December 30, 2025 • 45 mins
James Fyfe leaves his Massachusetts security screening job to follow his dreams of becoming a cop.
New Orleans catches Fyfe’s eye, actually circulating ‘help wanted’ posters amid a hiring slump. Fyfe begins as a patrol officer in Algiers and works his way up the Fourth District Task Force into property crimes.
After time on the Violent Crime Abatement Investigation team, Fyfe finally gets a shot in the homicide division, just as NOLA sees a huge spike in violent crime. While many detectives only handle about five homicide cases a year, Fyfe is assigned to nearly 40 cases over three years because he keeps clearing them!
Since 2022, Fyfe has closed 24 consecutive cases he is assigned to, with his co-workers keeping track on a white board they’ve dubbed the "Fyfe-o-meter."
Fyfe’s work helps the homicide division bring its ‘clearance rate’ from 40% in 2022 to above 76%.
As 2024 nears the end, Thanh Vu tends her supermarket, but three "customers" are seeking more than groceries. Thanh, 61, was held at gunpoint while thieves emptied the register and pocketed cigarettes.
When Thanh fights back, she’s shot and left for dead.
Joining Nancy Grace:
James Fyfe - Homicide Detective, New Orleans Police Department, Criminal Law Degree from Northeastern University, and Master’s at Suffolk University; Increased Homicide Unit’s Clearance Rate from 40% to 75% from 2022-2024
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
A New Orleans homicide detective the modern day at Q
Poirot slews the worst of the worst. Now hold on
right there, Number one, very high crime city, New Orleans,
the big easy. So are some murders worse than other murders?
Speaker 1 (00:27):
How bad can it be? This guy has the answer
to that. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. I
want to thank you for being with us.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Detective James Fife began his career with the New Orleans
Police Department as a patrol officer before advancing to detective
in the fall of twenty twenty one. Since his promotion,
he has successfully solved over twenty four consecutive cases, showcasing
his dedication and skilled.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
It's not just dedication, it's not just hard hours.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
To close twenty four consecutive homicides in a row that
takes serious slew thing.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Who is this guy? Listen?
Speaker 4 (01:10):
James Fife leaves his Massachusetts security screening job to follow
his dreams of becoming a cop. New Orleans catches five's
eye actually circulating help wanted posters amid a hiring slump.
Fife begins as a patrol officer in Algiers and works
his way up the Fourth District Task Force into property crimes.
After time on the Violent Crime Abatement Investigation Team, Fife
(01:32):
finally gets a shot in the homicide division, just as
Nola sees a huge spike in violent crime.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
And joining us.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Now homicide Detective James five. Detective five, thank you for
being with.
Speaker 5 (01:44):
Us, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
It's an honor, Detective five.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Twenty four consecutive homicides, that's extremely rare. Do you recall
the first homicide investigated with New Orleans?
Speaker 5 (02:03):
Of course, yeah, case like that stays with you.
Speaker 6 (02:05):
I mean each of them really, but your first case,
you know, you're you're analyzing every little step, and for
sure that's not something you forget. It was in September
of twenty twenty one. My first case was a shooting
of three individuals on two Lane Avenue outside of a
bar at the location, which was successfully cleared.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Detective five, what do you recall of that first homicide investigation?
Speaker 6 (02:33):
Basically every little detail, you know, it's microanalyzing everything I
was doing under you know, management of more veteran officers,
making sure you don't take any missteps, because that the
mistakes are high and on your first case that pressure
really sinks in.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
So that was a triple shooting outside of a bar,
I assume at night. I have found in my own
investigations it's really hard to pin down bar goers to
get a statement out of them.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
How did you do it?
Speaker 6 (03:07):
Yeah, Well, in this case, the witness testimony, you know,
provided some sequencing of events, but it was mostly video
footage and it sort of one thing led to another,
and it was one of those cases that unraveled really well,
got some momentum. But our shooter was masked at the time,
so it wasn't even as though we needed a witness
to point to an individual and say that's the guy.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
It was a masked shooter.
Speaker 6 (03:29):
Yes, sort of a I mean a hit you could
call it. But it seemed pretty pretty planned and partially
organized on the part of the perpetrator.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Now, when you say it seemed planned, how do you
know the difference between your routine bar shooting and a
planned hit.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
See, that's just like you five.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
You toss it off as your first homicide. When I
find out now it was a planned execution.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
What happened?
Speaker 7 (03:56):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (03:56):
And I don't mean to ever sound flipping about any
of the cases. I talk about I think one of
the side.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Effects that you're modest. I mean it in that way
you never take credit for all of your work. You
make it sound like I didn't have that much to
do with it. It solved itself.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
But no, you solved it.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
I didn't know the first case was a planned assassination
and execution.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
What happened.
Speaker 6 (04:19):
Yeah, And not to digress, but real quick, sometimes it
can feel a little like insensitive to sort of celebrate
any success in this field, because even when you've done
your job well, the worst has already happened and somebody
has died, So to take like a victory lap sometimes
feels a little tone deaf. But you do have to
allow yourself to appreciate the wins when you get them.
But getting to this incident, when you watch the video footage,
(04:43):
and again it's still in phases of trial, so I
can't really speak into too much detail, but the method
approach of the incident itself shows that this is not
a spontaneous thing. This is definitely, you know, just the
dawning of a mask in the use of like a
draco firearm, you know, sort of implies that this is
something with some level of organization beforehand.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
To those that are not familiar with a Draco firearm,
could you explain.
Speaker 6 (05:10):
Oh, yeah, it's so, it's it's it looks like an
assault rifle, but technically it's an automatic pistol. But it's
very much in favor. Or it's a chic weapon. I
guess at least it was a few years ago among
some of the youth. But it has like a wood grip.
It's a very distinctive looking.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Weapon, you know.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
To me, it looks like a Draco looks like a
saw off shotgun with a fancy handle, because the butt's
not that long.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Is it?
Speaker 5 (05:40):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (05:40):
I think you know, it could be argued that it's
favored because it's it's concealable for a big weapon. It's
still something you can kind of stuff into a jacket
or down your pants if need be. But yeah, it
could easily be mistaken for something else, like a saw
off shotgun or what.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
I understand that you left Massachusetts security screening to follow
your dream of because make a homicide detective. When in
life did you decide I want to solve murders.
Speaker 6 (06:08):
Oh that's a tough one. Not exactly sure, Like when
when that switch flipped. But for sure my parents were
teachers and social workers, so I've always had like a
public service drive. But I think maybe I needed a
little bit more excitement to what I chose to do.
So wanted policing from sort of since high school, you know,
(06:29):
much to my parents' dismay at the time.
Speaker 5 (06:31):
But chase that down.
Speaker 6 (06:34):
Those jobs back in you know, the early two thousands
a little harder to come by, especially.
Speaker 5 (06:38):
In New England.
Speaker 6 (06:39):
But if you do believe in, you know, that mission
driven work, I think you're you need to be willing
to move where you're needed.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
At that time. Did you have a family, No not.
Speaker 6 (06:54):
I was not married, no children at that time yet,
so it was a bit easier to pick up and
move across the country to to chase something like this.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
What were you doing in your security screening job?
Speaker 6 (07:06):
I worked for a federal contract company that was doing
background checks for people that needed security clearances like top
secret security clearance or.
Speaker 5 (07:13):
What have you.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Guys, listen to this.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
While many detectives only handle about five homicide cases a year,
Fife is assigned to nearly forty cases over three years
because he keeps clearing them. Since twenty twenty two, Fife
closes twenty four consecutive cases. He is assigned to his
coworkers keeping track on a whiteboard they've dubbed the Fifometer.
