March 6, 2025 • 35 mins
It was a few minutes before midnight on Saturday July 5, 1997. 21-year-old Marty LeBouef was working behind the counter as a cashier at KK’s Corner convenience store on Highway 14 in Calcasieu Parish, a few miles from Lake Charles, Louisiana.
Marty and his co-worker, 26-year-old Stacie Reeves, were working together that night. There was someone else there too. Stacie had a friend, 14-year-old Nicole Guidry, there with her.
Nicole sometimes babysat for Stacie’s twin daughters, who were 23 months old, and was keeping Stacie company until the store closed. Then the plan was for her to ride home with Stacie and spend the night with her kids while Stacie went crabbing.
Nicole was turning fifteen later that summer and was about to start the ninth grade.
Marty hadn’t been scheduled to work that night, but one of his coworkers had called in sick, so Marty stepped in.
Closing time was midnight. That time came and went.
And Marty, Stacie and Nicole never made it home.
Around 5 a.m. on July 6, one of Marty and Stacie’s coworkers showed up to open the store, and she immediately noticed that something was very wrong.
The cash register was open. Money was missing from the drawer. The alarm was off. And Marty and Stacy were nowhere to be found.
The employee went to the office to use the phone there and called the police.
Once the deputy got to the store, he noticed Stacie and Marty’s cars in the parking lot. Inside, he found the door to the back office had been kicked in, and the safe was open. At first he thought that this had been a robbery and that Stacie and Marty may be restrained in the back of the store, locked in the cooler.
But once he opened the door to the cooler, he saw the bloodbath. There were three bodies - Marty, Stacie and Nicole lying on the floor. All three had been shot multiple times, execution style.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:46):
School of Humans. Helen Got Murder Line actively investigates cold
case murders in an effort to raise public awareness invite
witnesses to come forward and present evidence that could potentially
be further investigated by law enforcement. While we value insights
from family and community members, their statements should not be
considered evidence and point to the challenges of verifying facts
(01:10):
inherent in cold cases. We remind listeners that everyone has
presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Nothing in the podcast is intended to state or imply
that anyone who has not been convicted of a crime
is guilty of any wrongdoing. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
It was a few minutes before midnight on Saturday, July fifth,
nineteen ninety seven. Twenty one year old Marty Lebuff was
working behind the counter as a cashier at Kk's Corner
Convenience store on Highway fourteen in calcashu Perish, a few
miles from Lake Charles, Louisiana. Marty and his coworker, twenty
six year old Stacy Reeves, were working together that night.
(01:52):
There was someone else there too. Stacy had a friend,
fourteen year old Nicole Guidry, there with her. Nicole sometimes
babysat for Stacy's twin daughters, who were twenty three months
old at the time. She was keeping Stacy company until
the store closed. Then the plan was for Nicole to
ride home with Stacy and spend the night with Stacy's children.
(02:13):
Nicole was about to turn fifteen and about to start
the ninth grade. Marty hadn't actually been scheduled to work
that night, but one of his co workers named Miles Addison,
had called in sick, so Marty stepped in. Marty's father,
Ellis Lebuff, later told a local news station that the
night seemed completely normal. He said that he had called
(02:36):
Kk's that night before Marty got off work to tell
Marty that he had left to plate to barbecue out
for him at home. Closing time was midnight. That time
came and went, and Marty, Stacy, and Nicole never made
it home. Around five am on July sixth, one of
Marty and Stacy's coworkers showed up to open the store.
(02:59):
She immediately noticed that something was very wrong. The cash
register was open, money was missing from the drawer, the
alarm was off, and Marty and Stacy were nowhere to
be found. The employee picked up the phone behind the counter,
the only phone that was on a different line and
was still working.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
She called the police.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Once the deputy got to the door, he noticed Stacey
and Marty's cars in the parking lot. Inside, he found
the door to the back office had been kicked in
and the safe was open. At first, he thought this
had been a robbery and that Stacy and Marty may
be restrained in the back of the store, locked in
the cooler, But once he opened the door to the cooler,
(03:44):
he saw the bloodbath. There were three bodies there, Marty, Stacy,
and Nicole lying on the floor. All three had been
shot multiple times, execution style. I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the
past five years of making my true crime podcast, Helen Gone,
I've learned that there is no such thing as a
(04:05):
small town where murder never happens. I have received hundreds
of messages from people all around the country asking for
help with an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families,
and their communities. If you have a case you'd like
me and my team to look into, you can reach
out to us at our Helen Gone Murder line at
six seven eight seven four four six one four five,
(04:27):
that six seven eight seven, four, four, six, one, four
or five, or you can send us a message on
Instagram at Helen Gone Pod. This is Helen Gone murder line.
(05:13):
A triple homicide in this sleepy little part of southwest
Louisiana immediately became a huge story. Everyone in town seemed
to have a connection with this case, either their regulars
in the store, or they knew one or more than one.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Of the victims.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
The Calcashue Parish Sheriff Wayne mclvin said that the police
believed that this had been some kind of robbery gone wrong,
and that the killer or killers had botched the robbery
because whoever came into the store that night seemed to
know the store and possibly the employees. According to KPLC
seven News, there was some money taken from the register.
(05:51):
It totaled less than one hundred dollars, but someone had
gone into the manager's office in the back of the
store and taken a lot more money, cash checks and
money orders worth over ten thousand dollars. Someone also knew
how to cut the phone lines, and they knew how
to get into the back of the store and get
to the surveillance equipment. There was a camera, but the
(06:12):
killer or killers took the tape from the VCR of
the surveillance footage. Detectives said they believed that Marty, Nicole,
and Stacy had been led into the cooler one at
a time and then shot at close range. Marty had
been shot three times, Stacy and Nicole had each been
shot twice. All of them had been shot in the head.
(06:34):
Stacy apparently also had a bullet graze to the side
of her head. This led detectives to speculate early on
there may have been more than one killer. Because Marty
was a big guy. They believed that he would have
fought back and that it would have been hard to
subdue three people a gunpoint. Whoever it was, they left
behind virtually no physical evidence. The detective put in charge
(06:58):
of the investigation was Detective Donald Deluche, who went by Lucky.
He told the investigation Discovery TV show the killer in
question that police knew the murder weapon had been a
nine millimeter handgun, but that detectives were not able to
get usable fingerprints. Detective Deluge was the director of Calcashu's
(07:18):
Violent Crimes Task Force BCTF, which a later lawsuit described
as an elite task force. It was made up of
law enforcement officers from the Calcashue Sheriff's office, but also
Louisiana State Police officers and some officers from other departments.
That meant that Detective Deluche ran all of the high
profile investigations in that parish. Police started interviewing people in
(07:42):
the area and tracking down leeds. They teamed up with
crime stoppers to offer rewards. Kal Kashu Perrish's reward was
one hundred thousand dollars. Crime Stoppers put in an additional
ten thousand dollars. The FBI also got involved in the investigation. Meanwhile,
rumors were flying all over town about people who could
(08:03):
have been involved, and yet at the same time, no
one seemed to have seen what happened. Police did talk
to a couple of people who said they had come
to kk's corner earlier that night. They saw Stacy, Marty,
and Nicole. They said that everything seemed normal. One hour
after closing, at around one am, the store alarm went off.
(08:24):
The alarm company called the store and no one answered,
so the alarm company called the store's owner. The store's
owner apparently said forgetting to set the alarm, would be
a little bit unusual, so they suggested that the alarm
company called nine to one one to get them to
dispatch a unit to the store, just in case. The
alarm company did contact the dispatcher. The dispatcher said they
(08:47):
would send a unit to Kk's Corners, but that never happened.
