On July 17, 2018, Tam Ta, age 46, a resident of Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, pled guilty to Judge Kevin D. Conner for the manslaughter of Tao D. Nguyen.
Ta, a deckhand on the shrimp boat Capt. Ben IV, was accused of the August 2016 killing of boat captain Tao D. Ngyuen aboard the vessel while it was docked in Venice. Although there were no eyewitnesses, circumstantial evidence, including DNA recovered from the scene, revealed that Ta had committed the crime.
On November 20, 2018, Judge Conner sentenced Ta to serve 17 Years of incarceration in the custody of the Louisiana Department of Corrections.