Suspect arrested in Robin Malta murder

Less than six months after my friend Robin Malta was found bludgeoned to death in his Lower Marigny home in New Orleans, police have arrested Laura Michelle Lapaz, a felon and drug dealer, in the case, according to this article from The Times-Picayune.This is Robin and his sister, who together owned a hair salon in the French Quarter. Robin was a well-known and much-loved member of the French Quarter-Marigny-Bywater community. He cut my hair off and on for more than a decade. He was grand marshal of the Southern Decadence parade in 1998. And his salon was one of the first French Quarter businesses to reopen after Katrina. Read my original post about his death here.

The T.P. reports that Lapaz, who goes by the nickname Seven, is accused of hiring someone to kill Robin over a drug debt. She was arrested in August in New Orleans for allegedly selling methamphetamines and was booked recently with first-degree murder and solicitation of murder in connection with Robin's death.