Fife's work helps the homicide division bring its clearance rate
(07:39):
from forty percent and twenty twenty two to above seventy
six percent today.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
I know you're probably too humble to comment on the
Fife meter of tally that people keep within within your
office at Homicide. I never, never, while I was prosecuting
counton wins, if you can call them that, and I
think it's hard to get but you were alluding to
it earlier, Detective five, when you sawve a homicide, or
(08:09):
when I would prosecute a homicide and the jury would
return a guilty verdict, I didn't really feel any joy
or celebration. I didn't go out and have a night
on the town. I turn around, you know, feeling half
dead myself after weeks of trial, and there would be
the victim's family just completely rung out, just having endured
(08:34):
so much. And it's not like solving the homicide or
getting the guilty verdict fixes things. I think victims' families
think that's going to fix everything, and it doesn't, and
I never felt I didn't feel like doing it, But
(08:54):
in retrospect, I don't think it's.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Appropriate to go out and celebrate.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
When when the victim's family just moves onto their next
step of grieving.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
I agree with you.
Speaker 5 (09:07):
Yeah, that's exactly right.
Speaker 6 (09:08):
You know, sometimes at its worst, this job just feels
like we're kind of mitigating the damage that's already been done,
trying to provide some sort of reliefs to the family.
But you're right, when it's all said and done, the
dust settles, you know that loved one's still gone and
there's nothing we can do to undo that. I guess
it's just about general public safety, making sure somebody who's
(09:28):
able and willing to do that can't do it again,
among other things.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
You know, I think we've well, not we, not you
and I, but I think the world has seen too
many crime shows on TV because.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
It's not like that at all.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
You go to a murder saying I've seen a rookie
cop start vomiting from the smell of a dead body
hadn't even gone into the scene yet, because it really
is enough to make you throw up. But when you
get in there, it's a lot grimier and dirtier and
stickier than any TV show that I know of has.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Ever portrayed what it's really like.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
And you know, on the movies, that's all fake blood,
it's all fake. And anybody that's been in the homicide
business knows what it's really like. And the celebrations they
have in movies and TV when a case is solved,
I don't get it. Could you explain what a homicide
(10:37):
scene is really like? I try, but I don't think
I convey it very well.
Speaker 6 (10:42):
Yeah, of course, you know, just getting back to what
you said earlier, I should say there are moments of
like excitement and adrenaline rush in this job that are
truly fun, like cracking mysteries, right, But at its core,
homicide detective, the work we do is kind of profoundly
grim and sad at times, and it takes a good
(11:04):
deal of like emotional intelligence and endurance to sort of balance,
you know, handling these cases with the sensitivity and the
gravity that they deserve, but also not letting it haunt
your dreams every night. You know, because you do this
job long enough, there are a lot of unsolved cases
that continue to follow you. But that said, these cases
The crime scenes themselves are hugely varying in what they
(11:27):
look like and the issues that are opposed by each one.
But in addition to the actual active homicide scenes, we
respond to any unclassified death, so just a deceased person
and we don't really know what happened to them. We
go out and provide support to the district units on that,
and some of those, as well as some of our homicides,
can be pretty pretty grizzly, especially when it's you know,
(11:49):
something that hasn't been addressed for several days, someone's been
sitting in a spot, and you get pretty used to
so I guess encountering and stomaching the detective five.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
You men.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
These cases, Your case is creeping into your dreams, and
I remember that very well. You eat, drink, breathe, live
a case. And I don't know how other trial lawyers
do it. I couldn't go out to dinner. I couldn't
(12:23):
do anything during a trial or preparation for a trial,
because you have one shot, you have one swing that trial,
and if you don't do it all, try it all,
give it two hundred percent, you'll never get to do
it again. There's no do over for the state, And yeah,
(12:47):
I would dream about my cases a lot, and even now,
still all these years later, still dream about some of them.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Five.
Speaker 5 (12:57):
Yeah, I can relate to that for sure. And again
I think it's a balance.
Speaker 6 (13:01):
If you're going to do like what we do or
have done for a long and a period of time,
you need to strike that balance between compartmentalizing work and
your home life, but not getting so checked out or
cynical to the point where you know people can can
tell and they're like, oh, this detective doesn't care and
you're not as invested as you ought to be. But yeah,
(13:23):
especially early on, you know, I'm up at night thinking
about what I could have missed or just that case
that I haven't solved.
Speaker 5 (13:30):
For sure.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
When you say you're up at night thinking about what
you could have missed, you know, like a lot of people,
they leave the house and go, oh, did I turn
off the coffee pot or did I close the garage door?
Speaker 1 (13:46):
What are the kind of things that go through your mind.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
At not you know, like, oh, my stars, did I
fill in the blank?
Speaker 5 (13:58):
Yeah? For sure?
Speaker 6 (13:59):
Did I handle that interview the right way? Could it
have been this other thing? And when you find the
time a lot of it's sort of a juggling act.
But you do circle back to you know, your twenty
twenty one, twenty twenty two cases in my case and
you know, give give them another look, see if there's
anything else I could do. But when you do have
a city with you know, sort of ongoing case load,
(14:21):
it can be hard to sort of jump back and
find time to do that.
Speaker 5 (14:24):
We also have a very effective cold case unit.
Speaker 6 (14:27):
Here in NPD, which provides some support for that, but
there's nothing like the initial detective that handled the case
to know the ins and outs and what might have
slipped through the cracks. I think anybody who's been a
homicide detective knows that there is a degree of luck, right,
but followed up by hard work to be opportunistic about
the lucky breaks you are given.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
Detective Fife has cleared twenty four cases in a row
stretching back to December twenty twenty two.
Speaker 6 (14:52):
That's a lot in a row that have some kind
of at least short term resolution. You know, they'll have
to proceed through court. A clearance is you know, at
the detective level, what we're always trying to shoot for.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Throughout his time with the NOPD, and Detective Fife has
played a key role in reducing crime across New Orleans.
His efforts have directly contributed to a dramatic increase in
the city's homicide clearance rate, which has risen from forty
percent to an impressive seventy five percent.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Joining us is veteran homicide detective Detective Fife, who was
now racked up twenty four consecutive solves Detective five.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Have these cases gone to trial yet?
Speaker 5 (15:39):
Many not?
Speaker 6 (15:39):
And it's generous when you say veteran detective. I've been
doing homicide work for just four years now, so a
lot of those cases are still haven't been adjudicated. It
takes several years in many cases for these to actually
go through your child.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
I would say that twenty four consecutive homicide investigations correct qualifies.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
You as a veteran.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
It's like saying I've only been in Vietnam for four years,
you're a veteran.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
How did you pick New Orleans?
Speaker 6 (16:10):
My girlfriend at the time now wife, had moved down
here and I followed just for a visit and saw
the hiring posters for NOPD and thought I'd just give
it a shot, and yeah, it worked.
Speaker 5 (16:21):
Out pretty well for me.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Let's talk about the Second Line shooting.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
Listen, it seems almost all of New Orleans has turned
out for the nine times Social Aid and Pleasure Club's
annual Second Line, a parade featuring brass bands and dancers.
Dressed to the nines. Thousands of revelers scramble for safety
when gunfire rings out Injuring eight, Just forty five minutes later,
a mile down the parade route, another shooting, this time
(16:47):
killing two. The victims are identified as nephew Rashaan Carter
twenty one and uncle Malachi Jackson, nineteen.
Speaker 7 (16:54):
You know, we can't say that because they were forty
five minutes apart, and different kind of approach of how
the shooting was, so we don't know could be, but
right now don't know that.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
That is New Orleans PD Commissioner speaking. And that's where
my friends at WDSU the so called Second Line shooting.
What is the annual Second Line Parade?
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Five?
Speaker 6 (17:19):
Yeah, So New Orleans is a city, right is very
proud of and kind of protective of their very unique
cultural traditions, right, one of which our Second Line parades,
which are sort of these big on foot processionals where
people can jump in and just march to music and
just generally socialized a lot of fun. Highly recommends if
anybody's visiting you come check these out. But because this
(17:41):
shooting occurred well to actually two separate incidents, but because
my shooting, the homicide that you mentioned occurred during one
of these events, had a lot of extra scrutiny upon it.
