Susect in murder of Gainesville man remains in jail

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Posted 4:43PM on Friday, August 1, 2003

LAWRENCEVILLE - Nineteen months after Chester Cerosse was arrested on suspicion of murder, he remains in jail. No one reported seeing the 23-year-old pull the trigger in the May 2001 death of Anthony Woron, 22, a former gang member from Gainesville. Police don't have the murder weapon and there is no physical evidence or DNA linking Cerosse to the crime. Woron's friend named a Hispanic gang member not Cerosse as the shooter. ``I'm surprised they're holding me for something I didn't do,'' Cerosse said. Witnesses told police that Woron was drunk and picking fights and was shot during a Norcross-area keg party as he held a knife to a Hispanic gang member's throat, Gwinnett police Detective Marcus Head testified. Cerosse was charged in December 2001 with Woron's murder after another inmate told investigators Cerosse confessed to the shooting while the two were smoking marijuana on a Norcross street, Head testified. Head said the shooting could have been self-defense or defense of another but those theories have not been revealed by Cerosse and his attorney. District Attorney Danny Porter said although there are weaknesses in the case, Cerosse's friends are to blame for his incarceration because they have not been cooperative with authorities. ``Maybe Chester should blame some of his friends for keeping him in jail for 19 months,'' Porter said. ``They won't help him.'' Porter added that ultimately a jury will have to decide whether to set Cerosse free. No trial date has been set. ``Holding someone in jail until they prove they are innocent or until they help convict someone else is dirty business,'' said Michael Mears, director of the Multicounty Public Defender Program, a state-funded program that represents indigent defendants in death penalty cases. ``It happens more often than the general public realizes.''