S1: E21 – Louisiana Love Triangle, Part 2

A confrontation between two best friends turned deadly.

There was a lot of alcoholic went on that night, and we believe that's what led to the rage, which led to the murder.

And it all happened in front of the victim's wife.

This poor woman has just watched her husband be gunned down.

But even after the shooter's confession, the police believed there was more to this story.

There were just a lot of pieces that did not make sense, and it.

Put the spotlight on the wife of the victim.

When we first came across her, she was playing the grieving widow. But the more you look at this, the more you say things aren't adding up.

We are in Covington, Louisiana today for the conclusion of the Louisiana Love Triangle. I'm slung glass and this is American Homicide. Just a note that this episode contained some graphic content. Please take care while listening.

There's a saying about law enforcement in general, that's very true for dispatchers, where it's a lot of periods of boredom interspersed with minutes of panic, and that's very true in Covington.

Heather Jenkins spent two decades working as a dispatcher for the Covington Police Department.

You may not do anything for hours, and then you may have, you know, an hour where you don't even have time to take a drink of water. There's often no rhyme or reason, you know, to how that happens.

Covington is a suburban community that sits just across the Causeway from New Orleans, and based on some of the calls Heather receives, it seems even further away than that.

I received a call about a cow loose in the city, and we did have to do a pursuit with that cow, and we did get it back home. And we've had peacocks loose in the city. We had a squirrel loose in a home that actually did a lot of damage.

Along with loose cows and squirrel break ins. She's responded to her fair share of more serious calls, including the December two thousand and four murder of Thomas Tally.

Mister Tally had been shot and was laying in the driveway.

And his wife, the mother to his children, Kendra, witnessed the whole thing.

Kendra Tally was outside yelling for help, yelling call no long one.

Kendra watched in horror as her husband, Thomas Tally was shot and killed by his best friend, Tommy Row. Can you even imagine.

Kendra Tally was just basically there kind of freaking out. She was a victim of this horrible crime. Her husband had just been shot.

Kendra was able to identify the shooter as Tommy Row.

At some point, he did surrender and was taken into custody.

And that left the question on everyone's mind. Why on earth would Thomas's best friend turn on him like that.

It did not make any sense to me whatsoever, And I don't really I don't know if anybody really understood what happened in the very beginning.

Well, according to Kendra, it all had to do with a secret she told Tommy about what her husband did to her.

At some point, she did say that her husband forced her into having sex.

And that pushed Tommy rowl over the edge because you see, Tommy had feelings for Kendra and didn't want to see her hurt.

I think she told Tommy that to try and cause him to be jealous, and that she got more jealousy than she expected and couldn't talking out of it.

Tommy Row's jealousy turned into rage. As the sun was about to come up that morning, Tommy drove Kendra back to her.

Home, shots were fired, and mister Talley was dead almost immediately.

Detective searched Tommy Raw's house and found pictures of Kendra and her son, as well as a suicide note that read like one part confession and another part love letter. I also want my mother to know that I love her with all my heart and Kendra just as much or more. I just hope Kendra can forgive me for what I have done. I also hope Kendra will always know how much I love her and what she means to me. I just can't sit around and watch her

I don't know. I mean, I can only surmise that he cared about her.

And if we didn't already have enough questions, the results of Thomas Tally's autopsy presented a few more.

Two guns were used. It didn't make sense. I just felt that that was just such a juxtaposition of all the stuff that had gone on.

Tommy Row was an avid hunter, but did he really use two different guns to shoot Kendra's husband?

And I just thought, this is not how I feel like this went down. The story that Kendra had told us that morning was not going to be the full story.

According to Kendra, Tommy locked her in the truck while he went and got two guns out of his house.

You can't really lie somebody in a truck the way that she said that he did.

Kendra said when Tommy Raw fired the first shots at Thomas from inside the truck, he pushed her head down and shot through the passenger side window. Tommy then exited the truck and fired two more bullets.

There were just so many little pieces that didn't make sense, that it didn't mesh, and it had already become pretty clear that this wasn't just a single man that had a grudge against somebody's husband.