Besides the fact that two individuals were deceased, which is terrible,
this also could have had way more victims when you
see that the crowd's present, and I think the public
(18:03):
had a very strong interest in making sure that this
was dealt with very quickly so that people could feel
safe at these second line events again, which again is
one of the things that make our city great and unique.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Another thing regarding a shooting in a large group like
at a festival or a parade, and has its own
set of difficulties in finding the shooter. How did you
find the shooter? Was there just one shooter or more?
Speaker 6 (18:33):
Yeah, in my incident there was one shooter, And you're right,
hugely chaotic scenes generally, you know everybody is watching and
it's broad daylight. But because there's so many people involved,
it can be difficult for anyone to sequence exactly what
happened or who was responsible. So we had to get
at it a different way in this case. And again
this is one of those cases that's still in court,
(18:55):
so it's not something I can get too into the
nitty gritty, But it again got its own moment them
and one thing led to another and we were able
to make two arrests related to the homicide.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Part of Detective five is refusing to comment on the
facts of the case so as not to tank the investigation. I, however,
can comment on the facts.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Listen.
Speaker 4 (19:18):
Investigators learn of an ongoing feud between Westwego and Marrero
where Shawn and Malachi's neighborhood. Surveillance footage and phone records
placed Curtis Gray on the Almanaster Bridge at the time
of the shootings, and recovered shell casings matchic gun registered
to his mother. There is enough evidence to charge Gray
with Rashawn and Malachi's murders, and his mother, Ashley Gray,
(19:40):
is charged as an accessory for trying to dispose of
the gun and fabricate an alibi for her son.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Crime stories with Nancy Gray.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
You know, a Detective five.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
It's sometimes for some people to blame a mother who
is trying to help her defendant son. So let's step
away from the exact case and talk about that bond
in general. Very often prosecutors and cops are attacked for
(20:17):
pursuing a mother or father.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Who's trying to protect their child.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
But on the other side of the pendulum is the
victim and the victim's mother and father. So when you
get a mother, for instance, trying to get rid of
evidence to clear.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
The son, you got to go after them.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
And sometimes that's a hard thing to do, to go
after somebody's mother.
Speaker 6 (20:41):
Yeah, for sure, and understandably the motive for that is
something a lot of parents can relate to. But I
think you know, as a parent, we all have a
point at which you know, you need to draw a
line and say, no, I am not supporting my child
if xyz. And there needs to be community buy in
for a lot of these homicides. When you have you know,
(21:03):
whole groups or families sort of circling and protecting defendants
in some of these cases, it can be hugely problematic.
So you need community buy in and everyone to be
invested and concerned about the outcomes of these investigations.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
I think.
Speaker 6 (21:15):
Our District attorney Jason Williams addressed this issue very well
regarding this case specifically in a press conference where you
know enough is enough at some point, and if you
provide aid to shelter or seek to obfuscate an investigation,
even for a loved one, you are potentially culpable.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Detective five. Of course, as you know, the state, the
prosecution never has to prove motive. The state is not
expected to get into the mind of a murder defendant
and poke around like you're in Granny's attic and find
the motive. However, when you go to trial, very often
(21:54):
the jury will want a motive. Here's a good example
the Alexi Murdog double murder trial that went down in
South Carolina.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
His wife and son were murdered.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
And I'm sure that jurors may have wondered, well, why
would a dad murder the wife and the son. I mean,
we see domestic homicides all the time, or spouse kill spouse,
but the wife and the son. The state did not
have to prove the motive, but they did. An upcoming
divorce would have called for financial legal discovery, and Alexi
(22:33):
Murdog's multimillion dollar con on his clients, his family, his wife,
and many others. His law partners would have been found out.
So his answer, kill them both. Here's another example, Brian Coburger.
I'm sure you're familiar with the quadruple homicide in Idaho
(22:54):
where the defendant, Brian Coburger, had no ostensible connection, no
link to the victims.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
So what would be the motive?
Speaker 2 (23:03):
That would have been a hurdle for the state. The
defense could have argued, he doesn't even know these people,
why would you believe he came in in the middle
of the night and kill them slaughtered them. Well, as
it turned out, he was a criminology student and was
obsessed with murder and what it would feel like and
what would go through the mind of the killer.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
He wanted to feel it, and he did.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
And I'm very interested in your second line homicide case
because no one knew that there was a feud going on,
and the defense could have argued, hey, they pulled my
guy off a bridge, and now they're trying to pin
this on him. You would never have known what was
(23:48):
behind it. You had to get to the feud, the motive.
How difficult is it for you to ferret out a
motive in your cases, Detective Fife.
Speaker 6 (24:00):
Yeah, it's a good question, and for sure you were
right to characterize motive not always being available to us.
It can be seen sometimes as like a bonus and
our investigations. But if the facts of the incident speak
for themselves, and if it's clear that this person did it,
then a lot of times we don't need to know
what was going on in their heads, as you said,
but sometimes you get clues to it conversations the person's
(24:22):
had with other people. We get a lot of help
from social media, sometimes phone record history and such. And
in this case, the second Line incident, there was some
contextual stuff that we unraveled digitally that sort of did
back up what we have been hearing on the street,
as it were.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
And again, if I don't want to push you on
any facts sensitive to the case, because that case is penning,
and if you were to comment on it any of
those facts, that could be a problem, and I don't
want you to have a problem. Let's move on to
another case, but one of your cases. But before that,
I want to go back to the five meter, the
(25:01):
tally that is on big whiteboard that other people with
a homicide unit are keeping on your cases. You're not
worried that, Mike, Jinx. You let me guess you're not superstitious.
Speaker 6 (25:14):
Well so, just as a point of clarification, that whiteboard
exists in our public affairs office and not in homicide
per se. But yeah, there's a lot of superstition in
the field policing in general, but in homicide in particular.
We talk a lot about the homicide gods and what
you've done to anger them and which resulted in this
(25:36):
terrible case you've.
Speaker 5 (25:37):
Been given sometimes.
Speaker 6 (25:39):
But yeah, again I need to take the opportunity to
praise my homicide unit.
Speaker 5 (25:44):
In general.
Speaker 6 (25:45):
We have I think an eighty percent clearance rate this year,
which is very high as I understand it nationally. But
we're looking for any source of like enthusiasm or motivation
a lot of the times, very supportive of one another
successes and reaching out to try and provide help whenever
somebody seems to be faltering and you know, keeping track
(26:07):
of a clearance streak. Yeah, that that might be seen
as a potential jinx. But again I guess it can
be something that you know, provides some enthusiasm and motivation.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
You know, I have found that like baseball players.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
I was extremely superstitious during every trial, and I would
stick to certain behavior, stick to certain rituals before I
would go to trial every single trial. Now, I don't
know if it's too personal, but do you have superstitions
(26:45):
that you follow in your investigations?
Speaker 6 (26:49):
I don't. I guess some kind of boring in that regard.
I'm not a very superstitious person.
Speaker 5 (26:53):
I do.
Speaker 6 (26:55):
I find that the best cure for any anxiety about
a case to just can't like dive into the material itself.
If you spend hours going over something before you have
to appear in court, that can kind of calm me down.
Nothing's worse than just going into something feeling unprepared. But
beyond that, you know, no, there's no there's.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
No real worst feeling unprepared.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Oh two never, never have you ever watched someone work
that's unprepared.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
It's the worst you just see. It's like a slow
motion train wreck.
Speaker 6 (27:28):
Yeah, you need to be master of your your own case,
to sort of be be the single best source of
that narrative and everything that was done, have an answer
for everything. For sure, we all get caught off guard.
But I guess you want to try and you know,
mitigate that and just be the guy who knows everything
about this incident that can be done.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Which leads me to the thon view case. Well I
shall though, Oh no, are you my sale? That's no
way good.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
She's gonna be a liar.