Everyone wondered how could three murders happen right in the
middle of a small town and no one seemed to
know anything or see anything. For a while, it seemed
true that, as Sheriff Wayne Mcalvin said, there were no witnesses,
but it turned out there was someone who knew something,
(09:09):
a woman who stopped by at around eleven forty five
pm to get some gas. They talked to this witness,
Virginia Johnson, about a week after the murders. She said
that she got to Kk's just as Stacey was closing
the door, but Stacy led her into the store so
she could get her gas. Virginia came in and paid
ten dollars for the gas. She told police that at
(09:31):
that time she saw Marty, Stacy, and Nicole, and all
of them were alive. Then she saw two men who
drove up in a black car. She told police. While
she was inside paying for the gas, the first man
came inside the gas station and headed.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
For the beer cooler.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Then as she was leaving, she bumped into the second
man as he came inside the door. Now she got
a pretty good look at this guy because she ran
right into him. She told the police that something wasn't right.
She said, quote, he didn't even say excuse me, and
that's when I just got a bad feeling. She went
outside and while she pumped her gas, she said that
(10:09):
she saw the two men in front of the beer cooler. Now,
at this point something seemed to happen, something that spooked her,
and it scared her enough to cause her to drive
off without pumping the rest of her gas. After that,
Virginia picked her boyfriend up from work, but later she
drove by Kk's corner again. She said when she did,
(10:30):
she saw the black car again and that the trunk
was open this time, and she noticed there was a
red pickup truck with a driver's side door open park
next to the black car. From the witness description of
the man she bumped into, a police sketch artist created
a composite drawing. She didn't really get a good look
at the second man. The only thing she remembered when
(10:52):
she first talked to police was that he had a
Marlborough keychain hanging from a front pocket. On July sixteenth,
the Task Force released the complete sketch. They said they
were looking for the man in the drawing, who was
seen in Kk's Corner with a second man at around
eleven to fifty pm on July fifth. At the time,
police said the man they were looking for was around
(11:12):
six feet tall and in his twenties or thirties. Detective
Deluge said at a press conference police were investigating a
possible drug connection and they simply said this man was
wanted for questioning that he might have information. A lot
of people started calling police and said they recognized the
man in the photo. They said that he was a
(11:32):
dead ringer for twenty seven year old Richard mcalvin, the
son of the Calcashu Parish Sheriff Wayne mccelvin. After the
poset drawing was released, people in town were calling police
and telling law enforcement that that drawing looked a lot
like Richard mcalvin, the twenty seven year old son of
(11:53):
the sheriff, Wayne mclvin. And this was not the first
time that Richard Mcalvin's name had been mentioned by people
in town as potentially connected to a possible homicide. Richard
Mcalvin has never been arrested or charged in connection with
these murders. In fact, as we'll get into, according to
local law enforcement, he has been cleared. I'm mentioning this
(12:14):
because we're trying to understand the series of events that
led to his name coming into the picture, and because
many people, including members of Stacy Ruf's family, still believe
Richard was somehow involved. We need to find out why.
Let's go back to nineteen ninety one. Back in nineteen
ninety one, there was another infamous double homicide in the area,
(12:36):
known locally as the Ellender murders. On Marty Grass February twelfth,
nineteen ninety one, in soul For, Louisiana, also in Calcashue Parish,
right down the road from kk's corner. The bodies of
twenty seven year old Eric Ellender and his wife, twenty
five year old Pam Ellender were found in their home.
Pam was a stay at home mom. Eric was an
(12:57):
insurance adjuster. Eric worked at his father in law, Huey
Littlden's business. The couple had been shot to death in
their bed with a sowd off shotgun, one that police
later said belonged to Eric. Their eighteen month old daughter
was found in the home unharmed. Pam and Eric's Toyota
four Runner had been stolen. Police found the stolen car
the next day. Four young men, Chris Prudom, Robert Adkins,
(13:22):
Philip Ladeux and Kurt Reese, had been seen in the
car riding around Baton Rouge. Chris Prudom later confessed that
he had committed the murders alone. He was charged with
the killings, but there was a strange series of events
following this case. Seventeen days later, Chris took his own
life by hanging himself in the shower stall of the
(13:42):
Calcashue Parish Jay. Rumors spread that other people had been
involved in the murders, though that was never proven. Pam's father,
Huey Littlden, believed that Chris did not act alone. He
spent years with private investigators, conducting hundreds of interviews. Eventually
he came to believe that Chris was a member of
(14:02):
a group called Skater. Skat Er supposedly stood for Satan's kids,
against the establishment. Huey Littelton also believed there had been
a cover up. He believed that there was a party
inside the house after the couple was murdered, and that
Pam and Eric's dead bodies had been sexually molested. He
believed there had been a videotape of the sexual assault
(14:24):
shown at that party. It's worth mentioning these murders happened
right at the height of the Satanic Panic era.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Back in the eighties and nineties.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
There were a lot of allegations making news, things like
ritual sacrifice. A lot of instances were happening around the US,
and they were all later found to be unsubstantiated. But
I'm old enough to remember the media hysteria around cases
like the West Memphis three in Arkansas and the Martin
Preschool trial in Los Angeles, California. Some of the stories
(14:54):
that people told were pretty out there, but there were
a lot of hard facts that Huey Littlden gathered that
did seem to indicate that there was more than one
person at least present on the day of these murders,
and Huey Littleton got results.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
I'm not sure if I've ever heard of this.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Happening, but police agreed to let Huey Littlden present his
evidence to the grand jury. He found out that Robert
Adkins had told a friend that he was there during
the murders and that Chris didn't actually kill the islanders.
There was also another woman, someone who said that she
was there and helped with the murders. There were actually
murder charges filed against her at one point, but the
(15:31):
charges were later dropped. One of the people who some
people mentioned as being at the home was Richard Mcalvin,
and Hughey Lyttleton believed that this lead wasn't pursued because
Richard was the sh a son. This is something Sheriff
Wayne Mcalvin always completely denied. In the end, Robert Adkins
(15:53):
pled guilty to two counts of manslaughter.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
He got probation.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Philip Leadeux and Kurt Reese pled guilty to being an
accessory after the fact. Philip was sentenced to four years
in prison, Kurt got two years, and after that police
closed the case. Richard Mcalvin was never connected in any
way with these murders, but according to the book Murdering
the Bayeux, the rumors about Richard Mcalvin being seen at
(16:18):
the Ellanders and not properly investigated, refused to die. And
then after kk's Corner, the rumors started up again, and
again some people believed Richard was involved. Some of Stacy's
family members believed that kk's Corner was not just a
robbery gone wrong. They believed that Stacy was the original target.
(16:40):
This was because of another mysterious death, one that happened
just a few weeks before kk's Corner of Stacy's friend,
Kevin Abel. Stacy and Kevin were friends. Her family says
they were dating at the time of his death. Now, officially,
Kevin Abel's death was considered a suicide, but Stacy told
people she thought that Kevin was murdered and that his
(17:01):
murder was drug related. A few weeks before the kk's
Corner murders, Kevin Abel was found in his home lying
on the floor with a gunshot wounded the head. There
was a suicide note found near his body, and there
was a witness present, someone who apparently said they heard
a gunshot and went into the room where Kevin had
been and found Kevin lying there. According to a police report,
(17:23):
investigators stated Abel's hands tested positive for gunpowder residue, but
some members of Stacy's family believed that the circumstances around
the suicide were odd, including the fact that a TV
was found on top of Kevin on his chest. Some
of Stacy's family members said Stacy was scared in the
weeks before the murder because she had been talking to
(17:45):
police about drug dealing that was allegedly going on in
and around Kk's Corner. Her family also believes that some
members of law enforcement may have been involved in some
of that drug dealing, but the police report stated Kevin
fell backward onto a TV stand That's how the TV
ended up on top of his chest. The task force,
(18:05):
led by Detective Deluge, found that kevin Abel suicide was
not connected in any way to the Kk's Corner murders,
but Stacy's uncle, Robert T. Bob Rogers, said that Stacy
had been talking to a deputy who was a friend
of hers before the murders, talking about drug dealing that
was allegedly going on in the store and about being
(18:25):
afraid for her life. Robert wondered why that deputy did
not come forward with that information immediately after the killings.