Four days after her husband's murder, Detective Doug Eyirwood brought Kendra back in for questioning. He wanted to know more about the strange dynamic between her husband, Thomas, and his best friend Tommy Row.

She cleaned their ages on the rocks. She didn't know Thomas. He just wasn't great to be with. He was just kind of a house husband and wasn't a party type of guy. I no, she was a party girl. I think he wanted to be the dedicated, calm life at home with his wife and child and started to progress in life as a married couple.

Kendra then talked herself into trouble.

She was telling me about how her husband that day that had oral surgery, and in orders to help him, she thought the best thing to do was to go to the French Quarter with a boyfriend that night.

Yes you heard that right. Kendra called Tommy Raw her boyfriend. So Tommy Raw wasn't just her husband's best friend who happened to be obsessed with her. The two were actually having an affair.

There was this grand or they put together of that being some sort of love between them. It was just this incredible relationship.

He asked me.

It was a bunch of rubbish.

Knowing Tommy and Kendra were having an affair certainly changed the way to detectives viewed the night of the murder.

So it shows you what kind of a class person she is, and that immediately had my suspicions.

The detective kept questioning Kendra, hoping to find the truth.

Most of an interview with a police officer isn't like you see on TV. It's not the good cup Bank cup. That's all TV stuff. The most successful interviews you sit down, you talk with somebody and eventually you sort of getting them to open up and then you get to the truth.

But he didn't feel that happening with Kendra. She kept changing her story and sometimes would answer questions with things she said she read in the newspaper or saw on the news.

It was obvious that she was just not knowing what to say, and she was lost for words because it's difficult to put a lie on top of the lie, because she don't know what lie you've said. If I contradict the other lie, which was contradiction of that because I made up and I got to cover that one, it just goes on and on. It's nobles, It's a domino effect. It just gets worse and worse.

I think.

Even though a couple of times her attorney sort of looked at her and CURIATI WHI to ask her a question because he was dying to find out in the answer to some of these questions too, and they just weren't forthcoming, they weren't believable. At the end of the interview, they said, Okay, we'll cooperate to do you need any more, you can contact us. What we're going to leave now and I said, you, as the attorney may leade she may not.

The detectives believed they had enough evidence that just hours before her husband's funeral, they arrested Kendra and charged her with second degree murder. Instead of grieving her husband's death graveside, she'd be arrested, booked, and behind bars by the afternoon.

And that's what makes the whole thing even more weird.

That's Thomas's brother, Mark Tally.

And if she did what she did, she's a good actress because I did not see her that way.

Mark was completely floored. Then not only was Kendra having an affair, but that she could be involved in his.

No, they didn't have their problems, but they seem genuinely.

Happy with each other.

I just know she's not going to go describe a gun and shoot somebody.

She has to be persuaded into doing that.

That's again my opinion, I just think she got caught up in something that was way over her head.

Tommy Raw didn't talk after his arrest, but his mother did. She told reporters that Kendra visited Tommy nearly every day and that the two were very much in love. She said that you acted like a family, and even when Christmas shopping together just before the murder.

How they pulled this off is the one thing that amazes name. How could they do this with all the people that they know around and seeing around town?

How I could?

That's one thing I can't understand.

Kendraw's mother also claimed that Hendra wanted out of her marriage and had planned on leaving her husband to be with Tommy.

The behind the scenes stuff that I don't know.

I'm sure there was a lot of arguments and disagreements like any other family.

But from what I.

Saw, I think Kendred truly loved Thomas.

The way I look at it is and it's not knocking her in any way, more of a fourteen year old than a twenty five year old body, you know, kind of defiant.

With Kendra's arrest just hours before Thomas's funeral, can you imagine how uncomfortable his memorial service had to be.

It was almost like family feud.

You had Kendra's family sitting on one side and the other on the other. They actually had to have a security detail.

I'm like, come on, this is about Thomas.

If you guys are gonna fight, I'm gonna leave because I'm not gonna.

Deal with this.