Speaker 4 (28:04):
In the final hours of twenty twenty four, Ton Vu
tends her supermarket, a pillar of the Nola Vietnamese community
since she opened thirty years ago, but three customers are
seeking more than groceries. Ton held at gunpoint while the
thieves emptied the register and pocket cigarettes. When Ton fights back,
she's shot and left for dead. Her killers quickly brought
(28:24):
to justice. Angenou, Henny Davis, Adrian Harris, and Nathaniel Carpenter
all charged in the fatal robbery, Carpenter confessing to the crime.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
That original sound from our friends at Fox eight Detective five,
what happened to than View?
Speaker 5 (28:40):
Yeah, that was a tough case.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Again.
Speaker 6 (28:41):
We try not to qualify any of our murders, you know,
none are any better or worse than any others. But
ms Vu was sort of a fixture of the Vietnamese
community in the New Orleans East area and was a
longtime owner of a convenience store at that area that
had stood the test of time. Other businesses opened and closed.
That store has has been around for as long as
(29:03):
many people can remember it. And this is sort of
just one of those senseless, you know, botched robberies as
we understand it. Again, this is another one that is
still in court proceedings. But you had the right of it,
as you explained that there were three people charged with.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Us, Detective five, I don't like what you just said.
You refer to the murder of than Vu as a
botched robbery. I don't like that terminology going forward, because
somehow it lessens the degree of intent to have a
(29:43):
group of men enter a grocery store and confront an unarmed,
defenseless female and in order to rob her and she
got shot.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Like what, the gun just went off on its own.
That was big accident. I botched that bs. That is
an intentional murder.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Under the law, the time for formation of intent can
be as brief as a twinkling of a moment, the
blink of an eye, much less in time it takes
to raise the gun and pull the trigger.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
That was intentional.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
And I take umbrage at anyone describing as, oh, it
was a botched robbery.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
She's dead wrong. They pulled the trigger.
Speaker 6 (30:37):
Right, and it's no less terrible the context or the
motive behind it. But that's just I suppose, in the business,
one of the ways in which we would describe a
certain type of incident. But you're right that you know
that just as culpable as any other homicide, whether it
was a robbery or somebody that you just loathed and
wanted to put out of this world, just as bad.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
Hey five, you know what hurts me?
Speaker 2 (31:01):
On top of dealing with crime victims, in my line
of business, it was always a violent felony either homicide,
family left behind, rape victims, childless station victims are some victims,
but it made it worse.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
For me when.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
The victim would come from a part of our world
that is not really represented as.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
It should be.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
It could be a minority, it could be a woman,
an infant in this case, the Asian community, many of
them not advocated for as strongly as for other people, right,
(31:55):
And so it kind of heaps insult to injury, pain
on pain. When I saw nun vu Von's husband speaking
and he said I saw the blood on her head,
I told myself, there's no way she can still be alive.
They must sometimes feel like no one cares about them.
(32:22):
Do you ever hear that from minorities or women?
Speaker 6 (32:28):
Yeah, for sure. I mean the data is out there.
There are certain demographics that are affected more by violent crime,
and those groups are it's really important to make inroads
with them and sort of establish some trust. And that
can be hard when you know, certain groups don't feel
like they've had the support of police or the colinal
(32:48):
justice system in general in the past. So you have
to sort of find a way to show somebody you
do care and you are invested and look, I'm here
to help, not to hinder, you know, not just write
people off, because maybe that's what they've been getting up
until now.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Did they defive?
Speaker 2 (33:06):
The vast, vast majority of victims that I represented in
felony court were women, children, and minorities, and they felt
like nobody cared about them.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
And that nobody would fight for.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Them, and that nobody cared about their cases. So on
top of trying to investigate and prosecute the case, I
felt this burden of trying to convince them that someone
did care. That's a big burden that you are now
carrying and I want to talk about another case that
(33:45):
you handle, which is dear to my heart, the case
of Raven Francis.
Speaker 4 (33:51):
I missed my mama a lot.
Speaker 7 (33:53):
She's pretty funny.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
She was a nice person. She loved us very much.
She would do anything for us, and she will always
be with me.
Speaker 4 (34:00):
Raven Francis, a mom of four, enjoys one of her
first nights out since welcoming her youngest six months ago.
Raven and friends head to the Shamrock, but an argument
breaks out with another group and the friends try to
escape in their car. As they pull out, gunfire erupts.
Raven's sister is just grazed, but Raven is shot in
the head, bleeding profusely, and the resulting panic, the driver
(34:22):
clips a fire hydrant, flipping the car. By the time
first responders can get everyone out, Raven is gone.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
That was from my friends at Fox eight Crime Stories
with Nancy Grace.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
I think another issue and I want to find out
how you deal with at five or the tangental murder victims,
the collateral victims of murder, like Raven's ten year old
little boy. I mean, okay, when the twins were born,
(35:02):
they were extremely premature in my children, and I would
pray every night, Lord, please just help us out of
the hospital.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Please help us out of the hospital. Okay, we got
out of the hospital.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Then it went to Lord, please let me get them stabilized.
Let me get them eating lucy weigh two pounds five
two pounds, as small as a kit.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
All right.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Then we get to one, you know, like, Lord, please
help me get help me get them into school. Just
let me live long enough now is let me get
them through high school. There it's going to be college.
Let me get them, help me, help them find their
I mean, it never ends so for a mother to
be wrenched away from her children, and this little boy
just ten years old. I mean, when you get in
(35:42):
your car and you leave the crime scene. There were
times I'd have to pull over on the side of
the road and just sit there and try to process
all the suffering one bullet caused.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
How do you deal with that?
Speaker 6 (35:58):
Yeah? Sure, there's almost a little bit of like survivor's
guilt in this job sometimes if you let yourself really
think about it, like what right do I have to
be unaffected.
Speaker 5 (36:08):
By violence like this?
Speaker 6 (36:09):
You know, when you go home and if you have kids,
like hug your kid after something like this and just
you know, feel it. But yeah, you're right that so
many are affected by these murders beyond just a victim.
And that doesn't really always clear immediately, but as you
start talking to family, you establish that relationship, it really
(36:31):
becomes evident. And then you know, these cases take years
in court. Sometimes I'll show up to court and I'll
see a kid that's grown up, like hugely in the interim,
and it, like you said, it really just hits you
that this timeline that this child is going to live,
you know, their whole life and grow up in all
these milestones without a parent. It's hard to stomach, especially
once you have kids of your own.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
We were just showing photos of Raven Francis, a mom
of four renched away from four children.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
And then there is a teen girl, Leah Perry.
Speaker 4 (37:03):
Leah Perry, seventeen, is the latest victim in a string
of drive by shootings. Leah, mom to five month old Peyton,
was clearly not the shooter's intended target. Surveillance footage shows
a newer model Infinity with no plate in dark tint,
pull up to the teen and fire several shots. Detective
Fife digs up more video of the alleged driver wearing
a distinct pair of striped red pants. The same exact
(37:26):
pair Kenn Salisbury posts photos in with a gun tucked
in the waistband. Salisbury, already behind bars for two other shootings,
charged with an additional count of murder.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
So five, I'm not going to ask you to comment
on the facts of the case. I'll do it.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Idiot, idiot, So he's posting online the red striped pants
with a gun stuck down the pants.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
I had a guy that wore a.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
Red leather ensemble the night he gunned somebody down dead.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
He was a dope lord.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
He came to court some idiot, another idiot, there's so
many to pick from.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Gave him a bond. Five. What did he wear on
day one of court? The red ensemble. I was so happy.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
I stood behind him and like was literally pointing to
him in front of the jury. So sometimes they throw
you a bone. Heaven just drops a fact in your
lap for you to run with those red striped pants.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
I'm sure that's something you'll never forget. Five.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
I know you have to leave the studio and get
back to the streets, but I want to understand how.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
You deal with a crushing case load.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
I remember I had been on trial for about three
weeks straight, and I would take all my evidence, all
my files with me.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
I would carry them around on rollers.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
And those giants postal white plastic boxes that sit around
the courthouse and the mail people leave and stack them
up and take them back and forth to my car
after court because I didn't want to leave them anywhere
for them to be tampered with. Long story short, I
wasn't back in my office for about two weeks.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
I just go straight to the courtroom. That said.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
When I got back to my office there was still
a jug of milk in there that I had left
there two weeks before. Uneaten Krispy Kreme doughnuts, and every
other day the Indictment Division Record the court records would
bring in new files while I was on trial, and
(39:40):
the stag I had gotten so tall on my desk
it had fallen over like an accordion and started going
down the side of my desk.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
When I walked back in, I'm like, how am I
going to keep up?