Detective Deluge told ID that he questioned that deputy friend
of Stacy's, about why he hadn't come forward. He said
the deputy told him there was nothing that he and
Stacey had been discussing that he believed would have been relevant
(18:46):
to the murders. The deputy also told Detective Deluge that
he had no sexual involvement with Stacy and that Stacy
did not work for him or for the Narcotic Division
as an informant. Detective deLuce said the deputy was polygraphed
that he passed the law detector test, and because the
deputy carried a nine millimeter handgun, the same caliber as
(19:07):
the murder weapon, they did send the gun in for testing.
They found that the shell casings did not match the
shell casings at the scene at kk's corner. But Stacy's
family members believed that Kevin was murdered and the police
were somehow involved in the cover up, and that they
were also covering up something at Kk's corner. So I
(19:30):
want to back up for a minute and say, for
people looking at this from the outside, it may seem
far fetched that someone could believe that anyone working in
law enforcement could be intimately connected to crime or to
drug activities, but there have been a lot of allegations
over the years against law enforcement in this area and
criticisms of some of their practices. During the eighties and nineties,
(19:51):
the police in Sulfur, right down the Itan Highway made
headlines because they became the number one area in the
United States for civil forfeitures. For anyone not familiar with
civil forfeitures, what those laws allowed police to do was
to confiscate and keep anything that was suspected of being
connected to a crime. They could keep cars or boats
(20:14):
or cash they found during traffic stops, even if the
people they stopped were not ultimately charged with some of
those crimes. By the nineteen nineties, the New York Times
reported that the police department down there had seized five
million dollars, mostly in cash, in these civil seizures. And
in the book Murder in the Bayou, Ethan Brown talked
(20:35):
about how in some areas of Louisiana, the confiscated property,
including drugs, had a habit of sometimes disappearing from the
evidence room. He said, quote local hustlers call this phenomenon
dope on the table, dope on the streets, meaning drugs
or sees form my tent proudly displayed for the press
and then resold by the cops.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
End quote.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
And again, I'm not suggesting that these traffic stops were
connected to the killings at Kk's Corner. I'm bringing this
up because we're trying to figure out why so many
people in this small town seem to believe that there
could have been a cover up with multiple people involved.
I think it's important to understand the history in order
(21:21):
to understand people's thought processes. Back to Kk's Corner, rumors
were flying about Richard Mcalvin's potential involvement in the case.
So in February of nineteen ninety eight, the Sheriff Wayne
Mcalvin held a press conference, and during that press conference,
he directly addressed people in the area who he believed
(21:42):
were spreading rumors about his son, Richard.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
So, if I have to in the name of my son,
I'll work with him and we will file suits if
this does not stop. So, if these rumors people still
believe them, let them say them. But they all say
them to you, and if they do, I'm sure lawsuits
will follow. I'm asking now for any law abiding citizen,
and here's these people making false accusations in Roman to
please call the sheriff's department and give us names, dates
(22:08):
and places.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Sheriff macalvin said at the time that Detective de Luce
had talked to him about people calling the police station
and saying that composite photo looked a lot like Richard.
The sheriff seemed to be trying to quiet down the
rumors with this press conference, but honestly, the plan seemed
to backfire. In my opinion, the whole tone of this
press conference is weird. I get that the sheriff is
(22:32):
concerned about his son, but he comes across as being
much more concerned about finding people who were spreading rumors
than he is about finding the actual killer. A few
days later, an attorney named Hunter Lundy said the sheriff's
statements were dangerous for free speech, that again the press
conference had put the focus on Wayne mccealvin's son instead
(22:54):
of on the victims of the triple homicide. Cheryl Reeves,
Stacy Reeves's mom, told the news station, quote Wayne mcalvin
doesn't know pain and he will never know pain compared
to this end quote.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
But again, as it was.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
For so many things in the parish, it was complicated
because Hunter Lundy's wife was running for sheriff at the time,
so the sheriff said Hunter's comments about him were politically motivated,
which Hunter completely denied. Richard mcealvin spoke briefly at the
press conference. He said that people had underestimated the strength
of the mcalvin family.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
Now I can't imagine.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
What it must be like to be falsely accused of murder,
but a lot of people were outraged again that the
mcelvins seemed to be making the press conference about what
their family had suffered, not the victims. In fact, many
members of victim's families told reporters that the sheriff had
asked them to wait outside and not attend the press conference,
(23:51):
and they were outraged by that. Detective Deluge said Richard
voluntarily turned himself in, that he agreed to have blood taken,
and he agreed to take a lie detector test, which
he passed. Detectives also checked out Richard's alibi, Apparently he
was camping out at Big Lake at a party and
seen by several people, including his girlfriend, Amber Weatherford. Richard
(24:13):
was cleared by police, but Stacy's family members continued to
believe the sheriff's department was covering something up. The district attorney,
Rick Bryant, talked about the press conference. He said on
the ID show, quote, if you want to believe that,
you would have to believe that the entire sheriff's office is.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Corrupt end quote.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
But some people in Lake Charles seemed to believe that
that was the case. After the sheriff's press conference and
after Richard, Detective Deluge and the vice squad continued their investigations.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
They followed the money.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
They tried to see if any of the stolen checks
had been cashed. Don Dixon, the FBI assistant who was
helping to handle the case, did a public appeal for information.
He said they were looking for people who may have
driven by a kk's corner on the night of the
murders between midnight and one thirty am. But after several months,
with no real suspect and no new witnesses, detectives were
(25:12):
ready to branch out and try more unconventional methods. They
hired a hypnotist, someone you had a national reputation, and,
according to court documents, costs between one thy and twelve
hundred dollars to hypnotize Virginia Johnson, the witness who had
been at kk's Corner at eleven forty five, the one
who contributed to the composite sketch. Under hypnosis, Virginia was
(25:35):
apparently able to remember new details.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
This time.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
She said that the second man had a key chain
with a rabbit's head on it. Police then reached out
to the TV show America's Most Wanted. On January twenty fourth,
nineteen ninety eight, America's Most Wanted aired an episode on
the Kk's Corner killings.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
On that show, some new facts were made public.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
There was an updated composite drawing with more details, including
the fact that one of the men had a key
chain in his pocket. But in the segment they showed
a rabbit's foot, not a rabbit head, as the witness mentioned.
We're going to get a lot more into this next week.
