Thinking Sideways: The Jefferson Davis Eight

Number of times you were not happy researching. I'm not and it usually liked the murder I usually I usually do.

I just think there's something about this case as a young female that is, you know, and granted I am not of the similar situation of this case that we're going to talk about, but just there's something, you know, like I can totally do the like random unsolved kind of mysterious murders, but like when we're talking about something like this, yeah, you know, actually just makes me researching this. I don't know if you guys ever watched that show was on for two seasons years ago, twin Peaks, They

ever watched that show? I did see some of it. Yeah, it's about this bucolic little town up in Washington, and uh and it's like, you know, a little small town. Everything's nice and everything, but then there's just all this stuff going on underneath the surface. I mean a lot of murder, a lot of just intrigue, all kinds of people who really surprise you. You know, you thought they

were they were just regular folks. With what this of With with that very descriptive introduction, before we get into things I want to talking about, well, I want to tell everybody right now that the story that we're going to talk about involves multiple murders and some very graphic things. So if that's not your deal, if or if you've got kids around right now, you should probably either skip this one or listen to you know, listen to it later. Yeah, because it's this is this is a rough one. It

has the potential to be a rough one. And and the story that we're going to talk about is the Jefferson Davis Sate or you've also also it's also referred to as the Jennings eight. Yeah, and and this was this is this is not a small story. So again, this is kind of one of those we've all taken it on together to try and work through this, and I've got to tell you right on the on the outset, Joiel, We're not going to solve this, this one, even more than any of the other times you ever say that, well,

we can solve this. In high level terms, there were eight murders. Okay, well, don't don't. Don't get ahead of yourself. And if he okay, am I wrong? All right? So what we're gonna do here is is we're gonna do this in a couple of different parts. So this is gonna be set up a little bit differently than a normal episode is we're gonna kind of break down some of the players that are involved in some of the facts. The person that did the most investigation on this story

is a man by the name of Ethan Brown. And Ethan Brown he wrote a great article about this and it was on me, it's on medium and were we actually were lucky enough to talk to him, and so we've got a pretty good, lengthy interview where he's gonna walk through a lot of this stuff with you and then we'll talk about some other stuff after that. But I just kind of wanna before we get to that interview.

Let's lay down some groundwork. So by the way, he's Ethan Brown is writing a book about this very topic, which y'all are probably going to go out and get a copy of, probably are um and I think it would probably be helpful to mention on the outset. You may or may not know our website we always post stuff, but Steve has made this kind of flow chart graphic description of what's going on. So if you want to check out that document, it's a you can download it

as a PDF. We're going to make it available to you, so right now go to Thinking Sideways podcast dot com. You can just you know, click on it, check the PDF or printed out whatever you want. It may actually help you track this if that's something a lot of you listen while you're at work, whatever, So don't worry about it. We're gonna do the best we can. But if you are interested, you should do that. Now. Print out your like little Annie Orphan Annie. Hopefully your printer

can handle the leven by seventeen. View it online. It's easy, but no it I we made this knowing that this was a complicated case and this is the first time we've had to do is and I think it's going to really help. Okay, Okay, so now that you've downloaded the pdf, Okay, so here, let's let's start out and we'll just kind of take this in. Each person will kind of take a different piece. So I'll go ahead and I'll start off with our victims. And there are

eight victims, primary victims. And these are eight different women, and those plus two other corpses. Well, yes, this is why we're just talking about right now. We're just gonna name off our primary victims, the eight and they were murdered between two thousand five to two thousand nine. And and on the outset. Again, if we haven't said this, these murders are unsolved. Yeah. And and by the way, this is this is in in Jennings, Louisiana, a little

small town of about what ten thousand people. Now I'm thinking about this now we live in We live in Portland's which average is about twenty murders a year. Portland is infinitely larger than Yeah. Yeah, that's the first town that size. That's a hell of a lot of murder. Yeah, and I guess that there's so they is the eight. This is getting ahead of ourselves talking about let's just talk about the eighth. So I'm gonna just list them off in chronological order. On May two thousand five, the

body of Lynn Lewis was found. We're doing chronological of discovery of discovery, yes, yes, thank you for clarifying that, because we don't know the exact dates. So these are all discoveries of the body. And also they might have committed suicide. Just made it look like murderers, alright. So next we have Ernestine Patterson, whose body was discovered on

June eighteenth of two thousand five. We have Kristen Lopez whose body was found on March eighteenth of two thousand seven, Whitney Dubois who was found on May seventeenth, two thousand seven. Laconia Brown was found on May twenty nine of two thousand eight. Crystal zen Zeno Rosino I think it's Zeno Zeno was set Timber eleven, two thousand eight, was found, Brittany Gary was found on November eleven of two thousand and eight, and then lastly, Nicole Guillory was found on

August nineteen of two thousand nine. And they're all young women. The youngest I believe was seventeen and the oldest was thirty years old, so they're they're in a very very pretty tight age range. And we'll just talk a little bit about the murder victims themselves. In this town, it's rampant with drug use, each other, they all knew each other. There's prostitution is known to have taken place, and these girls were all prostitutes at one time. And I believe

that they were all prostitutes. I'm not gonna I'm not gonnacent say, I'm not going to cast dispersions on the dead. But they were also all known to frequent the same place. Which is it the Joe helped with the pronunciation. Is it more though? I think, and I think it's Boudau. Boudreau, by the way, is closed down now, yes, And this will this will the Boudreau will and will come up in our interview with Ethan. So again we're just kind

of laying these things out. But the end was it sounded like a tin building that operated as a hotel. Yeahs was a hotel eight yeah, not not even up to that high standard, yeah, I know. And and there was a lot of basically it was kind of a den of iniquity, a lot of drug use, a lot of prostitution, doing things like that. And Mr Brown will talk about this a little bit. But Jennings is a

place that's very divided. There's the north side and the south side, which are divided by literal railroad track and the south side is apparently a den of kind of people who are on a much lower economic class. Lots of prostitution, drug use, crime. Doing what you think you have to do to get is the best way I can think of to say. I did a little street tour. Actually I got on Google Maps and did just gun on the street view and just buzzed around the streets

a little bit of the north part of town. And it doesn't look that bad, you know. Um. And then I got to try to go to the south and apparently the Google car was afraid to go there. There's not even Google ste pictures. Actually there are a little bit there. But yeah, So there are also three cops that are closely tied to this case. Well I think I think I think it's three cops that that come up the most is And you might want to talk about the task force a little bit. There either is

a task force. It's like local cops. It's local cops FBI and county coups and state cops and that b I on there. I wasn't clear on that theoretically there theoretically, but they're a local branch of the FBI, right, Yeah, so these people all know each other. Um, But the three main cop players that are kind of brought up that are really tied into the case, Um, the first I'm not tied into the sense we should stress that that there's there's any indication that they have any they've

actually got involvement in the murders. Nefarious, but yeah, but there's there's questionable actions we'll talk about. That's a little bit. Well, let me let me preface what Joe said there. And I don't know, We're we're pretty deep in this, and that's why I want us to back up a little

bit for our listeners. I don't know about YouTube, but I've had my head deep in this story for three weeks, to the point that I've been talking about this story to everybody I know, to the point that I know that my boss is tired of hearing about it, my fiance is tired of hearing about it, my friends are tired of here. But they want to talk. But we're so deep in this is that I think that what we need to get across before we get too much in of the cops is this is a very tiny

a very small town, and everybody knows everybody. And so when we're talking about these people and we're gonna make connections, it's because if you've ever known anybody, or you've ever lived it, who's in a small town, everybody knows everybody, and everybody's connected. And that's that's the point of what I think is the reason that we're bringing up these these particulars and they have they have very defined actions that connects them to the case. It may not be murders,

but I'm going to talk about that right now. So Paula Guillory, she was a deputy um in Jennings for a while. She has no longer a deputy. She has since been fired. She was part of the task force and she was charged with managing the evidence in a case against a guy named Frankie Richard, who we're going to talk about in a minute, because about four thousand dollars was missing after it was cataloged. It just went missing out of evidence. So she was excused of taking

that money. Yeah, it was actually one. She was turning it into be catalog. That's when it came missing. Yeah. And then and I don't know that Ethan talked a little bit about this, so we'll get a little bit into the nitty gritty of that. Um. But she was fired for theft and um claims of tampering with the

evidence or theft of evidence. And she was at one time married to a man named Terry Guillory as also a cop who was actually the warden at the local jail, who was cousins with one of the murder victims, the seventh murder victim. He was the warden at a local jail, and he was alleged to have tricked out female inmates, which I guess means that means you put really cool accessories on he was. It's essentially he was pimping them out, which is not a good thing to have somebody in

a position of authority doing that kind of stuff. Happens though. And then Officer Warren Gary, who as far as we can tell, has no actual relation to Brittany Gary who was remember six if you're keeping track, and he I don't want to get too deep into it, but he purchased a truck that was probably evidence and then detailed it, thus negating any evidence that would be in said truck. And he purchased it from Warden Terry Guillory actually broker.

