By VICKIE JAMBON

Staff Reporter

LAPLACE – A St. John the Baptist Parish grand jury did not indict a 34-year-old LaPlace woman Monday, previously charged with the Dec. 26, 2004 stabbing death of her live-in boyfriend.

According to the clerk of court’s office, the grand jury issued a ‘no true bill’ in the case of Gidget D. James.

James was arrested by authorities and charged with second-degree murder for allegedly stabbing her boyfriend in the kitchen of their 155 Riverview Court mobile home.

James told authorities with the St. John the Baptist Parish Sheriff’s Office she stabbed Darrell Sullivan in the chest because he was choking her.

According to the St. John the Baptist Parish Sheriff’s Office, the woman told authorities she and Sullivan arrived home at 10:15 p.m., after visiting a friend in Norco. She said Sullivan had been drinking and that he told her to stop talking on a cell phone.

James said Sullivan began choking her after she refused to stop talking on the cell phone. The woman confessed she first grabbed the kitchen knife to scare off Sullivan. Instead, she stabbed Sullivan in the chest.

spokesperson with the Sheriff’s Office said James pulled the knife from Sullivan’s chest and washed it in the kitchen sink before going down the street to solicit help from a neighbor.

The neighbor called the Sheriff’s Office, while James fled in a pick-up truck owned by Sullivan’s father.

James was arrested at 12:20 p.m. on Bayou Steel Road, near Airline Highway. She was booked into the Sherman Walker Correctional Center, where she remained on a $550,000 bond until her release Monday.

Ambulance personnel told authorities Sullivan had no vital signs when they arrived at the home at 11:51 p.m. and a coroner pronounced Sullivan dead.

An autopsy performed Tuesday morning revealed one stab wound in Sullivan’s chest and no defensive wounds.

When arrested, James told authorities she and Sullivan had been having domestic problems for the past three years.

Sullivan was arrested at the couple’s home on Sept. 25, 2004 on a domestic disturbance call placed by James.