When did the rabbit's head become a rabbit's foot, because
that is one of those little details that seems to
(26:19):
have been overlooked in every single news story I've ever
seen about these events, even after twenty five years. In
my opinion, there are immediately problems with this hypnotist. I
get that the detectives were willing to try and do
anything to get more details, but honestly, a defense attorney
could have had a field day with this. We already
(26:39):
know that witness IDs can be problematic. Now you have
few details coming out months later under hypnosis. And again
we don't know what happened between the original time the
witness talked with the detectives and later. We don't know
if she talked to police or anyone else about their
theories of the case, or if police talked to her
about potential suspects. After the show aired, Laine Lebuff, Marty
(27:04):
Labuff's brother, spoke out. He questioned why did it take
so long to get that composite photo made public. The
FBI agent Don Dixon said detectives had waited so that
the TV show America's Most Wanted would have the maximum impact,
and it seemed to. After the America's Most Wanted episode aired,
a woman named Lonnie Kemp, whose daughter was friends with Stacy,
(27:25):
contacted the task Force. She said she knew about someone
who was friends with Stacy, a white man who she
thought lived in New Orleans, but who had been in
the Lake Charles area about two weeks before the murders,
and she believed that this man carried a white rabbit's
foot keychain. The man's name was Thomas Cisco. Thomas lived
(27:46):
in Metarie in the New Orleans metropolitan area, about a
three hour drive from Lake Charles. Thomas did have a
criminal record, but for non violent offenses like drug charges
and shoplifting, and Thomas Cisco did tell detectives that yes,
he carried a wallet chain with a white rabbit's foot
on it. Almost a year after the murders, on May twelfth,
(28:07):
nineteen ninety eight, the FBI interviewed Thomas Cisco for the
first time, and he told a lot of different stories
during those interviews, according to court documents.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
At first, Thomas told.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Detectives that yes, he knew Stacy, but that he hadn't
heard from her in a decade. But he said he
was a heavy drug user and that sometimes when he
used drugs he would have violent tendencies. He even said
at one point he could have participated in the killings,
but he had no memory of doing so. The next day,
Thomas said that he had an alibi that he was
back home in Meturi for the whole Fourth of July
(28:40):
weekend after the interview, police talked to some people who
were at Thomas's apartment complex. One woman said the last
time she had seen Thomas was after a barbecue on
Friday night, that they hadn't seen him again until Monday
or Tuesday, so Thomas's alibi was starting to fall apart.
The FBI interviewed Thomas Cisco again three months later, according
(29:03):
to court documents, this time over the course of five
and a half hours, he told four different stories. In
one version, he went there with a guy he knew
named Robert Thigpen. Thomas said Robert was the shooter. He
agreed to go back to Lake Charles to be interviewed
by Deputy Lucky Deluge, who he knew personally. Deputy Deluche
(29:23):
interviewed Thomas Cisco on August twenty sixth, nineteen ninety eight.
Now Thomas and Lucky knew each other from before, and
you can hear them talking about what they'd been doing
in their lives, making small talk. Parts of this interview
can be found on YouTube.
Speaker 5 (29:37):
Knock on this door, all right, and he said come in, okay.
I went in. He told me he was SI harsh.
Speaker 6 (29:43):
See then he just popped up like out of the
blue Man and said, let's go.
Speaker 5 (29:48):
Let's go Rob kk's corner. I thought it was a joke.
Speaker 6 (29:52):
Bro actually truly thought it was a joke at first,
you know, and then he started getting serious about it.
Speaker 5 (30:00):
You know, he was telling me, let's go Rob Kk's corner.
That's all they kept talking about. With Robin Kk's.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Corner, Thomas was saying Robert Thigpen was the shooter, and
he took detectives to places where he and Robert had
supposedly been the weekend of the killings.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
He did know some details.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
He knew the phone lines had been cut, and that
money had been stolen from the back office, and that
the bodies were in the cooler, But later in court documents,
it came out Thomas admitted to having watched The America's
Most Wanted segment, and also police quickly found out that
a lot of other details in Thomas's story did not
add up. The bus station that he said he and
(30:40):
Robert were at together, for example, was not even open
live nineteen ninety seven, according to court documents, and Thomas
could not pick out Robert Thigpen's house even when detectives
took him to the street where the house was located. Meanwhile,
police figured out Robert Thigpenn did have a connection to
one of the victims, but it wasn't Stacy, who a
(31:01):
lot of people in town believe may have been the target.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
It was Nicole.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Robert's wife and sister took Nicole to kk's corner on
the night of the murders.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
His sister was friends with Stacy.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Police talked to Robert, who said he had no idea
why Thomas said he was involved. He said he did
know Thomas, but that he hadn't seen him in a
long time, and Robert provided an alibi, which police verified.
So police ruled out Robert pretty quickly. So now detectives
had a problem. They had someone who had confessed and
changed the story multiple times.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
They had cleared Robert, but they didn't believe.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Thomas's other story about how he committed the murders himself
that also would not match the stories that the witness
had told and the evidence. Detective de Luce asked Thomas
again what really happened? This time he said he was
never at kk's at all. He said he only confessed
after being harassed by law enforcement. He said the only
reason he knew the layout of that store was because
(31:59):
he had been there before, and he said in the
past he had falsely confessed to other things, including a
rape that he had not committed. Quote, because he wanted
that shit to be over end quote what is it on? On?
Speaker 5 (32:11):
Tayor said, I didn't commit these murders.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
Do.
Speaker 6 (32:14):
I was talking to my X on the phone after
y'all had left, and she asked me, why you confessed
to something.
Speaker 5 (32:20):
That you didn't the fucking did? Okay? And man, I
wanted this shit to build with this as much as
y'all do. Loocky I was. I felt like I was
being harassed by the LBI. I lost two jobs for
I lost my place to live.
Speaker 6 (32:36):
I swear on it if you give me a stack
of Bibles right now, but I swear on my kid's life,
and I don't never swear on my kid's life or anything.
Speaker 5 (32:44):
I did not commit these murders, dude. I did not
commit these murders, and I did not know who did
commit these murders.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Thomas said he confessed because he wanted the interrogations to end.
But months later, Thomas Cisco told yet another completely different story,
and what he said this time was shocking this time,
Thomas said the mastermind behind the shootings was Sheriff Mcalvin's son,
Richard Mcalvin. While being questioned by Detective Lucky Deluge, Thomas
(33:18):
Cisco said the mastermind behind the killings at kk's corner
was none other than Richard mcgalvin. Thomas said that Richard
was allegedly involved in drug related activities going on in
the area around kk's corner. He said Richard had hired
him to kill Stacy and that Marty and Nicole had
basically been collateral damage. Thomas said that Richard, who he
(33:39):
called that little sorry rascal, promised to pay him twenty
thousand dollars to kill because she knew too much, meaning
that she had information about Kevin Abel's death, which he
said was murder, not suicide. Thomas told detectives that Richard
had been involved in that alleged murder as well, but
Thomas said he only got ten thousand dollars from the
alleged tit and never collected the other ten. Thomas said
(34:02):
the Sheriff's department had covered up the killings, but by
this time Thomas was totally unreliable because he was admittedly
a liar, who had given thirty five different statements, all
of which contradicted each other. Next week, we're going to
take a more detailed look at Thomas's confessions. We're also
going to talk to Stacy Reeves's uncle and Marty's brother,
Lane Leabuffe, who has been trying to get answers for
(34:25):
almost twenty five years. We're also going to take another
look at the civil lawsuits to see if we can
find any answers there. We're also going to try to
figure out what's the real story with Thomas Cisco. Are
any of these confessions believable? Was he just a distant
friend of Stacy's from high school, or, as he later
told pol, her best friend. How did he know details
(34:46):
about the crime scene, about the phone lines being cut,
in the back office being broken into? Was it just
because he'd been in the store and watched America's Most
Wanted or did he have more details than only the
killer would have known? And if Thomas didn't act alone,
as the district attorney and police believe, then who was
that second man? Could the killer still be out there
(35:08):
walking around and has he killed again?