Speaker 2 (39:55):
And then I realized I couldn't, So I just took
the next homicide CA and started working, because that's the
only thing I need to do after I threw away
the milk and the Krispy Kreams.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
But how do you deal with a crushing caseload?
Speaker 6 (40:13):
Yeah, I can totally relate to that, and it's, you know,
the caseload itself. You're right to is just focus on
the task at hand and then sort of juggle some
time and bounce back to other cases when you can.
But beyond that, it's you know, when you don't solve
these they continue to follow you and they haunt you,
(40:33):
and the families parents of those cases will call, you know,
sometimes weekly for an update, and you have to tell
them this parent every week for years that there are
no updates on the case, I'm sorry, and that can
that sort of collects and it's like more of a
burden on your shoulders every year you do this job.
(40:53):
So it's about not giving in to apathy's cynicism or
just treating it like it's an assembly line, you know,
try to maintain that whatever optimism you can and not
come up with any dramatic conclusions about the nature of
mankind or.
Speaker 5 (41:06):
Anything like that.
Speaker 6 (41:07):
And then beyond that, everybody has their organizational tricks. You
have to really know how you work and what makes
you effective as an investigator, what your weak points might be,
and just try to tread with water and hope for
a time when the murder rate is down.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
You know, it's interesting to me five well, so many things,
but we always hear about police conspiracies. For instance, that
Lapdate framed OJ Simpson.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
That's a really good example.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
And my experience, I was inundated, like a tidal wave
after wave after wave.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Of new cases.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
I didn't have time to even think about framing somebody.
I could hardly keep my nose above water handling all
the cases I was given. Right, what do you what
is your reaction? And yeah, I know they're dirty cops.
I know that they're there. But all the theories that,
for instance, there's a theory right now that Brian Coberger
(42:09):
was fryed.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
Really he just played guilty. I don't get it.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
What's your response when everyone points back on the police.
Speaker 6 (42:19):
Yeah, I mean I think not with that, not totally
without justification to be suspicious of the criminal justice system.
Sometimes if you go back and look at our history, yeah,
there are plenty of incidents of you know, egregious actions
by many of our you know, DA's police. But that said,
one of the frustrating things about this line of work
(42:40):
is that the systems often seen as like this monolithic thing,
like you know, they're There are so many different departments,
all with varying levels of oversight and different relationships to
their communities that it feels sometimes unfair if something happens
in you know, Oklahoma, and then the community here in
(43:01):
New Orleans now loses trust in police. And it's a
hard thing to sort of to pitch to the people
that know we're different.
Speaker 5 (43:09):
Because you know we're not.
Speaker 6 (43:10):
Then I'm a person, We're owned department, Please trust us.
But when police are all in uniform and sort of
seeing as the same thing, yeah, those a lot of
those scandals sort of follow all departments in the country.
It's sort of like we were all in this together
as police. Don't screw it up for the rest of
us by doing something awful.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
You know.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
Five, When I heard about all the specials about you
and your solve rates so far knock on web product,
I didn't know what to expect. I'm glad to know
that you're not a show horse. You are a workhorse,
(43:53):
and I'm very proud.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
That you are humble. I notice you never take credit,
and you're right.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
You wouldn't be where you are if it wasn't for
what they are doing.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
It's a team.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
I would never have won a single case if it
weren't for my investigator, Earnest, trudging out in the cold
and the rain, sometimes of snow, going through crack houses
and whorehouses and strip bars.
Speaker 1 (44:24):
And you name it, trying to find witnesses.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
Combing through a shooting scene for any ballistics left behind
up at one o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
In the morning.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
I could never have done it without him, right, So
I really appreciate you saying that it's your unit, and
you just happen to be in the chair right now
talking about these cases. I wish you the very very best,
(44:56):
and you're ongoing struggle against the violent crime and one
of my favorite cities, New Orleans. God bless you and
stay safe to take to Fife. And thank you for
your time.
Speaker 5 (45:10):
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It's been
a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
We stop now and we remember an American hero, Sergeant
Thomas DuRane el Reno, PD, Oklahoma, killed in the line
of duty after fourteen years leaving behind a grieving wife
and children with no dad. American hero Sergeant Thomas Durant
Nancy Grace signing off
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
A New Orleans homicide detective the modern day at Q
Poirot slews the worst of the worst. Now hold on
right there, Number one, very high crime city, New Orleans,
the big easy. So are some murders worse than other murders?
Speaker 1 (00:27):
How bad can it be? This guy has the answer
to that. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. I
want to thank you for being with us.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Detective James Fife began his career with the New Orleans
Police Department as a patrol officer before advancing to detective
in the fall of twenty twenty one. Since his promotion,
he has successfully solved over twenty four consecutive cases, showcasing
his dedication and skilled.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
It's not just dedication, it's not just hard hours.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
To close twenty four consecutive homicides in a row that
takes serious slew thing.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Who is this guy? Listen?
Speaker 4 (01:10):
James Fife leaves his Massachusetts security screening job to follow
his dreams of becoming a cop. New Orleans catches five's
eye actually circulating help wanted posters amid a hiring slump.
Fife begins as a patrol officer in Algiers and works
his way up the Fourth District Task Force into property crimes.
After time on the Violent Crime Abatement Investigation Team, Fife
(01:32):
finally gets a shot in the homicide division, just as
Nola sees a huge spike in violent crime.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
And joining us.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Now homicide Detective James five. Detective five, thank you for
being with.
Speaker 5 (01:44):
Us, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
It's an honor, Detective five.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Twenty four consecutive homicides, that's extremely rare. Do you recall
the first homicide investigated with New Orleans?
Speaker 5 (02:03):
Of course, yeah, case like that stays with you.
Speaker 6 (02:05):
I mean each of them really, but your first case,
you know, you're you're analyzing every little step, and for
sure that's not something you forget. It was in September
of twenty twenty one. My first case was a shooting
of three individuals on two Lane Avenue outside of a
bar at the location, which was successfully cleared.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Detective five, what do you recall of that first homicide investigation?
Speaker 6 (02:33):
Basically every little detail, you know, it's microanalyzing everything I
was doing under you know, management of more veteran officers,
making sure you don't take any missteps, because that the
mistakes are high and on your first case that pressure
really sinks in.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
So that was a triple shooting outside of a bar,
I assume at night. I have found in my own
investigations it's really hard to pin down bar goers to
get a statement out of them.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
How did you do it?
Speaker 6 (03:07):
Yeah, Well, in this case, the witness testimony, you know,
provided some sequencing of events, but it was mostly video
footage and it sort of one thing led to another,
and it was one of those cases that unraveled really well,
got some momentum. But our shooter was masked at the time,
so it wasn't even as though we needed a witness
to point to an individual and say that's the guy.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
It was a masked shooter.
Speaker 6 (03:29):
Yes, sort of a I mean a hit you could
call it. But it seemed pretty pretty planned and partially
organized on the part of the perpetrator.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Now, when you say it seemed planned, how do you
know the difference between your routine bar shooting and a
planned hit.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
See, that's just like you five.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
You toss it off as your first homicide. When I
find out now it was a planned execution.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
What happened?
Speaker 7 (03:56):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (03:56):
And I don't mean to ever sound flipping about any
of the cases. I talk about I think one of
the side.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Effects that you're modest. I mean it in that way
you never take credit for all of your work. You
make it sound like I didn't have that much to
do with it. It solved itself.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
But no, you solved it.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
I didn't know the first case was a planned assassination
and execution.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
What happened.