This Guillory broker the sale. He actually bought it from somebody. Sorry for passing, and that that evidence. Just so we can tie back to our victims, would be it's related to the Lopez murder, which is victim number three. Yeah, so those are the three main police officers that were we'll talk about a little bit in regards to this case. Okay, Now we talked about the pulitzide, the Pope Poz. Let's

talk about some of the other local characters. There's there's a guy that's kind of at the center of a lot of this stuff whose name is Frankie Richard. Frankie is an older guy and he's been around the block a few times. He is has got his fingers and a lot of pies in Jennings. He is rumored alleged to be a major pimp, and it's it's rumored that he actually pimped out all the women who were murdered, all but one actually Okay, yeah, it was he yeah,

it was all but one of them he had pimped out. Yeah. Uh. He's involved in various other things like for example, um, the raid where Paula Guillory, the policewoman that we just talked about that got her in hot water, was a raid on his house. So he had a bunch of other people in this. In this particular instance, had been running this rain where they they broke into people's homes and stole stuff including cash and coins and jewelry and stuff like that. And so they rated, including including Paula

Guillory and some other people. They rated his home and arrested a few people and confiscated a bunch of material, including the evidence that she was supposed to turn in four thousand dollars was turned in missing, So that was all. That was all Frankie ri Shard. So he's he's been involved in a lot of this. And if you talked to h if you talk to Ethan Brown, Ethan Brown actually spent a lot of time hanging out with Frankie ri Shard. He's kind of the he's kind of the

crime kingpan of Jenny. Yeah, he doesn't he doesn't sound like the kind of guy I want to sit around and have a beer with I've watched interviews with him, and he is creepy. He's creepy. The word to use. Creepy is the word that I would use, but in the way that it's unsettling to talk to people who might not be all the way they're generally. Oh, you mean a long term drug users, somebody who's been using drugs for a long time, and they're talking, he's talking

and stuff, but he's just not there's something there. It's just like, you know, like a there's a wire that's not totally connected. He's not in that weird it's hard to describe. He himself admitted to like decades of drug and alcohol abuse. Definitely. Yeah, And I unfortunately, just because of where I grew up, I know a lot of people like that, and so I can I totally understand what you're saying. There's something you talk to somebody like it's I guess it's that like there's like a bit

of like emotional connection that seems to be missing. And I also think that it's the loose wire that you talked about. Yeah, I actually think it's not loose. It's connected to the wrong spot and they make a lot of weird rapid jumps and that's that's unsettling. A lot of heavy drug uses. And those are the people that I've always found were like that. They just they skip back and forth. It's it's like a needle on a record that is in a car driving down the road.

It's just I've known people like that. And you know, again, we'll post a link to a video an interview with him, but it's uh, yeah, sorry, not until that's fine. But yeah, anyway, so we talked about Frankie Ushard. Just another side about Frankie.

He was he was actually uh they actually tried to put him on trial for one of the murders because somebody named there's another character I'm going to produce you now, Tracy Chase Song is a person who a female person who claims that she saw Frankie and his god niece Hannah Connor murder Dubois. Which who was which one? She was the fourth victim? I believe? Yeah, Okay, so Tracy actually claimed to a scene Frankie Richard murder a couple

of different people. And then of course I mentioned Hannah Hannah Connor that is again Richard's god niece, and they spent some time hanging out together. In terms of the Dubois murder, which of course Frankie didn't never actually got tried for because for lack of evidence. UM she claimed that she was sitting around getting high with du Bois, Hannah Connor, Frankie Rochard, and herself, and Frankie made a move on. Du Bois wanted to like have sex with her.

She refused, so he got angry beat her up, and that supposedly Hanna Khan her and Hannah Connor held her down and they drowned her. I don't know how that works. Exactly four seven up down her throat until she can't breathe anymore. But yeah, well we won't go into the grizzly details, but let's just say that she was found next to um, what's it's canal because the area it's in Louisiana, so it's surrounded by canals, and they drowned her.

She she was drowned. And and actually that brings up one thing that I did forget to mention when we were talking about her victims is that six of our eight victims we don't have a confirmed cause a death. They were two they were too decomposed. They believe it was aphyxia, but they can't confirm that. And then the other two, which this is terrible. With the other two, they know the cause of death because their throats were

cut they slit. So so yeah, so I I just because that one, I know, they talked about drowning this particular individual. Okay, Now, speaking of speaking of some of the other characters involved, there's a couple of guys Byron Jones and Lawrence Nixon, who are just just general narrative wells who hung around Jennings. They were charged for Patterson's murder. Patterson was the second the second victim. She was discovered in two thousand six, two thousand seven five. Okay, so

they were charged with her murder. About the charges were dropped due to lack of evidence. Yeah, just a reoccurring theme. They're just yeah, there's not a lot of evidence, and yeah and so and and either these guys are really good but or you know, covering up evidence or you know, I guess if you toss the body somewhere and it's not found for a long time, but by the time they find the body, all the evidence has sort of been washed away. You know. That's so Connie Siler. So

she was the last one to see Lopez alive. Lopez was the third victim, and she was involved with this pickup truck that was broken by this one cop to another cop who bought it and the audio, yeah, which we talked about just do. But she was perfectly involved because of her pickout truck. Maybe she used the money from that sale to pay off a bunch of bad checks and get herself out of trouble. So those are

just some of the other major players. Now let's let's talk about a couple of the because I know you in the beginning you mentioned that there's some other murders and when we talk to Ethan, and this will come up in the interview, is that there is a huge murder rate and there's a huge unsolved murder rate. But her number of murders. But there's a couple of clearance right, Yeah, low clearance rate is a good way to put it.

There's a couple of other facts that you should probably know before we get too far along, although we're already pretty far along. Uh. There is a death of a local man who is let Crochet, and he died on in April of two thousand and five, Croche was was killed in the term is has been dubbed a botched police raids. So there was a bunch of people at the house. They were all doing drugs. The cops came

in and the electricity had been cut off. There's no electricity, and and for reasons unknown, the cops opened fire in the middle of this what was otherwise a peaceful drug raid. Yes, and killed this man and killed this man. And there have been theories positive that these women we know for sure at least one of the victims was there, but it's been positive that they all knew something about that police shooting and that was the reason that they were

all targeted. Yeah, and in a small town, everybody talks. They won't talk to the cops, but they'll talk to each other and they will share information and red rumors like wildfire. Yeah. Although I gotta tell you though, I am I really don't buy into that theory personally, No, I think I think that's weak sauce. But I want to put it out there. Some people are aware of that one. Yeah, there is. There's there's two other deaths

that I want to talk about. One of them is in relation to the fourth victim, which is whitneyd Wi And there was a man by the name of Harvey bird Dog Burier. I believe I'm pronouncing that right. I think it's either yeah, Okay, we'll go with that. Everything is kind of French and yeah, and that's why I'm not good with friendships. Yeah. So bird Dog was was shot to death. You're right, he was stabbed to death.

I don't know what I'm on a shooting thing. Evidently he was stabbed to death after telling people that he was close to figuring out who was responsible for the Dubois killing Whitney Dubois. So he died because of that, and his murder has never been solved, well not necessarily because of that, but it is a little suspicious. Well again, it's you draw one another. He's walking around town telling everybody he's working on the case and he's figuring out

and then suddenly he's stabbed down. Yeah. And then another victim that's on the periphety that I want to talk about is Ussell Carrier is a carrier carrier Okay, we'll just say carrier and we'll probably be wrong on that, but Russell Carrier, Uh, he after Crystal Zeno, how did

we anyway? Crystal? After the Zenno murder, he reported seeing three men leaving the woods, leaving the woods where the body was found, leaving the woods where the body was found, and and he said that he had spotted these three men. And it is a man by the name of Irvin Tyson Morton, Eugene dog Ivory and Ricardo Tiger Williams. And those middle names are all nicknames. They are. Yes, yeah,

that's that's a good thing to say. Those there, by the way, they are all close associatests Frankie Richard and all people the task force had named as suspects in the Lopez homicide. Well, actually no, um Irvin was the only one that had been specifically that I know had specifically been targeted in the Lopez murder. But they're all, as Joe said, they're all associates of Richard. And here's here's the the weird thing is that Um is Russell. His cause of death was he laid down in front

of a train. Yeah, I know. That's that's one of my favorite napping spots is on railroad tracks. Yeah. Yeah, he was snoozing on the tracks and the train came along and killed him. So nothing suspicious about that. You know. Some people said, oh, yeah it was a suicide, but like, no, I don't know that there's any documented cases of somebody laying in front of a train. People do it, you know, but but you freak out right, you have your last

minute of like you're just like primal. Whatever we're going to, I think it would be that that commits suicide via train usually jump from just lay down because when you're laying down, you know your natural inclinations to think about things, so that it's very jumping in front of a train. You know, Suicide by train is very common in places like Japan, but in places like Louisiana, guns are pretty plentiful.