Speaker 5 (35:12):
What do you know about that?
Speaker 6 (35:13):
I'll know who I know who did it, that I
was there.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Okay, I'm Catherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line.
Helen Gone Murder Line is a production of School of
Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by me
Catherine Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts. Special thanks to
Amy Tubbs for her research assistance. Julia Chris Gau and
(35:38):
Jesse Niswanger mixed and scored this episode. Our theme song
is by Ben Sale, Executive producers of Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr,
and LC Crowley. Listen to Helen Gone ad free by
subscribing to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel on Apple Podcasts.
If you were interested in seeing documents and materials from
the case, you can follow the show on Instagram at
(36:00):
Helen gonpod. If you have a case you'd like me
and my team to look into, you can reach out
to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line six seven
eight seven four four six one four five. That's six
seven eight seven four four six one four five.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
School of Humans
School of Humans. Helen Got Murder Line actively investigates cold
case murders in an effort to raise public awareness invite
witnesses to come forward and present evidence that could potentially
be further investigated by law enforcement. While we value insights
from family and community members, their statements should not be
considered evidence and point to the challenges of verifying facts
(01:10):
inherent in cold cases. We remind listeners that everyone has
presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Nothing in the podcast is intended to state or imply
that anyone who has not been convicted of a crime
is guilty of any wrongdoing. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
It was a few minutes before midnight on Saturday, July fifth,
nineteen ninety seven. Twenty one year old Marty Lebuff was
working behind the counter as a cashier at Kk's Corner
Convenience store on Highway fourteen in calcashu Perish, a few
miles from Lake Charles, Louisiana. Marty and his coworker, twenty
six year old Stacy Reeves, were working together that night.
(01:52):
There was someone else there too. Stacy had a friend,
fourteen year old Nicole Guidry, there with her. Nicole sometimes
babysat for Stacy's twin daughters, who were twenty three months
old at the time. She was keeping Stacy company until
the store closed. Then the plan was for Nicole to
ride home with Stacy and spend the night with Stacy's children.
(02:13):
Nicole was about to turn fifteen and about to start
the ninth grade. Marty hadn't actually been scheduled to work
that night, but one of his co workers named Miles Addison,
had called in sick, so Marty stepped in. Marty's father,
Ellis Lebuff, later told a local news station that the
night seemed completely normal. He said that he had called
(02:36):
Kk's that night before Marty got off work to tell
Marty that he had left to plate to barbecue out
for him at home. Closing time was midnight. That time
came and went, and Marty, Stacy, and Nicole never made
it home. Around five am on July sixth, one of
Marty and Stacy's coworkers showed up to open the store.
(02:59):
She immediately noticed that something was very wrong. The cash
register was open, money was missing from the drawer, the
alarm was off, and Marty and Stacy were nowhere to
be found. The employee picked up the phone behind the counter,
the only phone that was on a different line and
was still working.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
She called the police.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Once the deputy got to the door, he noticed Stacey
and Marty's cars in the parking lot. Inside, he found
the door to the back office had been kicked in
and the safe was open. At first, he thought this
had been a robbery and that Stacy and Marty may
be restrained in the back of the store, locked in
the cooler, But once he opened the door to the cooler,
(03:44):
he saw the bloodbath. There were three bodies there, Marty, Stacy,
and Nicole lying on the floor. All three had been
shot multiple times, execution style. I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the
past five years of making my true crime podcast, Helen Gone,
I've learned that there is no such thing as a
(04:05):
small town where murder never happens. I have received hundreds
of messages from people all around the country asking for
help with an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families,
and their communities. If you have a case you'd like
me and my team to look into, you can reach
out to us at our Helen Gone Murder line at
six seven eight seven four four six one four five,
(04:27):
that six seven eight seven, four, four, six, one, four
or five, or you can send us a message on
Instagram at Helen Gone Pod. This is Helen Gone murder line.
(05:13):
A triple homicide in this sleepy little part of southwest
Louisiana immediately became a huge story. Everyone in town seemed
to have a connection with this case, either their regulars
in the store, or they knew one or more than one.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Of the victims.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
The Calcashue Parish Sheriff Wayne mclvin said that the police
believed that this had been some kind of robbery gone wrong,
and that the killer or killers had botched the robbery
because whoever came into the store that night seemed to
know the store and possibly the employees. According to KPLC
seven News, there was some money taken from the register.
(05:51):
It totaled less than one hundred dollars, but someone had
gone into the manager's office in the back of the
store and taken a lot more money, cash checks and
money orders worth over ten thousand dollars. Someone also knew
how to cut the phone lines, and they knew how
to get into the back of the store and get
to the surveillance equipment. There was a camera, but the
(06:12):
killer or killers took the tape from the VCR of
the surveillance footage. Detectives said they believed that Marty, Nicole,
and Stacy had been led into the cooler one at
a time and then shot at close range. Marty had
been shot three times, Stacy and Nicole had each been
shot twice. All of them had been shot in the head.
(06:34):
Stacy apparently also had a bullet graze to the side
of her head. This led detectives to speculate early on
there may have been more than one killer. Because Marty
was a big guy. They believed that he would have
fought back and that it would have been hard to
subdue three people a gunpoint. Whoever it was, they left
behind virtually no physical evidence. The detective put in charge
(06:58):
of the investigation was Detective Donald Deluche, who went by Lucky.
He told the investigation Discovery TV show the killer in
question that police knew the murder weapon had been a
nine millimeter handgun, but that detectives were not able to
get usable fingerprints. Detective Deluge was the director of Calcashu's
(07:18):
Violent Crimes Task Force BCTF, which a later lawsuit described
as an elite task force. It was made up of
law enforcement officers from the Calcashue Sheriff's office, but also
Louisiana State Police officers and some officers from other departments.
That meant that Detective Deluche ran all of the high
profile investigations in that parish. Police started interviewing people in
(07:42):
the area and tracking down leeds. They teamed up with
crime stoppers to offer rewards. Kal Kashu Perrish's reward was
one hundred thousand dollars. Crime Stoppers put in an additional
ten thousand dollars. The FBI also got involved in the investigation. Meanwhile,
rumors were flying all over town about people who could
(08:03):
have been involved, and yet at the same time, no
one seemed to have seen what happened. Police did talk
to a couple of people who said they had come
to kk's corner earlier that night. They saw Stacy, Marty,
and Nicole. They said that everything seemed normal. One hour
after closing, at around one am, the store alarm went off.
(08:24):
The alarm company called the store and no one answered,
so the alarm company called the store's owner. The store's
owner apparently said forgetting to set the alarm, would be
a little bit unusual, so they suggested that the alarm
company called nine to one one to get them to
dispatch a unit to the store, just in case. The
alarm company did contact the dispatcher. The dispatcher said they
(08:47):
would send a unit to Kk's Corners, but that never happened.
Everyone wondered how could three murders happen right in the
middle of a small town and no one seemed to
know anything or see anything. For a while, it seemed
true that, as Sheriff Wayne Mcalvin said, there were no witnesses,
but it turned out there was someone who knew something,
(09:09):
a woman who stopped by at around eleven forty five
pm to get some gas. They talked to this witness,
Virginia Johnson, about a week after the murders. She said
that she got to Kk's just as Stacey was closing
the door, but Stacy led her into the store so
she could get her gas. Virginia came in and paid
ten dollars for the gas. She told police that at
(09:31):
that time she saw Marty, Stacy, and Nicole, and all
of them were alive. Then she saw two men who
drove up in a black car. She told police. While
she was inside paying for the gas, the first man
came inside the gas station and headed.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
For the beer cooler.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Then as she was leaving, she bumped into the second
man as he came inside the door. Now she got
a pretty good look at this guy because she ran
right into him. She told the police that something wasn't right.