Speaker 6 (04:19):
Yeah, And not to digress, but real quick, sometimes it
can feel a little like insensitive to sort of celebrate
any success in this field, because even when you've done
your job well, the worst has already happened and somebody
has died, So to take like a victory lap sometimes
feels a little tone deaf. But you do have to
allow yourself to appreciate the wins when you get them.
But getting to this incident, when you watch the video footage,
(04:43):
and again it's still in phases of trial, so I
can't really speak into too much detail, but the method
approach of the incident itself shows that this is not
a spontaneous thing. This is definitely, you know, just the
dawning of a mask in the use of like a
draco firearm, you know, sort of implies that this is
something with some level of organization beforehand.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
To those that are not familiar with a Draco firearm,
could you explain.
Speaker 6 (05:10):
Oh, yeah, it's so, it's it's it looks like an
assault rifle, but technically it's an automatic pistol. But it's
very much in favor. Or it's a chic weapon. I
guess at least it was a few years ago among
some of the youth. But it has like a wood grip.
It's a very distinctive looking.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Weapon, you know.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
To me, it looks like a Draco looks like a
saw off shotgun with a fancy handle, because the butt's
not that long.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Is it?
Speaker 5 (05:40):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (05:40):
I think you know, it could be argued that it's
favored because it's it's concealable for a big weapon. It's
still something you can kind of stuff into a jacket
or down your pants if need be. But yeah, it
could easily be mistaken for something else, like a saw
off shotgun or what.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
I understand that you left Massachusetts security screening to follow
your dream of because make a homicide detective. When in
life did you decide I want to solve murders.
Speaker 6 (06:08):
Oh that's a tough one. Not exactly sure, Like when
when that switch flipped. But for sure my parents were
teachers and social workers, so I've always had like a
public service drive. But I think maybe I needed a
little bit more excitement to what I chose to do.
So wanted policing from sort of since high school, you know,
(06:29):
much to my parents' dismay at the time.
Speaker 5 (06:31):
But chase that down.
Speaker 6 (06:34):
Those jobs back in you know, the early two thousands
a little harder to come by, especially.
Speaker 5 (06:38):
In New England.
Speaker 6 (06:39):
But if you do believe in, you know, that mission
driven work, I think you're you need to be willing
to move where you're needed.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
At that time. Did you have a family, No not.
Speaker 6 (06:54):
I was not married, no children at that time yet,
so it was a bit easier to pick up and
move across the country to to chase something like this.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
What were you doing in your security screening job?
Speaker 6 (07:06):
I worked for a federal contract company that was doing
background checks for people that needed security clearances like top
secret security clearance or.
Speaker 5 (07:13):
What have you.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Guys, listen to this.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
While many detectives only handle about five homicide cases a year,
Fife is assigned to nearly forty cases over three years
because he keeps clearing them. Since twenty twenty two, Fife
closes twenty four consecutive cases. He is assigned to his
coworkers keeping track on a whiteboard they've dubbed the Fifometer.
Fife's work helps the homicide division bring its clearance rate
(07:39):
from forty percent and twenty twenty two to above seventy
six percent today.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
I know you're probably too humble to comment on the
Fife meter of tally that people keep within within your
office at Homicide. I never, never, while I was prosecuting
counton wins, if you can call them that, and I
think it's hard to get but you were alluding to
it earlier, Detective five, when you sawve a homicide, or
(08:09):
when I would prosecute a homicide and the jury would
return a guilty verdict, I didn't really feel any joy
or celebration. I didn't go out and have a night
on the town. I turn around, you know, feeling half
dead myself after weeks of trial, and there would be
the victim's family just completely rung out, just having endured
(08:34):
so much. And it's not like solving the homicide or
getting the guilty verdict fixes things. I think victims' families
think that's going to fix everything, and it doesn't, and
I never felt I didn't feel like doing it, But
(08:54):
in retrospect, I don't think it's.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Appropriate to go out and celebrate.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
When when the victim's family just moves onto their next
step of grieving.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
I agree with you.
Speaker 5 (09:07):
Yeah, that's exactly right.
Speaker 6 (09:08):
You know, sometimes at its worst, this job just feels
like we're kind of mitigating the damage that's already been done,
trying to provide some sort of reliefs to the family.
But you're right, when it's all said and done, the
dust settles, you know that loved one's still gone and
there's nothing we can do to undo that. I guess
it's just about general public safety, making sure somebody who's
(09:28):
able and willing to do that can't do it again,
among other things.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
You know, I think we've well, not we, not you
and I, but I think the world has seen too
many crime shows on TV because.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
It's not like that at all.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
You go to a murder saying I've seen a rookie
cop start vomiting from the smell of a dead body
hadn't even gone into the scene yet, because it really
is enough to make you throw up. But when you
get in there, it's a lot grimier and dirtier and
stickier than any TV show that I know of has.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Ever portrayed what it's really like.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
And you know, on the movies, that's all fake blood,
it's all fake. And anybody that's been in the homicide
business knows what it's really like. And the celebrations they
have in movies and TV when a case is solved,
I don't get it. Could you explain what a homicide
(10:37):
scene is really like? I try, but I don't think
I convey it very well.
Speaker 6 (10:42):
Yeah, of course, you know, just getting back to what
you said earlier, I should say there are moments of
like excitement and adrenaline rush in this job that are
truly fun, like cracking mysteries, right, But at its core,
homicide detective, the work we do is kind of profoundly
grim and sad at times, and it takes a good
(11:04):
deal of like emotional intelligence and endurance to sort of balance,
you know, handling these cases with the sensitivity and the
gravity that they deserve, but also not letting it haunt
your dreams every night. You know, because you do this
job long enough, there are a lot of unsolved cases
that continue to follow you. But that said, these cases
The crime scenes themselves are hugely varying in what they
(11:27):
look like and the issues that are opposed by each one.
But in addition to the actual active homicide scenes, we
respond to any unclassified death, so just a deceased person
and we don't really know what happened to them. We
go out and provide support to the district units on that,
and some of those, as well as some of our homicides,
can be pretty pretty grizzly, especially when it's you know,
(11:49):
something that hasn't been addressed for several days, someone's been
sitting in a spot, and you get pretty used to
so I guess encountering and stomaching the detective five.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
You men.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
These cases, Your case is creeping into your dreams, and
I remember that very well. You eat, drink, breathe, live
a case. And I don't know how other trial lawyers
do it. I couldn't go out to dinner. I couldn't
(12:23):
do anything during a trial or preparation for a trial,
because you have one shot, you have one swing that trial,
and if you don't do it all, try it all,
give it two hundred percent, you'll never get to do
it again. There's no do over for the state, And yeah,
(12:47):
I would dream about my cases a lot, and even now,
still all these years later, still dream about some of them.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Five.
Speaker 5 (12:57):
Yeah, I can relate to that for sure. And again
I think it's a balance.
Speaker 6 (13:01):
If you're going to do like what we do or
have done for a long and a period of time,
you need to strike that balance between compartmentalizing work and
your home life, but not getting so checked out or
cynical to the point where you know people can can
tell and they're like, oh, this detective doesn't care and
you're not as invested as you ought to be. But yeah,
(13:23):
especially early on, you know, I'm up at night thinking
about what I could have missed or just that case
that I haven't solved.
Speaker 5 (13:30):
For sure.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
When you say you're up at night thinking about what
you could have missed, you know, like a lot of people,
they leave the house and go, oh, did I turn
off the coffee pot or did I close the garage door?
Speaker 1 (13:46):
What are the kind of things that go through your mind.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
At not you know, like, oh, my stars, did I
fill in the blank?
Speaker 5 (13:58):
Yeah? For sure?
Speaker 6 (13:59):
Did I handle that interview the right way? Could it
have been this other thing? And when you find the
time a lot of it's sort of a juggling act.