Thankfully, everyone behaved themselves. The real battle would take place years later in the courtroom. Nearly three years after Thomas Talley was gunned down in front of his home, his best friend Tommy Row went on trial for his murder, and from the moment he entered the courtroom, assistant Da Jack Hofstadt feared the worst.

Well, how Tommy look when he got arrested with just Sember elevens was completely different. Now he looked when he got the trial. He's six foot two, two hundred pounds and he came hobbling in on the crotches. It shaved real well. He looked real pretty as he could.

They always seem to do this, come into court with an ailment that seems to say feel sorry for me. I'm weak. There's no way I could have done this. Would jurors believe this? Fee who struggled to get around the court room on crutches, could be capable of killing his best friend.

Those things sticking him mind.

But I do know absolutely had Tommy Raoul killed a shot mister Twing, and I do.

Know that it was as cold blood as you're fit in that.

In Louisiana, there are three categories of murder, first degree, second degree, and manslaughter. Originally, prosecutors charged Tommy Rown with first degree murder, which carried the death penalty. The lower the charges to second degree, meaning Tommy faced life in prison, but Tommy's lawyer had aimed even lower.

They were gone for manslaughter.

If Tommy Rown was going to convince the jury, he'd finally have to share his version of what happened the night of the.

Murder, so he pretty much had the testify.

First. He testified about his relationship with Thomas Tally. He said Thomas was one of his best friends. They barbecue, played darts, lid fireworks, and drank beer together.

He was crying and this crying and kids are flowing down his face.

Tommy said he met Kendra when she was a teenager, although Tommy was twelve years older than her. He said he eventually developed feelings for her, but Kendra went up marrying his best friend, Thomas Tally. But about a year before Thomas's murder, Kendra and Tommy started having an affair.

Tommy and her had had a long term relationship. I think he met her when she was sixteen. They had had things were going on. She's running around in the husband.

But the most explosive testimony was about how his and Kendra's evening on Bourbon Street ended in murder.

Kendrick went off with Tommy Rale and two other people in one New Orleans drank some beer, took some math, and some marijuana. During the night, Thomas Talley kept calling his wife on phone on fire when she was coming home and where she was.

According to Kendre, he had been an asshole.

Apparently three o'clock in the morning, they go to the waffle house, and at the waffle house.

Kendra said that her husband had raped her.

And that's when Tommy said he went into a wage and left the restaurant. His version of what happened next is very different than what Kendra told the police.

At this point in time, the story is diverge. His story was that they never went back to his house, that he always carried two guns in his vehicle, one on his side and one on the other side.

Tommy Rawle told the court that he drove to Thomas and Kendra's home and when they arrived, it was Kendra who made the first move. He said that Kendra honked the horn and that made Thomas Tally walk outside. He was barefoot, wearing sweatpants and a T shirt.

He said they got there and that she was sitting on the console right next to her, and she start as shooting. He was shocked that Kendra had shot through the window. He had no idea shot in a shoot and when she was shooting through the window, he was immediately getting out the call with his forty five and went and shot Miss Tally twice. And who he described as a very good friend. I don't know what he did with his enemies, but he described him as a good friend. He did a lot of stuff together.

So this is a completely different story than Kendra's. If you remember, Kendra told detectives it was Thomas who fired first from inside the truck.

She says that Tommy pushed her head down and shot through the window glass one everywhere. Then she says that Tommy got out the car and shot he husband two more times.

That was the only thing both sides agreed on.

Which other story is true.

We know that Tommy shot him in the head twice.

Tommy Roll only admitted to firing the final two shots at Thomas, and he said it all stemmed from what Kendra told him about her husband sexually assaulting her.

Yes, he is shot him, but he had shot him because he was basically out of control. But he did it because he was defending the honor of his girlfriend.

And during cross examination, the prosecutor asked Tommy to show the jury how he shot Thomas.

Tally, I had co console lay on the floor and Tommy got off the stand, stood over him and showed the jury exactly how he shot him in the head.

So there was Tommy Rowe on his crutches, looking all frail. Well, he reenacted how he killed his best friend.