She said, quote, he didn't even say excuse me, and
that's when I just got a bad feeling. She went
outside and while she pumped her gas, she said that
(10:09):
she saw the two men in front of the beer cooler. Now,
at this point something seemed to happen, something that spooked her,
and it scared her enough to cause her to drive
off without pumping the rest of her gas. After that,
Virginia picked her boyfriend up from work, but later she
drove by Kk's corner again. She said when she did,
(10:30):
she saw the black car again and that the trunk
was open this time, and she noticed there was a
red pickup truck with a driver's side door open park
next to the black car. From the witness description of
the man she bumped into, a police sketch artist created
a composite drawing. She didn't really get a good look
at the second man. The only thing she remembered when
(10:52):
she first talked to police was that he had a
Marlborough keychain hanging from a front pocket. On July sixteenth,
the Task Force released the complete sketch. They said they
were looking for the man in the drawing, who was
seen in Kk's Corner with a second man at around
eleven to fifty pm on July fifth. At the time,
police said the man they were looking for was around
(11:12):
six feet tall and in his twenties or thirties. Detective
Deluge said at a press conference police were investigating a
possible drug connection and they simply said this man was
wanted for questioning that he might have information. A lot
of people started calling police and said they recognized the
man in the photo. They said that he was a
(11:32):
dead ringer for twenty seven year old Richard mcalvin, the
son of the Calcashu Parish Sheriff Wayne mccelvin. After the
poset drawing was released, people in town were calling police
and telling law enforcement that that drawing looked a lot
like Richard mcalvin, the twenty seven year old son of
(11:53):
the sheriff, Wayne mclvin. And this was not the first
time that Richard Mcalvin's name had been mentioned by people
in town as potentially connected to a possible homicide. Richard
Mcalvin has never been arrested or charged in connection with
these murders. In fact, as we'll get into, according to
local law enforcement, he has been cleared. I'm mentioning this
(12:14):
because we're trying to understand the series of events that
led to his name coming into the picture, and because
many people, including members of Stacy Ruf's family, still believe
Richard was somehow involved. We need to find out why.
Let's go back to nineteen ninety one. Back in nineteen
ninety one, there was another infamous double homicide in the area,
(12:36):
known locally as the Ellender murders. On Marty Grass February twelfth,
nineteen ninety one, in soul For, Louisiana, also in Calcashue Parish,
right down the road from kk's corner. The bodies of
twenty seven year old Eric Ellender and his wife, twenty
five year old Pam Ellender were found in their home.
Pam was a stay at home mom. Eric was an
(12:57):
insurance adjuster. Eric worked at his father in law, Huey
Littlden's business. The couple had been shot to death in
their bed with a sowd off shotgun, one that police
later said belonged to Eric. Their eighteen month old daughter
was found in the home unharmed. Pam and Eric's Toyota
four Runner had been stolen. Police found the stolen car
the next day. Four young men, Chris Prudom, Robert Adkins,
(13:22):
Philip Ladeux and Kurt Reese, had been seen in the
car riding around Baton Rouge. Chris Prudom later confessed that
he had committed the murders alone. He was charged with
the killings, but there was a strange series of events
following this case. Seventeen days later, Chris took his own
life by hanging himself in the shower stall of the
(13:42):
Calcashue Parish Jay. Rumors spread that other people had been
involved in the murders, though that was never proven. Pam's father,
Huey Littlden, believed that Chris did not act alone. He
spent years with private investigators, conducting hundreds of interviews. Eventually
he came to believe that Chris was a member of
(14:02):
a group called Skater. Skat Er supposedly stood for Satan's kids,
against the establishment. Huey Littelton also believed there had been
a cover up. He believed that there was a party
inside the house after the couple was murdered, and that
Pam and Eric's dead bodies had been sexually molested. He
believed there had been a videotape of the sexual assault
(14:24):
shown at that party. It's worth mentioning these murders happened
right at the height of the Satanic Panic era.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Back in the eighties and nineties.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
There were a lot of allegations making news, things like
ritual sacrifice. A lot of instances were happening around the US,
and they were all later found to be unsubstantiated. But
I'm old enough to remember the media hysteria around cases
like the West Memphis three in Arkansas and the Martin
Preschool trial in Los Angeles, California. Some of the stories
(14:54):
that people told were pretty out there, but there were
a lot of hard facts that Huey Littlden gathered that
did seem to indicate that there was more than one
person at least present on the day of these murders,
and Huey Littleton got results.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
I'm not sure if I've ever heard of this.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Happening, but police agreed to let Huey Littlden present his
evidence to the grand jury. He found out that Robert
Adkins had told a friend that he was there during
the murders and that Chris didn't actually kill the islanders.
There was also another woman, someone who said that she
was there and helped with the murders. There were actually
murder charges filed against her at one point, but the
(15:31):
charges were later dropped. One of the people who some
people mentioned as being at the home was Richard Mcalvin,
and Hughey Lyttleton believed that this lead wasn't pursued because
Richard was the sh a son. This is something Sheriff
Wayne Mcalvin always completely denied. In the end, Robert Adkins
(15:53):
pled guilty to two counts of manslaughter.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
He got probation.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Philip Leadeux and Kurt Reese pled guilty to being an
accessory after the fact. Philip was sentenced to four years
in prison, Kurt got two years, and after that police
closed the case. Richard Mcalvin was never connected in any
way with these murders, but according to the book Murdering
the Bayeux, the rumors about Richard Mcalvin being seen at
(16:18):
the Ellanders and not properly investigated, refused to die. And
then after kk's Corner, the rumors started up again, and
again some people believed Richard was involved. Some of Stacy's
family members believed that kk's Corner was not just a
robbery gone wrong. They believed that Stacy was the original target.
(16:40):
This was because of another mysterious death, one that happened
just a few weeks before kk's Corner of Stacy's friend,
Kevin Abel. Stacy and Kevin were friends. Her family says
they were dating at the time of his death. Now, officially,
Kevin Abel's death was considered a suicide, but Stacy told
people she thought that Kevin was murdered and that his
(17:01):
murder was drug related. A few weeks before the kk's
Corner murders, Kevin Abel was found in his home lying
on the floor with a gunshot wounded the head. There
was a suicide note found near his body, and there
was a witness present, someone who apparently said they heard
a gunshot and went into the room where Kevin had
been and found Kevin lying there. According to a police report,
(17:23):
investigators stated Abel's hands tested positive for gunpowder residue, but
some members of Stacy's family believed that the circumstances around
the suicide were odd, including the fact that a TV
was found on top of Kevin on his chest. Some
of Stacy's family members said Stacy was scared in the
weeks before the murder because she had been talking to
(17:45):
police about drug dealing that was allegedly going on in
and around Kk's Corner. Her family also believes that some
members of law enforcement may have been involved in some
of that drug dealing, but the police report stated Kevin
fell backward onto a TV stand That's how the TV
ended up on top of his chest. The task force,
(18:05):
led by Detective Deluge, found that kevin Abel suicide was
not connected in any way to the Kk's Corner murders,
but Stacy's uncle, Robert T. Bob Rogers, said that Stacy
had been talking to a deputy who was a friend
of hers before the murders, talking about drug dealing that
was allegedly going on in the store and about being
(18:25):
afraid for her life. Robert wondered why that deputy did
not come forward with that information immediately after the killings.