This it would be a lot easier and quicker to grab a twelve gage just stick it in your mouth. I mean, you know, you just run out to one of those canals yourself to the fishes. Yeah. Yeah, it's lot of ways to do it, definitely better quicker, easier ways and laying down the tracks. So okay, I think are we all in agreement that we've kind of laid

out as a skeleton overview the case. Yeah, do we want to just like quickly mentioned that a couple of the eight were interviewed about murders that happened previous to their murders. That's actually probably a very good thing. So Kristen Lopez, who there's a lot of connections, she seems to be one of the big more connected. She's kind of a hot spot. Yeah, she was interviewed about the Lynn Lewis murder, which was the first body that they found, and then I guess, just not so long after she

was interviewed, she was murdered. And then Brown, who was the fifth person to be found, was interviewed about the Patterson murder, which was the second murder or the second body to have been found. Again, we don't totally know when the murders happened, we know when they were found. Um, so she was interviewed at that and then you know, if you kind of add the bird Dog and Russell potential murders in with that, I guess that would be about four people who were interviewed or said something about

the case. And I think that's a company I think that does talk about this. It's much clearer, it's much clearer. But they foundation all knew each other we're all wrapped up in it. And it's also been positive. There's Sessaman said that they were all informants for the local, and that's thank you, Joe, because that's right where I was going, is that these ladies were all supposedly informants. I think that the clearest case, I believe it was um Nicole Guillory.

She had a pretty serious rap sheet and she had a lot of things on her rap sheet, but she the d A decided not to follow it. And Joe, do you remember the phrase for when you're an informant and they don't want to follow through because you're an informant And I don't remember that. I don't remember that.

There's a phrase. It's a Latin phrase, but essentially what it means is that we don't want to follow through because you're our informant, and we don't want to get you out of the field because then we're not getting information out of you anymore. And all these women had things like that against him. We're copscious, like, oh no, we don't, we don't want to pursue that case. So you beat that guy with an axe handle, Well, that's okay, that that John deserved it. We don't want to follow

that case. It literally cases like that. So yeah, So one of the things that I suspect with these if if they were all informing to the local police, if you know, and and it appears that Jennings actually had

really kind of a crime syndicate. There's kind of a mafia there, and they probably had at least one mole inside the police department, which means that if you're informing and on members of the crime syndicate, then the mall gets the information back to the crime syndicate, that would be possibly a factor and you're getting murdered somewhere later

on down the line. All these women were informing, and I'm sure there was a mole at least one corrupt cop inside inside who was passing information along with the criminals. A little bit feel like we should talk about a lot of this police stuff that we're talking about our

recent revelations based around Ethan Brown's investigation. So I think that a little bit we should say for a long time people thought that there was just a really crazy serial killer on the loose in Jennings, um that it was one person who was killing a lot of people.

And it's still you know, it's still totally plausible that it's just one person, but that that person, you know, was on a killing spree from two thousand two thousand nine and moved to you know, I've even seen I've seen a lot of stuff in my research, um just looking through like you know, looking through threads on Reddit or looking at a are kind of internet investigation places where people kind of talk, you know, on forums, and a lot of people say, oh, yeah, the Jennings cases,

the Jennings eight are connected to this serial killer that they apprehended in California two years later, and it was just like that this person was passing through there. So I think it's very and just decided to stick around for about four years. And yeah, well, I think it's important to mention that for a really long time that was the assumption, including the task forces assumption that there's just a crazy serial killer killing prostitutes. Jennings not an

outrageous assumption. I agree with it. Yeah, yeah, it's not, but it's not not necessarily be the case. There might be multiple murders. I know that Frankie Shardaki is one of the local cops of being responsible for the murders because and I can't remember the cops name, and I don't want to repeat it because I don't want to slander anybody's day. But this guy apparently was a little bit kinky and none to frequent the prostitutes of Jennings and when the ladies he did and uh and when

he died, the murder stopped. Now Frankie Shark, Frankie Shard claims that it was probably him. But at the same time, Ethan Brown, for example, thinks that doesn't place a lot of credibility in that. He doesn't. He thinks he's people believes that that cop possibly is in well, that one

of the murders, but not all of them. Yeah, So I think I just think it's really important to talk about the fact that until Brown published his article, really in terms of the coverage that this was getting nationwide, it was always a serial kid. It's just a serial killer. No, that's that's a very good point to make, And thank you, I think miss that I totally forgot to bring that up.

So that's perfect. I think, you know, while we're kind of talking, what we're talking about all this police corruption, but that police corruption didn't really come to light until I guess when did the article come out. It was in two thousand and ten, later than Ethan's article came out,

relatively recently. I'm sorry, I'm getting my dates. Yeah, and by the way, I know I mentioned his book earlier, but he's been he's still since reading that writing that article, has been still on the case and talk to a lot more people and says that he's uncovered a lot more stuff. Yeah. So and unfortunately, so what we're gonna do. I think at this point it's a good time to to to bring in our interview. So we were lucky enough, like I said before, to to talk to Ethan. Uh.

And there's a couple of things. So I know Devin, ironically enough, you wouldn't be here because she was in court. She was actually luckily off. She got a good lawyer. But yeah, so Devin wasn't able to join us. But Joe and I did talk to it. I have reviewed the interview. Uh, And there's a couple of things that I want to say, which is Ethan, we do bound it around a little bit, and we tried to take it in order. But this case is such a tangled mess that it may feel like we're jumping around, and

that's not intentional. We're just following threads. That's why we try to lay everything out. Yeah, because it's already even just in this last you know, thirty minutes that we've been trying, however long we've been talking about it, it's a mess. You are absolutely, by the way, I believe that these murders are never going to be solved. Yeah. The the other thing I will tell you is, uh, you know, usually we get really lucky when we're recording

an interview. Unfortunately, our connection on this interview wasn't the best, and that's going to happen. There's just nothing we can do to control that. So there are times that the audio is a little rough, and we've done what we could to clean that up. So bear with us as as the interview plays out. Sometimes it gets a little funny. That's what happens when you record a phone call. But with that having been said, let's go ahead and let's talk to Ethan and then we'll we'll talk some more

about the case. Okay, So to start off with what I was kind of hoping is, because this story is pretty convoluted, is the best description that I can come up with. I was hoping you could kind of walk us through the story a little bit just to to help kind of illustrate it for our listeners. Sure, I'll walk you through the Barrett Mowings version of it first perfect. So from two thousand and five to two thousand and nine,

the bodies of eight female prostitute. We're found um in swamps and kind of abandoned roads and and and voided areas of a town called Jennings, which is the parish seat of Jefferson Davis Parish in Louisiana. UM. In Louisiana, what we have is parishes, not county. So in other states you would have come from Maryland, you would have Montgomery County for example, right, So in Louisiana and you

have parishes. So Jennings is the parish to Jefferson Davis Parish, and Jefferson Davis Parish is a tiny parish in the very very far west corner of Louisiana's exactly. It's very close to Texas, UM. And the population is only about thirty thousand for the entire parish, and the population of Jennings is about ten thousand, so it's even smaller. So again, oh, I just say I took a little, a little street tour on Google street View yesterday, and it's not a

bad looking little town. Um, but I noticed there was nobody. There was nobody out and about. It was like you see cars driving. I always saw one human being on a sidewalk. It was kind of scary. Right. It's a very very small town. And what's interesting about it is that the it's a it's a very divided town. The north side of Jennings has things like the library, the courthouse, a few car dealerships, you know, sort of typical small

town stuff. Right. The south side, which is actually divided by railroad tracks, so the cliche across the tracks, it's completely truelier. South side, uh, conversely, is abandoned homes, trailer parks, very very small single family homes and things like that. So it's it's quite different than the north side. Like of a race racially segregated town. I mean, it's like it's not. And that's also what's interesting. It's segregated by class. Um.

South side Jennings is actually African American and white. And we talk to folks I've actually been doing. I have a book deal to write a book about this case. I've been doing a lot of a lot more investigations since the article came out, and you hear phrases used by south side residents talk about the north side like high class, high falutin and things like that. So it's

a class devide, it's not a race divide. South Side Jennings is very racially mixed actually, so you have these two separate sides of the town and south Buds Tennings is where all of these women who were killed. Uh,

we're firm, so there's very bare bones. Uh. Sketch of the story is that from two thousand and five or two thousand and nine, eight female obstitutes, all from the south side of Jennings were killed and their bodies were dumped either in canals I'm kind of dirt roads or in wooded areas uh in and around James so um and and all. And it's important to note, obviously that

every single one of those murders is unsolved. Um. At one time, very briefly, charges were brought in one of the cases, the case of a woman named Kristin Darry Lopez, who was murdered in two thousand and seven, and charges were brought against the very notorious temp on the south Side and Frankie re Shard, But those charges were very quickly dropped, so all the homicides are un sold. But the charges, I guess we shared. Those are based on

what's your name is? Tracy? Tracy chefs On is very interesting. She's the cousin of the first them, whose name is Florida chefs Song. And um, she was for a very long time a pimp, I'm sorry at a prostitute working for Rechard's attempt and the reason it's not entirely clear why the charges against Rechard were dropped, but it appears to be that she provided inconsistent statements to the police

regarding that homicide. Yeah, now she she's she originally told the police that she had witnessed Richard and Hannah Connor murder Kristin Lopez next to a canal. Yeah, and correct. Hannah Connor is a kind of a god niece Frankie Eschard, who was also very close with all the murdered women. Yeah, and so the was it Tracy is a chess On? Yeah, okay,

