According to the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office, “Today, in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County, MD, the Honorable Kevin Hessler sentenced defendant, Jean J. Pierre, 50, of Montgomery Village, to 40 years in prison. This is the maximum penalty for second-degree murder, the charge on which the defendant was convicted by a jury.
The jury deliberated for just two hours after a five-day trial in May 2023, prosecuted by Deputy State’s Attorney Ryan Wechsler and Assistant State’s Attorney Gabe Carrera.
It is believed that the defendant, Pierre, stabbed and killed his wife, 41-year-old Nerlande Foreste inside of their home on the 20000 block of Rothbury Lane in Montgomery Village on August 21st, 2019, then placed her body inside of a shipping container and carried it out to a dumpster. The victim’s remains have not been recovered.
Foreste was Pierre’s second wife. He lost his first wife and several children in the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti in 2010. Pierre and his sole surviving daughter, who lost her leg but survived after being pulled from the rubble, came to the United States as refugees. The defendant’s daughter was 14 years old in August of 2019 when she became concerned for the whereabouts of her stepmother, Nerlande Foreste. The teen contacted police, participated in the investigation, and testified during the “no-body” murder trial.
Quote from the State’s Sentencing Memorandum:
“The Defendant’s actions have not only had an immense effect on the Foreste family and friends, but he also murdered his daughter’s step-mother in their shared home, lied repeatedly about her whereabouts to his daughter, forced her to report her mother’s disappearance to police, and eventually forced her to testify against him in a criminal trial. It was heartbreaking to watch the daughter have to testify against her father, in his presence, about the death of a woman she loved and is still grieving the loss of.
The Defendant took the life of Nerlande Foreste without hesitation or concern for anything other than his own selfish desires. When she disappeared, he pretended that she left him for another man despite a mound of evidence to the contrary. When he discarded her body in the dumpster, the Defendant erased any chance for full finality and closure for Nerlande Foreste’s family and friends.”