But you do circle back to you know, your twenty
twenty one, twenty twenty two cases in my case and
you know, give give them another look, see if there's
anything else I could do. But when you do have
a city with you know, sort of ongoing case load,
(14:21):
it can be hard to sort of jump back and
find time to do that.
Speaker 5 (14:24):
We also have a very effective cold case unit.
Speaker 6 (14:27):
Here in NPD, which provides some support for that, but
there's nothing like the initial detective that handled the case
to know the ins and outs and what might have
slipped through the cracks. I think anybody who's been a
homicide detective knows that there is a degree of luck, right,
but followed up by hard work to be opportunistic about
the lucky breaks you are given.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
Detective Fife has cleared twenty four cases in a row
stretching back to December twenty twenty two.
Speaker 6 (14:52):
That's a lot in a row that have some kind
of at least short term resolution. You know, they'll have
to proceed through court. A clearance is you know, at
the detective level, what we're always trying to shoot for.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Throughout his time with the NOPD, and Detective Fife has
played a key role in reducing crime across New Orleans.
His efforts have directly contributed to a dramatic increase in
the city's homicide clearance rate, which has risen from forty
percent to an impressive seventy five percent.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Joining us is veteran homicide detective Detective Fife, who was
now racked up twenty four consecutive solves Detective five.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Have these cases gone to trial yet?
Speaker 5 (15:39):
Many not?
Speaker 6 (15:39):
And it's generous when you say veteran detective. I've been
doing homicide work for just four years now, so a
lot of those cases are still haven't been adjudicated. It
takes several years in many cases for these to actually
go through your child.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
I would say that twenty four consecutive homicide investigations correct qualifies.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
You as a veteran.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
It's like saying I've only been in Vietnam for four years,
you're a veteran.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
How did you pick New Orleans?
Speaker 6 (16:10):
My girlfriend at the time now wife, had moved down
here and I followed just for a visit and saw
the hiring posters for NOPD and thought I'd just give
it a shot, and yeah, it worked.
Speaker 5 (16:21):
Out pretty well for me.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Let's talk about the Second Line shooting.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
Listen, it seems almost all of New Orleans has turned
out for the nine times Social Aid and Pleasure Club's
annual Second Line, a parade featuring brass bands and dancers.
Dressed to the nines. Thousands of revelers scramble for safety
when gunfire rings out Injuring eight, Just forty five minutes later,
a mile down the parade route, another shooting, this time
(16:47):
killing two. The victims are identified as nephew Rashaan Carter
twenty one and uncle Malachi Jackson, nineteen.
Speaker 7 (16:54):
You know, we can't say that because they were forty
five minutes apart, and different kind of approach of how
the shooting was, so we don't know could be, but
right now don't know that.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
That is New Orleans PD Commissioner speaking. And that's where
my friends at WDSU the so called Second Line shooting.
What is the annual Second Line Parade?
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Five?
Speaker 6 (17:19):
Yeah, So New Orleans is a city, right is very
proud of and kind of protective of their very unique
cultural traditions, right, one of which our Second Line parades,
which are sort of these big on foot processionals where
people can jump in and just march to music and
just generally socialized a lot of fun. Highly recommends if
anybody's visiting you come check these out. But because this
(17:41):
shooting occurred well to actually two separate incidents, but because
my shooting, the homicide that you mentioned occurred during one
of these events, had a lot of extra scrutiny upon it.
Besides the fact that two individuals were deceased, which is terrible,
this also could have had way more victims when you
see that the crowd's present, and I think the public
(18:03):
had a very strong interest in making sure that this
was dealt with very quickly so that people could feel
safe at these second line events again, which again is
one of the things that make our city great and unique.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Another thing regarding a shooting in a large group like
at a festival or a parade, and has its own
set of difficulties in finding the shooter. How did you
find the shooter? Was there just one shooter or more?
Speaker 6 (18:33):
Yeah, in my incident there was one shooter, And you're right,
hugely chaotic scenes generally, you know everybody is watching and
it's broad daylight. But because there's so many people involved,
it can be difficult for anyone to sequence exactly what
happened or who was responsible. So we had to get
at it a different way in this case. And again
this is one of those cases that's still in court,
(18:55):
so it's not something I can get too into the
nitty gritty, But it again got its own moment them
and one thing led to another and we were able
to make two arrests related to the homicide.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Part of Detective five is refusing to comment on the
facts of the case so as not to tank the investigation. I, however,
can comment on the facts.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Listen.
Speaker 4 (19:18):
Investigators learn of an ongoing feud between Westwego and Marrero
where Shawn and Malachi's neighborhood. Surveillance footage and phone records
placed Curtis Gray on the Almanaster Bridge at the time
of the shootings, and recovered shell casings matchic gun registered
to his mother. There is enough evidence to charge Gray
with Rashawn and Malachi's murders, and his mother, Ashley Gray,
(19:40):
is charged as an accessory for trying to dispose of
the gun and fabricate an alibi for her son.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Crime stories with Nancy Gray.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
You know, a Detective five.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
It's sometimes for some people to blame a mother who
is trying to help her defendant son. So let's step
away from the exact case and talk about that bond
in general. Very often prosecutors and cops are attacked for
(20:17):
pursuing a mother or father.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Who's trying to protect their child.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
But on the other side of the pendulum is the
victim and the victim's mother and father. So when you
get a mother, for instance, trying to get rid of
evidence to clear.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
The son, you got to go after them.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
And sometimes that's a hard thing to do, to go
after somebody's mother.
Speaker 6 (20:41):
Yeah, for sure, and understandably the motive for that is
something a lot of parents can relate to. But I
think you know, as a parent, we all have a
point at which you know, you need to draw a
line and say, no, I am not supporting my child
if xyz. And there needs to be community buy in
for a lot of these homicides. When you have you know,
(21:03):
whole groups or families sort of circling and protecting defendants
in some of these cases, it can be hugely problematic.
So you need community buy in and everyone to be
invested and concerned about the outcomes of these investigations.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
I think.
Speaker 6 (21:15):
Our District attorney Jason Williams addressed this issue very well
regarding this case specifically in a press conference where you
know enough is enough at some point, and if you
provide aid to shelter or seek to obfuscate an investigation,
even for a loved one, you are potentially culpable.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Detective five. Of course, as you know, the state, the
prosecution never has to prove motive. The state is not
expected to get into the mind of a murder defendant
and poke around like you're in Granny's attic and find
the motive. However, when you go to trial, very often
(21:54):
the jury will want a motive. Here's a good example
the Alexi Murdog double murder trial that went down in
South Carolina.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
His wife and son were murdered.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
And I'm sure that jurors may have wondered, well, why
would a dad murder the wife and the son. I mean,
we see domestic homicides all the time, or spouse kill spouse,
but the wife and the son. The state did not
have to prove the motive, but they did. An upcoming
divorce would have called for financial legal discovery, and Alexi
(22:33):
Murdog's multimillion dollar con on his clients, his family, his wife,
and many others. His law partners would have been found out.
So his answer, kill them both. Here's another example, Brian Coburger.
I'm sure you're familiar with the quadruple homicide in Idaho
(22:54):
where the defendant, Brian Coburger, had no ostensible connection, no
link to the victims.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
So what would be the motive?
Speaker 2 (23:03):
That would have been a hurdle for the state. The
defense could have argued, he doesn't even know these people,
why would you believe he came in in the middle
of the night and kill them slaughtered them. Well, as
it turned out, he was a criminology student and was
obsessed with murder and what it would feel like and
what would go through the mind of the killer.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
He wanted to feel it, and he did.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
And I'm very interested in your second line homicide case
because no one knew that there was a feud going on,
and the defense could have argued, hey, they pulled my
guy off a bridge, and now they're trying to pin
this on him. You would never have known what was
(23:48):
behind it. You had to get to the feud, the motive.
How difficult is it for you to ferret out a
motive in your cases, Detective Fife.