Tracy just on that now she was a source? Was the source also the accusation about the pickup truck No, she was not in in in two thousand and seven and advert about us a bid in my piece, a detective with the Jennings Police named Jess the Ewing interviewed to female inmates who provided statements to him in which they talked about Hannah Connor confessing her involvement in at least one of the homicides and I think perhaps two

as well. And they all I mean inmates also said that Connor confessed to them that Frankie Eschard worked with actually the chief criminal investigator of the Jefferson Davis Parash Sheriff's Office, a guy named Warren Gary, to dispose of DNA evidence in the Kristen Garry lott Is homicide. Yeah, but but she supposedly was murdered by the banks of the canal where she was found. Correct, that's according to the Shafton statement. It's not clear that that's correct. It's

complicated little town. It seems like everybody was informing on everybody. It's a it's a very complex town. But the more time I've spend there, the more I realized that it's it's a town that's very much doomed by its geography, meaning that Jennings is literally like if you're driving on I ten and a big highway that connects um Houston to New Orleans. If you're driving on I tent, it's like a driveway kind of off ten. It's literally on the highway. And I've spent in that area is a

major major drug trafficking route. And then the amount of drug us coming through Jennings and around Jennings is staggering. And it's cocaine, it's craft, it's prescription pills, it's everything. So Jennings is really really that's kind of the heart

of the drug trade in that area. And I've actually since my pieces has around, I've actually talked to people who were in the drug game for a long time and Jennings and you know, they they would tell me stories about you know, oh, you know everybody, and Jennings knows that, like you know, when you're growing up there that the way to get money in the easiest way to get money is to make these little drug runs Houston for cocaine or prescription pills and bring them back

to Jennings Um. And it's very easy to do, it's very available, and it's very lucrat so Jennings is a tiny town that has this tiny town setting in some trees stall like from some of the images that you looked at online. You know, you look at the downtown and there's the post office in the library of the courthouse, and it looks like a small town that could be anywhere. But but yet it's it's really kind of a bull dye area as far as the drug trade is concerned.

That's a shame. That's sort of a side question, which is while you were there doing your investigation, did you pack heat? No? I did not. Yeah, I gotta ask a lot of people thretten me or you know, uh, did I bring kound of me? And whatnot? When I

go out there there. And actually, interestingly, as I was doing this piece, this is completely changed since the peace came out, But prior to the piece coming out, I was sort of looked at as a you know, as a kind of They're like, oh, well, there's this strange person, you know, coming to town a lot um not from here. No one paid attention to what's going on here. Isn't it sort of interesting that this guy is coming here.

You know, it was sort of you know, I was actually treated quite well by everybody that I saw for this piece, including law enforcement, because they had no idea what to make of me. And I think also just as importantly, this this case has been covered quite a bit in the media. There's Seen End covered it, The Times covered it, and everybody covered it from the same perspective, which was there's a crazy serial killer loose in the

swamps of southwest Louisiana and that's it. And I think they just expected me to do that piece that everybody else has done, and you know, they were quite surprised when that was not the piece that that that I did, and very unhappy about that too. So they were unhappy about Oh yeah, I mean the people of Jennings overwhelmingly, and I've worked from a lot of people overwhelmingly we're

very happy about it. The d a's office, the Sheriff's office, the police department were extremely unhappy about yeah, extremely And yeah, So since the piece has come out, I've had to radically change how I go out there because it is you know, there is a legitimate thread of many people out there wanting to do harm to me. So since, yeah, since the Pieza has come out, I've had to really limited my time out there I need with people in places like Lafayette or in Calfish you parish, which is

the parish next to Jeff David's parish. So I really have to radically alter how I move out there. And in fact, for the first at least two months, maybe even three months after the peace was out, I didn't even go near there. It's completely stayed away, just that one can to have a cool down a bit. But yeah, so now, yeah, I do have to really watch myself. I don't know though that having a gun necessarily it's going to be the best thing for me out there.

I think it's more about moving in very smart ways out there when to go out there, that that makes a lot of sense. Now, um, I know that one of the things that you found when you were in your piece is there was a lot of police involvement maybe nefarious is the word I would use. That people hadn't made the connections before And is that kind of

what really rankled the feathers. Yes, particularly the information that I got about Warren Gary and his involvement and disposing of the DNA evidence in the Christin Gary Lopez case and the other piece that makes them very unhappy. Which they're stuck with and uh, you know, and these people are not my witnesses, they're their witnesses. Was I obtained dozens of task Force interviews witness interviews, as the task force is a multi agency task force that was created

in two thousand and eight to investigate these homicides. And I obtained dozens of task Force witness interviews, and in these witness interviews, witnesses the name specific cops who they believed were involved in murders. And what so upset them about this was that for years, and going back probably the two thousand and seven or so, when the power when people in town started wondering about law enforcement and their potential involvement in this. Law enforcement's response was, well,

you're just wondering about this. You're just hearing rumors. There's nothing to it. There's nothing to this at all. Don't worry,

you're just hearing rumors. And what I did was by obtaining those task course interviews where their witnesses and I emphasize that a lot, it's it's their witnesses, not my witnesses, where their witnesses nain specific cops aspects, and that as said us so much because They can no longer say it's a rumor, right when your own witnesses are coming forward and saying, for example, Deputy Danny Berry, who is a deputy who's actually now deceased, was involved in these homicides.

And you can't say it's just some guys or girls or whoever talking on the street about Danny Berry. These are actual witness statement that completely freaked them out, and it's now just stroy their narrative. This is the narrative that they have voisted upon this case. And if and this is the narrative that they definitely want the town to believe, is that anything you hear about lawforcement just a rumor, Well, that's absolutely you know, crap, and it's

proven by their own witness interviews. So you know, it was really the two two pieces of one, the warrant, the statements about Warren Gary and again those are their witnesses, not mine. Those are witnessed state statements taken by the Jennings Police. And then it was to the witness statements taken by the task force where cops and Sheriff Staptise are named to suspects, actually destroyed their narrative about how

many how many different law enforcement personnel were named. Um, I would say about four to five, Okay, that includes Warren Gary and Danny Berry. Warren Gary, Danny Barry, the the former warden of the parish jail, a guy named Terry Guillory, hitch former wife paul Guillory, who was the jeopudy with the Sheriff's office. And there's quite a few ask and many of those people are very high ranking.

I mean, you're talking about war and Gary was the chief criminal investigator for the Sheriff's office, and Terry Guillory is the warden of the parish too. So speaking of Paula Guillory, I was kind of curious you interviewed her. So she got fired for mishandley evidence. Um, but it looks like yeah, And I read the Sheriff's memo and everything, and it sounds he named a whole lot of the

whole list of grievances against her, including Louise. And I would say, even though he fired her really quickly, there was never any investigation or prosecution. So do you think he fired her simply for the straight up reasons he specified, or because perhaps she wasn't on board with the cover up, or perhaps on the other side, maybe he thought that she was involved in the crimes and wanted her just gone.

You know, it's really hard to stay because there's a lot of competing narratives about polic Guillary, including from Paul Guillary yourself. I interviewed her for my piece briefly, and she claimed to me that the missing evidence that she was fired for was evidence seized in a raid on Frankie Richard, and Frankie Richard's the prime suspect and in several of these murders from Frankie. This was a raid on Frankie Richard's house. So she told me that she

turned on the evidence and it simply disappeared. She didn't know what happened to it. She said that she was then terminated and actually the personnel file that I obtained on her, which contained the investigation into her activities, she had actually never even seen that, which I thought was really interesting too, and like I was reading bits of it to her to have her respond right to the allegations and the investigation, and she had never heard any

ofthing before. So she was very quickly moved out of her job. And you know, if you believe the investigation, the internal investigation into her. It's you know that the reason is is that she took something like three thousand dollars that was taken into evidence and essentially just stole it. And is that what happened? Well, I don't know, you know, um, you know, she says that's not what happened. The sheriff's

office says that is what happened. When I interviewed Frankie Richard about it and I quoted him about this and the peace, he made a comment which he meant kind of as a joke, but I took actually very seriously, which which was, you know, I want to thank Paula Guillory pursuing evidence in that case because it caused the charges against me and my mom to get drunk. And Paula and she was pretty upset when she heard that,

wasn't she She wasnt really upset. She I read that quote to her and she was very upset about that. You know, she claimed she's a just a good cop who was doing her job and really wanted to go

after Frankie Richard. And then I have a number of people, including the private investigator who's working on the case, Kurt Bnard, who have told me that right around the time that Bola Guillory disappeared, that evidence she was a deserved at Frankie Richard's home socializing with him, and she was also observed at a house on the south side of Jennings that was basically a crack house where all the just

about all the women hung out. She was deserved at this crack house socializing with a number of people there. Uh so, well, I was I was gonna ask, you know, we've we've kind of dipped her tone in the water. About Frankie ree Shard, he seems to be at the middle of a lot of this stuff, and I'm just kind of I haven't been able to wrap my brain around, like what exactly is his involvement in all of this? Right, he is at the center of Frankie is at the

center of the entire case because for a number of reasons. One, you know, and this is biazone admission, Like he he pimped out pretty much all but one of the women um, the one exclusion being Ernestine Patterson Um, one of the early victims in two thousand and five. So he pimped

out all of these women. He also pimped them out from one specific place, and I wrote about this a bit in my piece, which is a motel that's right on I tend called the Boudreau in so he and those women were doing their business out of the boucher in Um. He was also again by his own admission, and at least two of the cases, and those with the Kristin Lopez and what he do blah. He was one of the lost people to be seen with at

least two of the victims. And then he also again by his own admission, had pretty significant fights through disagreements with at least two of the victims right before they were killed over drugs and money. So you have all that, and then you also have the fact that Frankie's relationship with the both the Task Force and the Sheriff's office is very interesting and suggest that he's and in both informant for them and also someone who assists them in

covering up the things that they do. I obtained an email exchange between Kirkmanard, the private investigator on the case, and one of the top ranking members of the task Force, where Manard says that he sent two witnesses over to be interviewed by the Task Force and the task force

told these witnesses that Frankie Richard works for them. You also have the witness statements that were taken by the Jennings Police where the witnesses say that Frankie Richard worked hand in hand with Chief criminal Investigator Warren Gary disposed of DNA evidence in the Christin Garry Lopez case. So Frankie is deeply connected to the women, and he's deeply connected the law enforcement. He's very much of the center of this case. And he's spent accused of course, two

of the murders, Kristin Lopez and Whitney Boa. He was charged in Kristin Lopez, he's never charged and Whitney do Ba.