On cross examination, I always ask questions that you got a.

Yes or no.

The prosecutor then asked Tommy if he cried while having sex with his best friend's wife. Tommy didn't answer.

And I thought asking him whether he was crying while he was shooting him, and he was crying when he was getting ready to have a shootout with the police.

His tears just went away and.

He just had this like cold expression on his face, and he kept that throughout the cross examination.

The prosecutor wanted the jury to know that Tommy Row resorted to murdering his best friend when there were a million other things he could and should have done if his ultimate goal was to be with Kendra.

The last question I asked him is how much is forty five its cost? And he said between cloud and fifteen dollars. I said that's cheap and hiring a lawyer, huh?

He said, yes, sir.

In his closing arguments, Tommy's lawyer admitted that yes, his client did shoot Thomas Talley twice, but he said the real culprit wasn't Tommy Row. It was Tommy's love for Kendra. He claimed it was a crime of passion because Tommy was obsessed with Kendra and she manipulated Tommy. He said, when a woman knows that a man has been obsessed with her for years and years and she tells him someone violently, repeatedly assaulted her, what did she expect to happen?

Mrdicase, are the things that sticking in mind because there's always a victim.

Jack Hofstad prosecuted the case against Tommy Row.

Mister Tally was shot and we had to speak up for him, wait to make sure he got justice. But it was an unusual case. Him shooting twice forty five is uncontested. He admitted that.

But Tommy's lawyer argued it was a crime of passion and therefore it was manslaughter, not murder in the second degree, and that it was all a result of Kendra Tally telling Tommy that her husband, the father of her child, had sexually assaulted her. Neither the defense nor the prosecution called Kendra to testify.

They were going for manslaughter and there was no reason I would want to put her in the stand. Why put somebody understand that you don't believe who're this's.

Nd The case against Tommy Row went to the jury and forty five minutes later they returned with a verdict. They found him guilty of second degree murder. At his sentencing, the judge called it the most senseless crime he had come across during his nine years on the bench. He sentenced Tommy Row to life in prison and told him, you have made your own bed. Now you get to

She's charge of the principal of the Myrtle and a principal in Louisiana means that if you're involved in a planning and you're just as involved as a person who actually pulls the trigger, you're guilty.

The best example is an on robbery.

They might have one guy planning on robbery, another guy at the getaway driver, and the third guy goes into the bank.

Well, they're all equally guilty.

Even though one guy won in a bank, one guy sit in a car, guys sitting his house.

And remember when this all began, Kendra was seen as a victim.

I looked at the police board, and everything on the police boardinated no sense at all. I think everybody was suspiciously of Kendre once they started.

Looking at it.

But as the trial kicked off, prosecutors faced an uphill battle because Tommy Row refused to testify.

Tommy Raw was not going to come down and testify to what he testified a trial, So all we had at that point in time was her story and we were going to have Tommy to come down were futed.

It was a huge hurdle for prosecutors, but they plowed forward. On the first day of the trial, both sides presented their opening statements before lunch. Afterwards, the two sets of lawyers informed the judge of something no one in the courtroom had expected. They had struck a plea deal.

I felt at that time still do that she was involved in the murder. But it doesn't matter what I think. It matters whether they have evidence. And let's just say that even in this conservative jurisdiction, which we get at ninety conviction, very probably on the jury trials, we could have convicted her. That's not the right thing to do. You can't prosecute somebody because you think they did it. You need evidence.

Without enough compelling evidence, it seems like neither side wanted to gamble by leaving Kendra's fate up to a jury, so they struck a deal. In her plea deal, Kendra admitted to one count of possession of meth and one count of manslaughter. A manslaughter charge carried up to forty years in prison.

All the time you get please reports where you say, yeah, I think they did that. Well, thing in the world is for somebody who prosecuted somebody because they think they did that, And we didn't go down that road.

And when it came time for sentencing, the judge gave Kendra just ten years for a manslaughter and five years for the drug charge. Even though she faced far more time in prison. Her plea deal with prosecutors kept her sentence at ten years. Kendra was all smiles when the judge ruled that she could serve both sentences concurrently.