Detective Deluge told ID that he questioned that deputy friend
of Stacy's, about why he hadn't come forward. He said
the deputy told him there was nothing that he and
Stacey had been discussing that he believed would have been relevant
(18:46):
to the murders. The deputy also told Detective Deluge that
he had no sexual involvement with Stacy and that Stacy
did not work for him or for the Narcotic Division
as an informant. Detective deLuce said the deputy was polygraphed
that he passed the law detector test, and because the
deputy carried a nine millimeter handgun, the same caliber as
(19:07):
the murder weapon, they did send the gun in for testing.
They found that the shell casings did not match the
shell casings at the scene at kk's corner. But Stacy's
family members believed that Kevin was murdered and the police
were somehow involved in the cover up, and that they
were also covering up something at Kk's corner. So I
(19:30):
want to back up for a minute and say, for
people looking at this from the outside, it may seem
far fetched that someone could believe that anyone working in
law enforcement could be intimately connected to crime or to
drug activities, but there have been a lot of allegations
over the years against law enforcement in this area and
criticisms of some of their practices. During the eighties and nineties,
(19:51):
the police in Sulfur, right down the Itan Highway made
headlines because they became the number one area in the
United States for civil forfeitures. For anyone not familiar with
civil forfeitures, what those laws allowed police to do was
to confiscate and keep anything that was suspected of being
connected to a crime. They could keep cars or boats
(20:14):
or cash they found during traffic stops, even if the
people they stopped were not ultimately charged with some of
those crimes. By the nineteen nineties, the New York Times
reported that the police department down there had seized five
million dollars, mostly in cash, in these civil seizures. And
in the book Murder in the Bayou, Ethan Brown talked
(20:35):
about how in some areas of Louisiana, the confiscated property,
including drugs, had a habit of sometimes disappearing from the
evidence room. He said, quote local hustlers call this phenomenon
dope on the table, dope on the streets, meaning drugs
or sees form my tent proudly displayed for the press
and then resold by the cops.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
End quote.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
And again, I'm not suggesting that these traffic stops were
connected to the killings at Kk's Corner. I'm bringing this
up because we're trying to figure out why so many
people in this small town seem to believe that there
could have been a cover up with multiple people involved.
I think it's important to understand the history in order
(21:21):
to understand people's thought processes. Back to Kk's Corner, rumors
were flying about Richard Mcalvin's potential involvement in the case.
So in February of nineteen ninety eight, the Sheriff Wayne
Mcalvin held a press conference, and during that press conference,
he directly addressed people in the area who he believed
(21:42):
were spreading rumors about his son, Richard.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
So, if I have to in the name of my son,
I'll work with him and we will file suits if
this does not stop. So, if these rumors people still
believe them, let them say them. But they all say
them to you, and if they do, I'm sure lawsuits
will follow. I'm asking now for any law abiding citizen,
and here's these people making false accusations in Roman to
please call the sheriff's department and give us names, dates
(22:08):
and places.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Sheriff macalvin said at the time that Detective de Luce
had talked to him about people calling the police station
and saying that composite photo looked a lot like Richard.
The sheriff seemed to be trying to quiet down the
rumors with this press conference, but honestly, the plan seemed
to backfire. In my opinion, the whole tone of this
press conference is weird. I get that the sheriff is
(22:32):
concerned about his son, but he comes across as being
much more concerned about finding people who were spreading rumors
than he is about finding the actual killer. A few
days later, an attorney named Hunter Lundy said the sheriff's
statements were dangerous for free speech, that again the press
conference had put the focus on Wayne mccealvin's son instead
(22:54):
of on the victims of the triple homicide. Cheryl Reeves,
Stacy Reeves's mom, told the news station, quote Wayne mcalvin
doesn't know pain and he will never know pain compared
to this end quote.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
But again, as it was.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
For so many things in the parish, it was complicated
because Hunter Lundy's wife was running for sheriff at the time,
so the sheriff said Hunter's comments about him were politically motivated,
which Hunter completely denied. Richard mcealvin spoke briefly at the
press conference. He said that people had underestimated the strength
of the mcalvin family.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
Now I can't imagine.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
What it must be like to be falsely accused of murder,
but a lot of people were outraged again that the
mcelvins seemed to be making the press conference about what
their family had suffered, not the victims. In fact, many
members of victim's families told reporters that the sheriff had
asked them to wait outside and not attend the press conference,
(23:51):
and they were outraged by that. Detective Deluge said Richard
voluntarily turned himself in, that he agreed to have blood taken,
and he agreed to take a lie detector test, which
he passed. Detectives also checked out Richard's alibi, Apparently he
was camping out at Big Lake at a party and
seen by several people, including his girlfriend, Amber Weatherford. Richard
(24:13):
was cleared by police, but Stacy's family members continued to
believe the sheriff's department was covering something up. The district attorney,
Rick Bryant, talked about the press conference. He said on
the ID show, quote, if you want to believe that,
you would have to believe that the entire sheriff's office is.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Corrupt end quote.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
But some people in Lake Charles seemed to believe that
that was the case. After the sheriff's press conference and
after Richard, Detective Deluge and the vice squad continued their investigations.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
They followed the money.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
They tried to see if any of the stolen checks
had been cashed. Don Dixon, the FBI assistant who was
helping to handle the case, did a public appeal for information.
He said they were looking for people who may have
driven by a kk's corner on the night of the
murders between midnight and one thirty am. But after several months,
with no real suspect and no new witnesses, detectives were
(25:12):
ready to branch out and try more unconventional methods. They
hired a hypnotist, someone you had a national reputation, and,
according to court documents, costs between one thy and twelve
hundred dollars to hypnotize Virginia Johnson, the witness who had
been at kk's Corner at eleven forty five, the one
who contributed to the composite sketch. Under hypnosis, Virginia was
(25:35):
apparently able to remember new details.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
This time.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
She said that the second man had a key chain
with a rabbit's head on it. Police then reached out
to the TV show America's Most Wanted. On January twenty fourth,
nineteen ninety eight, America's Most Wanted aired an episode on
the Kk's Corner killings.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
On that show, some new facts were made public.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
There was an updated composite drawing with more details, including
the fact that one of the men had a key
chain in his pocket. But in the segment they showed
a rabbit's foot, not a rabbit head, as the witness mentioned.
We're going to get a lot more into this next week.
When did the rabbit's head become a rabbit's foot, because
that is one of those little details that seems to
(26:19):
have been overlooked in every single news story I've ever
seen about these events, even after twenty five years. In
my opinion, there are immediately problems with this hypnotist. I
get that the detectives were willing to try and do
anything to get more details, but honestly, a defense attorney
could have had a field day with this. We already
(26:39):
know that witness IDs can be problematic. Now you have
few details coming out months later under hypnosis. And again
we don't know what happened between the original time the
witness talked with the detectives and later. We don't know
if she talked to police or anyone else about their
theories of the case, or if police talked to her
about potential suspects. After the show aired, Laine Lebuff, Marty
(27:04):
Labuff's brother, spoke out. He questioned why did it take
so long to get that composite photo made public. The
FBI agent Don Dixon said detectives had waited so that
the TV show America's Most Wanted would have the maximum impact,
and it seemed to. After the America's Most Wanted episode aired,
a woman named Lonnie Kemp, whose daughter was friends with Stacy,
(27:25):
contacted the task Force. She said she knew about someone
who was friends with Stacy, a white man who she
thought lived in New Orleans, but who had been in
the Lake Charles area about two weeks before the murders,
and she believed that this man carried a white rabbit's
foot keychain. The man's name was Thomas Cisco. Thomas lived
(27:46):
in Metarie in the New Orleans metropolitan area, about a
three hour drive from Lake Charles. Thomas did have a
criminal record, but for non violent offenses like drug charges
and shoplifting, and Thomas Cisco did tell detectives that yes,
he carried a wallet chain with a white rabbit's foot
on it. Almost a year after the murders, on May twelfth,
(28:07):
nineteen ninety eight, the FBI interviewed Thomas Cisco for the
first time, and he told a lot of different stories
during those interviews, according to court documents.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
At first, Thomas told.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Detectives that yes, he knew Stacy, but that he hadn't
heard from her in a decade. But he said he
was a heavy drug user and that sometimes when he
used drugs he would have violent tendencies. He even said
at one point he could have participated in the killings,
but he had no memory of doing so. The next day,
Thomas said that he had an alibi that he was
back home in Meturi for the whole Fourth of July
(28:40):
weekend after the interview, police talked to some people who
were at Thomas's apartment complex. One woman said the last
time she had seen Thomas was after a barbecue on
Friday night, that they hadn't seen him again until Monday
or Tuesday, so Thomas's alibi was starting to fall apart.