The circumstances around the death of Whitney do Bo highly suggestive he was involved because she was found in kind of a swampy area that has a little crawfish ponds, very very desolate area, and she was found on the road near one of these ponds by a guy who works kind of on the streets for Frankie Richard, and the guy claimed to have found her and claims those seen or something like a half mile away from where she was um And it's it just seems highly implausible

that this guy would just suddenly pop up, you know, in this desolate area where there's nothing around, and fine, when you do, I don't winly happened through Frankie Chard too. Actually at the same time, you know, maybe he actually legitimately did. Because if he'd just gone out there and disposed of the body and then turns around and says, hey, I found a body, you know, I would tend to

associate myself from dead bodies, you know, I'm involved. What one would think though, And that's the point, although there is actually this odd kind of phenomenon of and I have this in a case that I'm another case that I'm working on, where someone who's involved the murder finds a body or claim to find a body, and they believe that it will actually take suspicion off of them, you know what I mean. You know, I go, well, I just look at me. I'm part of the search party,

and I just happened to find this body. The man who found Duba, his name is Jamie Trahan. He's a very close associated Frankie Reech Shard, and he presented it and I spoke to do was a number of people in the do Wa family about the way Trahan presented

himself to them after finding her body. And you know, he presented it as, oh, I was just out here and you know, I want to I'm just trying to help, and I'm you know, I'm so sorry, and and and at one point he even offered to put down quite a bit of money to help pay for her funeral extent,

which the doo Bos family also found incredibly suspicious. That you know, you would think if you had any involvement in something like this, you'd want to be nowhere near it, especially if you were somebody was so closely connected to Frankie re Shark. But I think some sometimes people think that by presenting themselves is like, oh, that's like innocent person who happened stumble upon this horrible thing that that that that moves the spotlight off of them some ways, Yeah,

doesn't make sense to me. But yeah, and and you know, as we're talking about Frankie Richard's associates, I remember you had there was a part in there where you were talking about Brittany Gary when uh and the three men that were seeing leaving the woods where she was found. What was it? Irvin Eugene and Ricardo. Yeah, that was actually not that was Crystal Shade ben Wah. That was

a different victim. Yeah, And and three men we're seeing she was found in this wooded area on the outscripts of Jennings, and three men closely associated with the restart we're seeing were leaving the wooded area after her murder. And the man who saw them was a man named Rousel carry a and carry a mysteriously was run over by a train and Jennings Yeah, yeah, as soon after that, witness identification and law enforcement said it was a suicide and his family does not believe it was a suicide.

Now did he say did he? At one point, I'm I'm racking my brain here, I thought that when he was making this Eavens, did he tell somebody else that he was trying to figure out who had done it? And he had almost figured it out. That was the other guy that was the brother of one of the that wasn't yet another person Actually yeah, that was a drug dealer named Harvey bird Dog Burleigh who was a

very close, very close to the due Boas family. And he said that he was working the streets and gathering tips on the homicides, and then he was stabbed to death and Jennings and his murder he was death and Jennings I believe in two thousand and seven, and his murders unsolved as well. Yeah, I was gonna say quickly.

That's another piece of his story that's so fascinating, which is you have eight unsolved homicides in a town of ten thousand people, which is extraordinary, exactly eight homicides and that side of the town is extraordinary in itself, but the fact that all of them are unsolved more extraordinary. But what has even another level of craziness to this, to this story, is you have homicides like bird dogs that are unsolved, and there's quite a few of them.

So if you were to add up the eight women plus the other unsolved homicides in town over the past decade or so, comes close to twenty. Oh. Yeah, I didn't really do it was that high. Yeah, it's really just truly remark what and I can say, and I've been writing about crime and working in this field for a very long time, never seen anything like this anywhere. And they're both in terms of the levels of law enforcement corruption and the number of homicides and the number

of unsolved timicide it's not just popular. It doesn't sound like they solved any homicides ever in that town. They actually had a homicide early this year that they solved. Yeah, that's pretty unusual. My interest in this story actually this had to be taken out of peace just for Space Tree, and was really began in two thousand and eleven. I was out there um and visiting with Kirkmanard, the private investigator,

just to get a sense of the story. And actually within days of being out there, UM there was a murder of of of a drug dealer Engenna named bow Legs. And I actually just met bow Legs the night before he was murdered, and you know, it was pretty amazing, and this had never happened to be before Right interviewed. Right was introduced to somebody in their murder the next day, and that that murder, which dates back to either June or July of two thousand and eleven, members also unsolved.

And bow Legs also, by the way, dated at least two of the women who were killed in this case. That when you intervated bow Legs, did he give you any any useful information? And it was it was just a introducing kind of introduce, very brief introduction to him. I didn't actually interview that um my trip back then, which was just essentially meeting people. Um so the Legs wasn't saying a powder keg of information and he had to be silenced. More likely he was, you don't think so.

I think he was, you know, a casulty as some sort of drug beef. But but you know, his murders in solved, just like the rest of them, which is interesting. Now, another another piece in this whole story is that I believe in correct me if I'm wrong. Here's that of these eight women, a number of them were present at a police shooting prior to their deaths, and so we're

all of them are just a couple of them. I thought it was just one, just a couple of them, Yeah, just just I've been able to confirm just one, which is Kristen Gary Lopez. I've heard though that it was two or perhaps three. Uh. It was a shooting from April of two thousand and five the Bots drug Rade in South Jennings that was carried out by the d a's Office Louisiana Probation and Parole. The Sheriff's office, and I believed the police department. They rated a drug house

in South Jennings. Drug HOUSEE was like complete completely shrouded in darkness when they rated it. I don't think even the electricity was on. And for one, for some unknown reason, one of the probation and prowl agents opened fire on a man named Leonard Crochet, who apparently with us to say, had his hands up when he was when he was shot. But regardless of whether you know, there's dispeaed about whether or not he had his hands up. But but no

one disputes the fact. Actually, and this is interesting because I obtained the Louisiana State Police report on an incident. No one, no one, no one disputes the fact that he was unarmed when he was shot to death. There was he had no weapons on him or near him, and he was shot to death. And at least one and perhaps more of the women who would later be

killed were witnessed that incident. And I also know for a fact that, for example, Christin Gary Lopez, who was murdered two thousand and seven UM, she was brought in by cops and interviewed about it. I believe the Lauretta Cheffon murdered the first victim in two thousand and five. So there's a pattern of these women being being uh interviewed as witnesses and other homicides and then getting killed.

And and is there any connection or any thought that whatever statements they gave or what led to their death, if if we're going with the police are definitely deeply involved the responsible kind of aspect of it. Yes, I believe so, I believe. I believe you know, I think you he has had an over and over again. And you see it with Lopez being interviewed in uh learn of Schafson. You see it in Laconia Brown who's a victim, and two thousand and eight she was interviewed about the

two thousand and uh five homicide, or Mistine Patterson. You see that pattern over and over again where these women are witnesses. Then the other pattern that you see over and over again is that the women, just before they were killed, I would say, I know who's doing this. The police are involved. I fear from my life, and many of them says I know I'm going to die, and then they will be killed. I sort of wonder why more than just leave towns are going to hiding

or something. Yeah, that's a good question. I mean I feel you know, you know, we're talking about the population that's like extremely poor and it has very very few options. So I think they were just sort of stuck where they were leaving option. Yeah, yeah, not a not an

easy option. That said. One. One thing that's interesting to me, particularly since the piece came out and doing the investigation that I'm doing, just that there are quite a few survivors of that of that era who do know quite a bit and they're still you know, they're still around, you know, so, um, they didn't get everybody. You know that there are a number of women who were in that scene who do know quite a bit about what happened, who are still Yeah, because the I wanted to bring

me back. I wanted to come back for a minute to Danny Barry. You know, as you know, uh, Richard said that Barry was the killer because they all stopped in two thousand nine when he died, correct, I believe, Yeah, I think he died in two thousand and ten, but yeah, but the last palmicide was two thousand and nine. Yeah, I mean, I think Rechart as his own purpose for

making that claim, which is it's him. My My sense of Danny Barry, especially from reading all the witness interviews about him that the Task Force conducted, is that Barry was deeply involved in the prostitution scene in South Jennings,

which is where all these women were from. He would pick up these women and bring them back to his house, and at least one witness pass force witness talked about Barry having some sort of dungeon in his house with change and I assume that was one of the prostitutes

that he took back home with him. Yeah, And I'm developing now, I don't have you know, I'm not there yet, but I'm developing information as I go about his involvement in the his puzzle involvement, I should say, and in the murder of Brindy Gary, the very young seventeen year old victims who was killed old in two thousand and eight. Well,

and and his involvement. I mean, if we if we believe Richard the task Force, I understand it's kind of working on the assumption that it's you know, the one mad killer and he would fit that bill easily, wouldn't he if based on these statements of the dungeon. Barry would fit that bill for my investigation. I don't believe that he is the killer. I don't believe and then I say this in the piece, that there is one killer.

