed Pouerie in the field on Highway 15 where the group would gather to shoot guns, according to the testimony.

Pouerie also pleaded guilty this week to aggravated shooting after police said he fired five bullets into a car in which his daughter was riding in December 2021.

The girl’s mother and a male acquaintance were also in the Dodge Charger, records show. The girl and her mother were leaving the Gulfport apartment complex for dinner when the acquaintance heard Pouerie yell, “My baby better not be in that car,” according to the records.

Pouerie ran toward the car and fired multiple gunshots, the records say. No injuries were reported.

Pouerie shot Smith days later.

Witnesses told police they saw a car flee the area after the Highway 15 shooting, the release said. Officers with the Harrison County Sheriff’s Department and Gulfport Police identified the car as Pouerie’s, the district attorney’s office said.

Investigators also found surveillance footage and electronic location data that placed Pouerie at the murder scene, the release said. Authorities said Pouerie fled to Houston after the murder but was arrested when he returned to Harrison County at the end of the year.

Police never recovered the murder weapon, the release said.

Pouerie told the court he had been arguing with Smith over the April 2021 death of a friend, the release said. Pouerie said the argument ended when he shot Smith.

Pouerie apologized, according to the release, and told Smith’s family the shooting was “the worst mistake of his life.”

The judge condemned the killing at sentencing.

People who play with guns “either end up in the penitentiary,” Bourgeois said, “or in a pine box.”

Staff Writers Margaret Baker, Anita Lee and Mary Perez contributed reporting.