The FBI interviewed Thomas Cisco again three months later, according
(29:03):
to court documents, this time over the course of five
and a half hours, he told four different stories. In
one version, he went there with a guy he knew
named Robert Thigpen. Thomas said Robert was the shooter. He
agreed to go back to Lake Charles to be interviewed
by Deputy Lucky Deluge, who he knew personally. Deputy Deluche
(29:23):
interviewed Thomas Cisco on August twenty sixth, nineteen ninety eight.
Now Thomas and Lucky knew each other from before, and
you can hear them talking about what they'd been doing
in their lives, making small talk. Parts of this interview
can be found on YouTube.
Speaker 5 (29:37):
Knock on this door, all right, and he said come in, okay.
I went in. He told me he was SI harsh.
Speaker 6 (29:43):
See then he just popped up like out of the
blue Man and said, let's go.
Speaker 5 (29:48):
Let's go Rob kk's corner. I thought it was a joke.
Speaker 6 (29:52):
Bro actually truly thought it was a joke at first,
you know, and then he started getting serious about it.
Speaker 5 (30:00):
You know, he was telling me, let's go Rob Kk's corner.
That's all they kept talking about. With Robin Kk's.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Corner, Thomas was saying Robert Thigpen was the shooter, and
he took detectives to places where he and Robert had
supposedly been the weekend of the killings.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
He did know some details.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
He knew the phone lines had been cut, and that
money had been stolen from the back office, and that
the bodies were in the cooler, But later in court documents,
it came out Thomas admitted to having watched The America's
Most Wanted segment, and also police quickly found out that
a lot of other details in Thomas's story did not
add up. The bus station that he said he and
(30:40):
Robert were at together, for example, was not even open
live nineteen ninety seven, according to court documents, and Thomas
could not pick out Robert Thigpen's house even when detectives
took him to the street where the house was located. Meanwhile,
police figured out Robert Thigpenn did have a connection to
one of the victims, but it wasn't Stacy, who a
(31:01):
lot of people in town believe may have been the target.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
It was Nicole.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Robert's wife and sister took Nicole to kk's corner on
the night of the murders.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
His sister was friends with Stacy.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Police talked to Robert, who said he had no idea
why Thomas said he was involved. He said he did
know Thomas, but that he hadn't seen him in a
long time, and Robert provided an alibi, which police verified.
So police ruled out Robert pretty quickly. So now detectives
had a problem. They had someone who had confessed and
changed the story multiple times.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
They had cleared Robert, but they didn't believe.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Thomas's other story about how he committed the murders himself
that also would not match the stories that the witness
had told and the evidence. Detective de Luce asked Thomas
again what really happened? This time he said he was
never at kk's at all. He said he only confessed
after being harassed by law enforcement. He said the only
reason he knew the layout of that store was because
(31:59):
he had been there before, and he said in the
past he had falsely confessed to other things, including a
rape that he had not committed. Quote, because he wanted
that shit to be over end quote what is it on? On?
Speaker 5 (32:11):
Tayor said, I didn't commit these murders.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
Do.
Speaker 6 (32:14):
I was talking to my X on the phone after
y'all had left, and she asked me, why you confessed
to something.
Speaker 5 (32:20):
That you didn't the fucking did? Okay? And man, I
wanted this shit to build with this as much as
y'all do. Loocky I was. I felt like I was
being harassed by the LBI. I lost two jobs for
I lost my place to live.
Speaker 6 (32:36):
I swear on it if you give me a stack
of Bibles right now, but I swear on my kid's life,
and I don't never swear on my kid's life or anything.
Speaker 5 (32:44):
I did not commit these murders, dude. I did not
commit these murders, and I did not know who did
commit these murders.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Thomas said he confessed because he wanted the interrogations to end.
But months later, Thomas Cisco told yet another completely different story,
and what he said this time was shocking this time,
Thomas said the mastermind behind the shootings was Sheriff Mcalvin's son,
Richard Mcalvin. While being questioned by Detective Lucky Deluge, Thomas
(33:18):
Cisco said the mastermind behind the killings at kk's corner
was none other than Richard mcgalvin. Thomas said that Richard
was allegedly involved in drug related activities going on in
the area around kk's corner. He said Richard had hired
him to kill Stacy and that Marty and Nicole had
basically been collateral damage. Thomas said that Richard, who he
(33:39):
called that little sorry rascal, promised to pay him twenty
thousand dollars to kill because she knew too much, meaning
that she had information about Kevin Abel's death, which he
said was murder, not suicide. Thomas told detectives that Richard
had been involved in that alleged murder as well, but
Thomas said he only got ten thousand dollars from the
alleged tit and never collected the other ten. Thomas said
(34:02):
the Sheriff's department had covered up the killings, but by
this time Thomas was totally unreliable because he was admittedly
a liar, who had given thirty five different statements, all
of which contradicted each other. Next week, we're going to
take a more detailed look at Thomas's confessions. We're also
going to talk to Stacy Reeves's uncle and Marty's brother,
Lane Leabuffe, who has been trying to get answers for
(34:25):
almost twenty five years. We're also going to take another
look at the civil lawsuits to see if we can
find any answers there. We're also going to try to
figure out what's the real story with Thomas Cisco. Are
any of these confessions believable? Was he just a distant
friend of Stacy's from high school, or, as he later
told pol, her best friend. How did he know details
(34:46):
about the crime scene, about the phone lines being cut,
in the back office being broken into? Was it just
because he'd been in the store and watched America's Most
Wanted or did he have more details than only the
killer would have known? And if Thomas didn't act alone,
as the district attorney and police believe, then who was
that second man? Could the killer still be out there
(35:08):
walking around and has he killed again?
Speaker 5 (35:12):
What do you know about that?
Speaker 6 (35:13):
I'll know who I know who did it, that I
was there.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Okay, I'm Catherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line.
Helen Gone Murder Line is a production of School of
Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by me
Catherine Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts. Special thanks to
Amy Tubbs for her research assistance. Julia Chris Gau and
(35:38):
Jesse Niswanger mixed and scored this episode. Our theme song
is by Ben Sale, Executive producers of Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr,
and LC Crowley. Listen to Helen Gone ad free by
subscribing to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel on Apple Podcasts.
If you were interested in seeing documents and materials from
the case, you can follow the show on Instagram at
(36:00):
Helen gonpod. If you have a case you'd like me
and my team to look into, you can reach out
to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line six seven
eight seven four four six one four five. That's six
seven eight seven four four six one four five.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
School of Humans
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