I think it's a number of people. I think that you could cone in on Barry for at least one of the homicides. But I don't think that he's responsible for all of them, even though he fits as you say, if it's the bill, because he's deceased. He's a an easy mark. Correct, He's a very easy mark. Have you been able to talk to his widow? I haven't yet. Know that's something I want to do. I haven't yet

talked at his widow. He gave a statement before he died to the task Force that was extremely unilluminating mode and it was unhelpful, primarily because the task Force is so terrible for conducting interviews. Um. He also told the task Force that his wife, now Wadow, was refusing to be interviewed by the task course. Now the private investigator, Kirkmanard, that's his name, correct, Correct? What what has been his contribution? Because I've seen stuff about him, but I'm not really

clear on exactly what he's doing good. Question what Manard is doing, And I don't want to speak for him, but but this is my impression of what he's doing, is that he's able to talk to a number of people who pass would not talk otherwise, and he then forwards those people directly to the task Force. So essentially, what he is is like a kind of a conduit between people on the street who might not feel comfortable going correct good to the task Force to what I'm saying,

and it's kind of a neutral party for them. Yeah, he's kind of futral party, and and and that, and that's what he's doing. You know, he's in a very awkward position now though after he had sent these two witnesses to the task Force and they told these witnesses things like Frankie Richard works for us. He's he's in an awkward position because I don't think he knows what

to make of the task Force now. And I wouldn't want to be in his position either, because it's a strange place to be sending witnesses to a task force that has a huge problem. You know what I mean, I mean to me, to me, the task Force, which

is dominated by the sheriff's office. By the way, um and I mentioned that in the piece, really is not to be has zero credibility in my in my view, because what you have is a task force that's dominated by the sheriff's office taking witness statements, and in the witness statements, the witnesses are saying Deputy so and so and Deputy so and so are involved in the homicides, and the people taking those statements are co workers of

the people implicated in the murders. It's really it's just, I mean, it's couldn't be more of a clear conflict of interest, and it couldn't be more of a clear problem, uh, you know, a huge problem. You know, how is a task force supposed to conduct an investigation when all of their friends and coworkers, you know, I'm sorry, when their friends and co workers are are suspects. So, you know, it's a it's a huge problem, and I think the

task force is kind of v problem. And in making any headway in this case, you just can't tell me that the task force can investigate its own It's just it's just not possible. And you know, so that's the problem, is there is there any occation that the governor's office has gotten any interest in this, or that the FBI perhaps would come in and take over the investigation. It's a good question, you know, from from the state side.

After my peace ran a local news station out there, asked the Attorney General, the Louisiana Attorney General, Buddy Caldwell, you know they're doing anything, and you just sort of punted on the question and said, oh, well, you know, there's the task Force and that's what we're doing. Okay. Now.

The FBI side is interesting and also very depressing in the sense that the task Force is depressing because when you look at the task Force interviews, it has obviously the name of the interviewing, you know, slash witness, and then it also has the names of law enforcement folks

who are present during this interview. I will say, like, you know, Witness Ethan Brown present, Deputy you know so and so, and then Deputy so and so, and then occasionally it will say, um that an FBI agent is present, and these are FBI agents from the Lake Charles office and Lake Charles and Calcasie Parish which is next to Jeff Davis Parish. And many times when the FBI agents

are present. There are very clear allegations of law enforcement involvement in the murders being made by witnesses, and the FBI agents are present for you know, when these allegations are made, and what's happening there, what is the FBI doing about this? Because any kind of misconduct is about under the sun by law enforcement can be prosecuted federally, and there's a statute, there's a federal statute called deprivation

of rights under the color of law. So if I'm a cop, wish to say, I live in New Orleans and i'm and I'm an n OPD cop, and I walk outside my house and I see somebody jaywalking right and I grabbed them and I you know, kick his head in. That can be prosecuted federally. You know, if I'm a cop, If I'm a cop and I go out to a crime scene and I dispose of evidence, that can be prosecuted federally. I mean, there's so many entryways into this case federally, and it's stunning to me

that none are taken. And it's particularly given the fact again that I know for a fact, because I've seen the interviews that FBI agents are present when allegations of law enforcement misconduct are made. So I but I can't answer. I don't know why nothing is happening, but I do

know that the FBI is aware of it. Have you tried to reach out to them or they just ignoring you or I have I do know for a fact that the U. S. Attorney's Office in the Western District of Louisiana is looking at This is a where I don't know what they're doing. Again, like it's it's a mystery to me, my guest, and this is only my guess, is that the local FBI office out in Lake Charles.

I fear that they're close with, you know, many of the law enforcement folks that are under a cloud of suspicion on this, and that they're not moving as a result of that. You know, although again I should I should say it, it's really complicated. You know, there was there was a lot of police misconduct during an after Katrina in New Orleans, and it took years for those cases to go federal. Why did it take as long

as it did for those cases to go federal? What was the what was the route right that that those cases took exactly? You know, I don't know. I'm not I don't think anybody knows other than people who work for the U. S. Attorney's Office down here. Yeah, no, but nobody. But then it's pretty to that sort of information. Why did it take as long as it take, you know, as it took? You know, it could be nothing more sinister than government inertia, you know, how to ponderous the

federal government can be. Sometimes it might be that simple. Yeah, And it's also it might be as simple as you know, product of bad discretion in kinds of the case, in terms of the cases they pursued. You know, why do they pursue this and not that they have a lot of discretion there, So it could be simple something simple discretion. I don't know. I really don't know. I don't know, you know, what the doing, you know. I think that I know that under Eric Holder, police misconduct is a

big priority for d J to prosecute. I know that, um so I hope that this would catch their attention because of that priority. But it hasn't me get as far as I know now. It might be too that they've actually reviewed it pretty carefully and realized that there's no way they can come out of it looking good

because they can take over the case. But let's face it, I mean, there's a lot of conflicting information and doesn't there appear to be hardly any physical evidence, um, and so let's and of course the trail is very cold. The last murder was five years ago, so the possibility of the Fed's coming in and you know, on their white horse and actually solving these murders is pretty limited. So maybe for that reason alone, they realize it's not

a case that's going to cover them with glory. It's going to be a case that they'll take over the great fanfare and then grind along for a few years and then not solve either coact. I mean it is. It is a very complicated case, a lot of narrativeness and completely uncomftable witnesses, and you know, they are old cases,

which makes them harder to sell. You know. All of that said, I do think that they they do have a number of ways in particularly when it comes to you know, federal cases in particular, are are are all built on flipping people against one another, and I think in this case, you have quite a few people who could be easily slipped. Being one, I think and there's

quite a few others. When the Fed's prosecuted the n op D misconduct cases, they would get people, you know, they would haul people before a federal grand jury, and if one of the cops engaged in the sort of flying and that that they had engaged in the past, they would get a federal charge with going up for a federal grandjury and lying is a federal crime. Yeah,

so so yeah, I mean, I don't know. I I feel like the FED wield such an incredible hammer no matter who they're going after that that it's doable well, and that that gets to the question for you, which is, do you think that any of these will actually ever be solved? Good question. I like, don't believe the task

force of the world will ever solve them. I do believe the only hope in this case would be federal interest do o J interest, and specifically interest from the DOJ Civil Rights Division, which goes after law enforcement is conduct. I think that's the only way. Now will that happen? I have no idea, but I think that's that's yeah. Yeah, it seems unlikely because so you know, this has been going on for a long time and they haven't they

haven't stepped in. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. Okay, Well that's that's our interview with Ethan, And yeah, I hope you guys enjoyed listening to that. Yeah that, I mean that that is a lot of information and it's it's hard to digest it. And by the way, a lot of thanks to Ethan again for absolutely making the

time to talk to us. Yeah, no, I mean, I know, it took us a while to catch up with him, and I'm glad that he was able to move the schedule around to do it, because it really, I think it it does this story a lot of justice to get all of the information straight from the proverbial source, and Ethan really kind of has been the source here as he talked about you know, nobody thought he was doing the story he was doing, so even the details they gave. Yeah, and it's interesting to fall out for him.