Was the wisest thing she did was to take that plea deal.

Detective Doug Arrowood worked the case, and.

She knew that that was probably the best chance to get through this, the quickest way to do the least time to have to suffer the least from her actions.

I wish, knowing.

What I'd do, that we had not taken the plea deal and gone for it. But it's not up to me. It's up to the family. And you also go to think about the sun as well, even though he was an infintent time, they'll take the w into account and they were very satisfied with a ten year sentence, So that's what counts, and that's.

What we went with.

Maybe we would prefetzy Kendra get twenty years as supposed to tend. But is there that chance that she could have walked out of the courtroom that day.

Yeah, and they didn't want to see the hat.

When Kendra took the plea deal, she was just thirty years old. She told her family in the courtroom that she'd still have a life when she's released from prison.

I think the trial was fair, although I think Kendra got off somewhat easy.

The victim's brother, Mark Towley, struggled with Kendra's plea deal, and from what he learned in the courtroom, Kendra shot first.

She shot first through the window of the pickup truck. To me, that's not man slaughtered, that's premeditated murder.

But I wasn't there, so I don't know.

I don't know all the facts.

So I think she basically got away with more than she should have.

I feel like.

The universe has a way of handling with, you know, people like that, And to me, if there is punishment, they'll get it at some point or another. I do forgive him and Kendra, but I will never forget it.

I just cope with it.

Kendra became a free woman in twenty thirteen after serving most of her ten year sentence. She has since remarried and moved to Arkansas. She refused our request for comment.

I still see Kendra as the bubbly, happy, you know, cheerful person.

I think she's a good person, you know.

I don't think she's evil.

Yes, and was shocked that it happened, and especially that Kendra was a part of it. That was probably the hardest part for me, because in my mind, she had to be persuaded to do this or be incapacitated.

That's just my opinion.

Detective Era Wood disagrees.

You got two guns, you got two people. I think they both decided to go and do this. She didn't have to talk him into anything. He didn't have to talk her into anything. They were both intent on the same thing. I think they wanted to be together and they wanted to get rid of the obstacle. It was in their way, So let's get rid of the husband.

But the question is why why killed Thomas Tally? Only Kendra and Tommy Rowell have the answer to that, and they're both sticking to their respective stories.

The only thing I regret and I wish I had gotten was a confession from her. If I had a confession from her, that's the slam duck was at out in court, out done. We're probably gone away for the rest of your life. I wish I'd have had.

That, even without a confession from Kendra. He believes Tommy Row's version of what happened.

With the evidence of the scene, My theory was that she shot through the window when he came out of the house, and rowl got out, went around and finished him off on the drive point blank. We knew we had the right theory behind it, but we couldn't make him testify the her trot. As we couldn't make him testify, we couldn't produce him as a witness, so we couldn't present what he had presented in court previously.

Today, Tommy Row remains in a Baton Rouge prison serving out his life sentence. Kendra got off much easier.

It's not the result I wanted, but it's next best.

Though.

It's a tragedy when you have these things to happen, but at the same time, some of these things that can bring close together and strange stories.

Lost in all of this is the other victim in this story, Thomas and Kendra's son, who was just two years old when he lost his father.

She still has a son. I don't know if she sees her son or not. If she does, I hope she can be a positive importance in his life if it's necessary for her to be a positive inquist by being away, and I think she needs to stay away. That's up to her, her family, her son, because I'm sure he's almost old enough to make that decision himself now. So you have to take everything into account. I think justice was served here in the sense of Tommy Rowl.

I think Kendrew did too.

Next time on American Homicide, after an aspiring preacher winds up dead, the community looks inward to understand who was responsible. What's discovered is a web of crimes. We're back in Louise for part one of Bodies on the Bayou. I'm Sloane Glass. That's next week on American Homicide. You can contact the American Homicide Team by emailing us at American Homicide Pod at gmail dot com. That's American Homicide pod