It is like, you know, at first everybody was willing to talk to him, and now some people are a little ticked off with him, and he's got tread lightly around some people be a little more careful and a little more circumspect now now I think Joe Joe had mentioned this before is Ethan has been working on this for a good while and as he said, the original article he wanted to submit with thirty thousand words. The article that's up is eight thousands. So that's a huge

amount of information. And he has he's since gotten the book deal. He's gotten a book deal. I don't think we've talked about that yet, and it's it's on the order of a hundred thousand words. But so there's the book deal and then there's some other things. Oh, I guess. I mean, it doesn't necessarily pertain to Ethan so much as it pertains to this kind of vague speculation that the TV series, the HBO TV series True Detective, which some of you may or may not be familiar with,

is loosely based on this story. Um, and I think it's fair to say that it's not. It doesn't you know,

derive facts from this story or anything like that. But I definitely, you know, in the I saw I I watched True Detective as it was on, you know, coming out originally, So I guess it's been gosh, I'm gonna say, four or five months since, um, the last episode of the first season aired and immediately, you know, I've vaguely been aware of Jefferson Davis eight or the Jennings eight, But as soon as I started really getting into it, I just kept thinking, this sounds so much like true,

just the like vague ideas of you know, X number of murders, the like weird in a parish in Louisiana, the kind of weird twisted people of the whole situation. Yeah, and also the you know, not to to do spoilers or anything, but also like a certain amount of potential police involvement and how much that allegation may or may not be true. And you know, I think if you haven't watched Your Detective and you have any kind of stomach four things like this, watch it just like immediately.

But I think it's also very interesting the parallels you can draw between these things. Absolutely, and I think that we should probably you know that that was part of our interview, and we haven't. We haven't shared that with everybody yet, but let's let's share that part of the interview with Ethan where he talks about some of that stuff. Yeah, and actually I should mentioned on one thing. I've definitely mention it. I think I briefly mentioned this, but I

should be more specific about it. I have a book deal with Scribner, which is a division of Simon and Schuster, write a book about this, and it's I'm quite excited about it for a number of reasons. One, the original draft that I turned in for the piece was almost thirty thousand words and what ran was about eight pounds, So you know, I've got a lot of stuff that I have not used at all, and a lot of material that I'm still developing. So it's exciting for that reason.

And it's also exciting because um Scribner publishes Nick Kitzlato, the Heat Creator a True Detective, and a lot of people have noted the similarities between True Detective Season one and the Jeff Davis eight case. I don't think actually that I think the similarities are really due to the fact that it's the same, no you. I don't think that it's that it's Pits Alato being inspired by one specific case. But I think it's very similar, no you.

But regardless of it's a cool it's a very exciting thing to both people to expand on a piece that was extremely expansive when I turned it in, and then also and then also to be with the publisher that you know did did great things with Nick pits Alatto. So um and and people shouldn't if you think the case is sprawling after reading eight thousand words of a way,

do you read nearly a hundred thousands? Yeah? I did this, you know, somewhat with my first book, a book called Queen's Ring Supreme, which is which I which random I was published. But but this case is so complicated that I could actually see a gigantic kind of outline of the cast of characters coming at the beginning of the book. Um that the number of characters and uh that I'm going to explore in the in the book is just going to be seen. And when when do you think

that book is is going to be out? Do you have a date yet? I don't. My guess would be two thousand and sixteen. Okay, you got a title plan for you yet? I do? Yes, I do have actually a very queer battle plan. Um. I have. As I said, I have been doing quite a bit of investigation since the piece came out, and I've also identified a case from Calcusu Parish in the nineties that I believe is sort of the door opener to this case. Um, which is going to be fascinating to people, I think. And

then I've also got new sources. Not I don't mean individuals or people, I mean actual sources, like you know, in the sense of like the past force documents that I got for the piece. I have new new sources that are witness interviews and what not to to pour over that are just that are going to that are huge, you know, cass of information that I'm going to be able to utilize as well. It should be really interesting. Yeah,

we can't wait to read the book. Yeah, well, I I don't know about the pair of you, but I'm definitely definitely glad that we got to talk to Ethan's just earlier. And I'm definitely looking forward to when the

book comes out. I think that it's going to be definitely it's gonna be a patron But I don't think in the sense that I can't stop reading as and I think I'm gonna be turning the pages and then going back and turning the page back and checking because this is going to be there's so many players in this and it's gonna be so hard to track, and I think it's gonna be absurdly interesting. But such a He does a great job. You know, his article is

really great at succinctly laying out what's going on. It's it's easy to follow what's kind of going on in this case. That's just a tangled rama. Yeah, it's a bol of spaghetti. But yeah, yeah, it's probably one of those books where you want to make notes as you go along, especially names of people and their relationships and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. Unfortunately we don't have a title because he didn't tell us what the title of the world is and maybe have done that on purpose. Yeah, yeah,

maybe he doesn't have a title yet. Maybe he hasn't quite decided exactly what it's going to be. Maybe bodies in the Buy You or Buy You Full of Bodies, I don't know. Well, he's got a couple of years to to get a year ago, so well let's let's I I just want to know what you know. We haven't really dove into personal theories so far. We've we've kind of been relying on the information we've got from Ethan and we know what we've read. But I want

I want to know what you guys think. I know what my theories are, but what have you what have you go ahead and start us off, and you want to go ahead, Joe, Okay, the murderer is drum roll please, Nicole the cold gillery uh died or what's her body was sound August two thousand nine. I think she murdered all the rest of them and then she died apparently of asphyxia, they think. So. I think she auto asphyxiated

and threw her threw herself into the bayou. So you're you're you're just going for you don't have a real idea and you're just making something pretty much. Yeah, you know, it could have been it could have been the owner of the boot row in who was really ticked off that all these women cause so much, so much of a fuss, and that his place got closed down. I think his place would have got closed down. Yeah, thanks,

so yeah, but but it's really hard to say. I mean, it's there are a lot of questionable characters in this town. A lot of them have peripheral involvement in this story, and they're also at the same time involved in the drug trade. So okay, so when you're in prostitution, that makes you kind of uniquely vulnerable. Right then you put yourself into a lot of bad situations. And then also but when you're also involved in the drug trade, as most of them seem to be, then that's that's a

whole another layer of motives from murder. There. So it's really really hard to say. And of course I don't want to commit liabel or anything like that, so I'm not gonna say, and frankly I don't I don't really know. I mean, there's just there's just so much going on here and there's no real hard evidence against anybody. Yeah, so I'm going to go with space aliens. Okay, still my theoryard people, Okay, Okay, you can have space aliens. I'm going to say it's the same person who did

the Hagley Woods thing, the body down in the tree. Okay, Devin, what you know? Again, just like Joe, I don't necessarily want to commit any kind of libel. I only know

what has been published. But in my estimation, I guess you look for the common denominators, and you know, you've got drugs and prostitution, and it's a small community, and so okay, fine, those are all common denominators, but they're also all tied to this Frankie Richard, guy who I find to be super creepy, and there's been depositional testimony it seems to the fact that he has a violent stree, particularly when high and people say no to him. And you know, I again, I don't want to say it's

it's definitely this person. I don't have access to all the evidence. You know, it's they're open cases, so there's a lot of stuff that the just general public cannot know. And you know, as Ethan said, some people in the Task Force have said, Richard is is an inform he works for us, so you know, so, and it's just one of those cases of like, I don't know who to believe, but my gut instinct is to say that

it's him. But you know, the thing that's the most frustrating about this, I you know, this this little TV spot that I watched, and you know, one of the locals said, the thing that's most frustrating about this is that somebody knows who killed all these women. May not be the same person. It may be a syndication, it maybe a group of people, but at least one person

knows each one person. Yeah, and maybe that the murders are not not actually all that interconnected, and it might be there is no single one person who knows who killed all those true, But you know, as far as Frankie Schard goes, like, for example, he was accused by Tracy Chasson of murdering along with Hannah Connor, of murdering Dubois in front of her. And that's that was her accusation, and so why that's why he was charged with that initially.

But but when you think about it, her story makes no sense because you know, here he is committing murder right in front of this person. It's like, you know what it is about Tracyson that makes Frankie Chard and his god niece Hannah Connor believed that they can commit murder right in front of her And it's perfectly okay. And she's not going to say anything to anybody. Don't know. I I I hate to say, but I think I can answer that question, which is herug adult No, no,

not at all. Is when you're in a small town own again, I've I've seen these kind of communities and I've been around, I've been you know, I've lived in these places as you know everybody, and hey, can I trust you can I vouch for you. I've done things for you, and you've done things for me, and you know you're not gonna say anything, and I'll do favors for you down the line. So you scratch my back, I scratch yours. Kind of mentality that I don't have

the exact way. I mean, this would take a long time to suss out, but I think that if you have somebody so scared of you, I mean, think about let's look at people who are, um, you know, abducted, and they're so afraid, like kids, they're so afraid of the person that that has abducted them that they can brainwash them. Is the word I want to use into saying, yeah, saying don't tell anybody or I will go kill your mom and dad. That that kind of that kind of

influence over somebody. So I can see how that that maybe the reason that he if if indeed Richard is responsible for this particular murder, I can see how he could have gone. He could have done it in front of her and said, well, you're not going to talk because you know if you talk, I will come after you. But then you don't want me after you, But then you know, but then she did talk, and she didn't

wind up murdered. She talked, she didn't wind up murdered because a bunch of evidence against him disappeared, Right, I mean, I guess, yeah, it's not a solid theory. I'm not saying that I have any kind of thing, but I'm just saying that I think her story is not entirely credible, which is fair. And then there's a lot there's a lot of things in this story that don't make sense.

And like when we talk to Ethan, is the whole thing about the Chevy Silverado and supposedly transporting in the body of Lewis, which does not make any sense if if they murdered her by the canal and she's found in the canal, why they put her in a drum

and drive her around? And then although Ethan did say that there's it's not a certain that she was actually murdered by the canal, right, but the whole thing about it is is trans You know, if you murder somebody and transport them around your pickup truck, then what you do is when you get home, you get out the garden hose and he hose out the back real good and get the blood in the DNA of you and and a lot of people understand that, but not everybody

thinks about that, especially if not all the cylinders are firing. Because your high as a kite on something welleta means or whatever it is, you don't think about these things. You get around a tweaker, they do some weird stuff because they think that they know what they're doing. It's true.

But but and then if you have this and one of the things about the truck, it was bought by one of the local cops for a below market price, and then he took it to the car wash, and you know, detailed it all out, supposed destroying evidence in the meantime, Well, if you want to destroy evidence in the back of your pickup truck, you don't need to sell the pickup truck to a local cop to take to the car wash. You can just take it to the car wash herself. Well, except for that person was

in jail, weren't they. Oh yeah, but I'm not sure how much I know she had been Yeah, Siler, I know she had been charged, but I don't know that she was in jail at the time. But but I mean, this is this is the problem with this case, there's so many weird lips. Now. Personally, I think that some

of the murders are connected. I don't think they're all connected, because, as we talked about in the interview with Ethan, I tends I think it's I ten is right there, and so it's a major thoroughfare, and so I think that it's not on. It's not an uncommon thing to discover that we've got a trucker who killed a woman, so I think that that might be part of it. I think the drug trade is part of it. I think

that just weird interconnections. I think this whole thing is a cesspot and there's a lot of not good things going on. But I also think that in this small community, you're right, as we said before, everybody knows, at least somebody knows, but they all have their reasons for not I believe the phrase is snitching. You don't snitch, Well, there's a good reason not to snitch, because when you snitch,

retribution comes down. Well, because especially in this case, it does appear, as I said earlier, that there is a mole in the police department. The police are corrupt, and I think everybody knows that if they snitched, you know, the cops are going to immediately inform on them. Yeah, and you know a lot of these women, as we talked about in the interview, they were afraid to talk because or they knew that they had talked and they made a mistake and it was going to come back.

I think just by the sheer fact that I think, you know, Ethan said there's something like twenty, but there's solid evidence for eleven at least unsolved histories or unsolved murders in a well, in a community of ten thousand. You know, at that point, it's it's clearly a systemic problem. It is no longer just an anomaly of a weird

unsolved mystery. There's something larger going on. If that high a percentage of murders are just unsolved for a lot a lot of years in a community that's small, because there are other let's be fair, there are other small communities of that size on huge interstates that are drug trafficking havens. It's not you know, this Jennings is not the only place on it ten in between Austin and

New Orleans, right, is that what he said? Or wherever, you know, wherever he is not the only small community that's just you know, inundated with drugs and violence and gang crime and things like that, but they are the only ones that have this kind of murders. Yeah, and so I think it's in this scary that is the scale.

It's the it's the fact that there's somehow there is a systemic problem and where whether that is just like pure incompetence and stupidity on the part of the police department there, or if it's something more sinister, that's hard to tell. But I think, you know, I just think that it's just this is just such a messed up Yeah, I know, this this whole thing is is Yeah, it's it's awkward and it's hard to track. Yeah, Jennings is

a scary little town. If I don't go to Jennings, well, don't don't go there and try and dig up answers on your own lass. Please stay home if you go, if you go there, packy, don't packy. Just don't go. Don't go there. Well. Again, as as we said before, Ethan's book is coming out next year and there should be some more fun filled facts and the facts has been doing a lot more research, so you're gonna want to read that book. So when that book comes out and we find out what it's going to be, we

will definitely put something up about it. But in the meantime, all of the links and a good a good spot of the research that we did and we got access to about this story will be on our website. The website, as always, is going to be Thinking Sideways podcast dot com. You can read all the links there, you can find the PDF that helps kind of outline this story for you, and of course you can listen to the story there as well. If you want, you can always go ahead

and stream the show. You can stream the show on Stitcher, so any mobile ready device, tablets, phones, whatever they may be, you're gonna be able to follow it all there. And of course we're on Facebook, and I know a bunch of you have been on Facebook and and we're getting comments and all that good stuff and good conversations which is a lot of fun. And if you haven't done it yet, find us and friend us. And we've also got a group there where we there's some discussions going

on and things being shared, which is always great. I liked our page, Yeah, I like our page a lot. Uh, you can, of course download if you don't want to use Stitcher and you don't want to use the website. The I know, it seems like the maturity of the folks. At least over half of you are using iTunes. You can use iTunes, find us on iTunes and just download

the episodes for whenever you want them. And of course, last, but not least, if you have something you want to tell us, you've got story suggestions, you've got leads for us, you can do that all on our email, which is Thinking Sideways Podcast at gmail dot com. As a matter of fact, this story was suggested to us by a listener via emails. Thomas. Yeah, thanks, Thomas, thank you. And at the same time I kind of regret you having done that because I've we've just gotten so deep into

such a crazy story. No, it was very good. But at the same yeah, I really am. I'm gonna keep making info graphics about this until the day I die. That's probably true. It kind of might be now, Colonel Mustard in the study with candle still is that your answer? Oh well, thank you, Joe. I appreciate that. And before we forget speaking of emails, we did get an email this week or we got well, I was gonna say, yeah, we got an email this week that whatever I say that,

I'm like, oh, this one stood out. I really liked it. I really had a fun time. Yeah, so I didn't know who wanted to read the email this week. I don't care. I'll read it. This email is from a guy named Jacob. Hi Jacob j H. Jacob. It says, Hi, I really liked your show, and after finding it at the start a sixteen hour drive, I proceeded to listen to sixteen hours of thinking sideways. I'm so sorry. Jacob act said the same thing too, but he said it

was awesome. Didn't keep you awake to sleep. He says it was a great man aar thon, and I really liked your interpretation of these events. I'm currently working as a scientist, but still fall for imaginative or fantastic explanations for many stories that have rather than the logical choices. For example, I read about the love and past incident oh a while ago. Apparently I can't read today. I'm sorry, and could only conclude radiation and or monsters, which probably

makes me a pretty expletive deleted scientist. Your walkthrough of the story using the avalanche hypothesis makes such great sense. Um, he has as everybody who emails us, almost everybody, he has a little suggestion and he gives us his scientists take on it, which was really really interesting. No, no on the story he suggested, Yeah, um, And then he goes on to say, I'd be happy to give you my take on things if interested. Keep up the good work, and I hope you guys are finding a way to

get compensated for this h show. Well, we're working on that one of these days. Should we put a tip jar on our page? Yeah? I probably should, Yeah, we should. Anyways, thank you, Jacob. I don't know what kind of scientists you are. Maybe maybe Steve or I will follow up or Joe. Joe doesn't know how to do email, so bad. I didn't ask you what kind of scientists you know. We may just need we just might need a residence science. No. Actually, I think having a consulting scientist to be a good

a good idea. Yeah, I hadn't thought about that. Did you say a scientist or scientologists? He said? Scientists? Okay, yeah, okay, we don't need a resident. We got five of those already.

Oh well, all right, ladies and gentlemen. Well, that that is what we have on the Jefferson Davis eight I also known as the jennings A, the jennings A, I hope sometimes the jeff Davis yeah us, Yeah, for the j D eight if you want to be hip and abbreviow or just anyway, Okay, Well, so I hope that while we didn't necessarily solve the issue, we might have hopefully clarified some of the facts that you've heard about or you've read about, and it gives you a better

perspective on it, because I think in this particular story, that's about the best we can do, because this one is a long way from being solved, and I think even hit on the until we get some some big government intervention, we're not going to get it. I don't think that. I don't think the FBI is going to solve this either. Don't think they're gonna step in, but they're not going to. But but it's a it's a

cold trail, let's face it, you know, I mean. And the problem is is all the witnesses and all the people that come forward saying anything about it, well, a lot of are dead and but a lot of the other ones that are a drug adult and not necessarily reliable people. So yeah, sort of important. Yeah. So other words, it's not just enough to get somebody to snitch on somebody. You need some actual physical evidence to I don't I think that's all been sort of washed away or from

you know, the oldest one is nine years gone. That's that's a hard I'm thinking it's not likely that this is going to be solved. Yeah, Steve, Well, I did you hear that I did? Did anybody else notice it? Yeah? Joe has admitted that we have not solved a mystery. I'm always solved it. Somebody did it at a high level kind of you know, but a far specifics. I think that I think that No, No, it's okay. You know,

sideways can break this thing wide up. And but we need to go to Jennings and we're gonna need money, so you guys send us money. Joe, can we just go to Stoneheng instead? Yeah, we're going to go someplace. That's a good point. Yeah, I picked another one. Let's go to Hagley Woods. Okay, we'll go to one of those places. Okay, So listeners send us a bunch of running and then we'll go there on the spot and

we'll solve the crap out of stuff. With that, we're going to wrap this up, so thank you, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you've enjoyed it, and we will bring another one to you next week. All right, everybody, I'm sad I can't blame aliens this time. I'm God, it's not too late. Go ahead and blame them. It's the aliens, all right, Eddie