Speaker 6 (24:00):
Yeah, it's a good question, and for sure you were
right to characterize motive not always being available to us.
It can be seen sometimes as like a bonus and
our investigations. But if the facts of the incident speak
for themselves, and if it's clear that this person did it,
then a lot of times we don't need to know
what was going on in their heads, as you said,
but sometimes you get clues to it conversations the person's
(24:22):
had with other people. We get a lot of help
from social media, sometimes phone record history and such. And
in this case, the second Line incident, there was some
contextual stuff that we unraveled digitally that sort of did
back up what we have been hearing on the street,
as it were.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
And again, if I don't want to push you on
any facts sensitive to the case, because that case is penning,
and if you were to comment on it any of
those facts, that could be a problem, and I don't
want you to have a problem. Let's move on to
another case, but one of your cases. But before that,
I want to go back to the five meter, the
(25:01):
tally that is on big whiteboard that other people with
a homicide unit are keeping on your cases. You're not
worried that, Mike, Jinx. You let me guess you're not superstitious.
Speaker 6 (25:14):
Well so, just as a point of clarification, that whiteboard
exists in our public affairs office and not in homicide
per se. But yeah, there's a lot of superstition in
the field policing in general, but in homicide in particular.
We talk a lot about the homicide gods and what
you've done to anger them and which resulted in this
(25:36):
terrible case you've.
Speaker 5 (25:37):
Been given sometimes.
Speaker 6 (25:39):
But yeah, again I need to take the opportunity to
praise my homicide unit.
Speaker 5 (25:44):
In general.
Speaker 6 (25:45):
We have I think an eighty percent clearance rate this year,
which is very high as I understand it nationally. But
we're looking for any source of like enthusiasm or motivation
a lot of the times, very supportive of one another
successes and reaching out to try and provide help whenever
somebody seems to be faltering and you know, keeping track
(26:07):
of a clearance streak. Yeah, that that might be seen
as a potential jinx. But again I guess it can
be something that you know, provides some enthusiasm and motivation.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
You know, I have found that like baseball players.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
I was extremely superstitious during every trial, and I would
stick to certain behavior, stick to certain rituals before I
would go to trial every single trial. Now, I don't
know if it's too personal, but do you have superstitions
(26:45):
that you follow in your investigations?
Speaker 6 (26:49):
I don't. I guess some kind of boring in that regard.
I'm not a very superstitious person.
Speaker 5 (26:53):
I do.
Speaker 6 (26:55):
I find that the best cure for any anxiety about
a case to just can't like dive into the material itself.
If you spend hours going over something before you have
to appear in court, that can kind of calm me down.
Nothing's worse than just going into something feeling unprepared. But
beyond that, you know, no, there's no there's.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
No real worst feeling unprepared.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Oh two never, never have you ever watched someone work
that's unprepared.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
It's the worst you just see. It's like a slow
motion train wreck.
Speaker 6 (27:28):
Yeah, you need to be master of your your own case,
to sort of be be the single best source of
that narrative and everything that was done, have an answer
for everything. For sure, we all get caught off guard.
But I guess you want to try and you know,
mitigate that and just be the guy who knows everything
about this incident that can be done.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Which leads me to the thon view case. Well I
shall though, Oh no, are you my sale? That's no
way good.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
She's gonna be a liar.
Speaker 4 (28:04):
In the final hours of twenty twenty four, Ton Vu
tends her supermarket, a pillar of the Nola Vietnamese community
since she opened thirty years ago, but three customers are
seeking more than groceries. Ton held at gunpoint while the
thieves emptied the register and pocket cigarettes. When Ton fights back,
she's shot and left for dead. Her killers quickly brought
(28:24):
to justice. Angenou, Henny Davis, Adrian Harris, and Nathaniel Carpenter
all charged in the fatal robbery, Carpenter confessing to the crime.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
That original sound from our friends at Fox eight Detective five,
what happened to than View?
Speaker 5 (28:40):
Yeah, that was a tough case.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Again.
Speaker 6 (28:41):
We try not to qualify any of our murders, you know,
none are any better or worse than any others. But
ms Vu was sort of a fixture of the Vietnamese
community in the New Orleans East area and was a
longtime owner of a convenience store at that area that
had stood the test of time. Other businesses opened and closed.
That store has has been around for as long as
(29:03):
many people can remember it. And this is sort of
just one of those senseless, you know, botched robberies as
we understand it. Again, this is another one that is
still in court proceedings. But you had the right of it,
as you explained that there were three people charged with.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Us, Detective five, I don't like what you just said.
You refer to the murder of than Vu as a
botched robbery. I don't like that terminology going forward, because
somehow it lessens the degree of intent to have a
(29:43):
group of men enter a grocery store and confront an unarmed,
defenseless female and in order to rob her and she
got shot.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Like what, the gun just went off on its own.
That was big accident. I botched that bs. That is
an intentional murder.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Under the law, the time for formation of intent can
be as brief as a twinkling of a moment, the
blink of an eye, much less in time it takes
to raise the gun and pull the trigger.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
That was intentional.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
And I take umbrage at anyone describing as, oh, it
was a botched robbery.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
She's dead wrong. They pulled the trigger.
Speaker 6 (30:37):
Right, and it's no less terrible the context or the
motive behind it. But that's just I suppose, in the business,
one of the ways in which we would describe a
certain type of incident. But you're right that you know
that just as culpable as any other homicide, whether it
was a robbery or somebody that you just loathed and
wanted to put out of this world, just as bad.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
Hey five, you know what hurts me?
Speaker 2 (31:01):
On top of dealing with crime victims, in my line
of business, it was always a violent felony either homicide,
family left behind, rape victims, childless station victims are some victims,
but it made it worse.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
For me when.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
The victim would come from a part of our world
that is not really represented as.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
It should be.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
It could be a minority, it could be a woman,
an infant in this case, the Asian community, many of
them not advocated for as strongly as for other people, right,
(31:55):
And so it kind of heaps insult to injury, pain
on pain. When I saw nun vu Von's husband speaking
and he said I saw the blood on her head,
I told myself, there's no way she can still be alive.
They must sometimes feel like no one cares about them.
(32:22):
Do you ever hear that from minorities or women?
Speaker 6 (32:28):
Yeah, for sure. I mean the data is out there.
There are certain demographics that are affected more by violent crime,
and those groups are it's really important to make inroads
with them and sort of establish some trust. And that
can be hard when you know, certain groups don't feel
like they've had the support of police or the colinal
(32:48):
justice system in general in the past. So you have
to sort of find a way to show somebody you
do care and you are invested and look, I'm here
to help, not to hinder, you know, not just write
people off, because maybe that's what they've been getting up
until now.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Did they defive?
Speaker 2 (33:06):
The vast, vast majority of victims that I represented in
felony court were women, children, and minorities, and they felt
like nobody cared about them.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
And that nobody would fight for.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Them, and that nobody cared about their cases. So on
top of trying to investigate and prosecute the case, I
felt this burden of trying to convince them that someone
did care. That's a big burden that you are now
carrying and I want to talk about another case that
(33:45):
you handle, which is dear to my heart, the case
of Raven Francis.
Speaker 4 (33:51):
I missed my mama a lot.
Speaker 7 (33:53):
She's pretty funny.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
She was a nice person. She loved us very much.
She would do anything for us, and she will always
be with me.
Speaker 4 (34:00):
Raven Francis, a mom of four, enjoys one of her
first nights out since welcoming her youngest six months ago.
Raven and friends head to the Shamrock, but an argument
breaks out with another group and the friends try to
escape in their car. As they pull out, gunfire erupts.
Raven's sister is just grazed, but Raven is shot in
the head, bleeding profusely, and the resulting panic, the driver
(34:22):
clips a fire hydrant, flipping the car. By the time
first responders can get everyone out, Raven is gone.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
That was from my friends at Fox eight Crime Stories
with Nancy Grace.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
I think another issue and I want to find out
how you deal with at five or the tangental murder victims,
the collateral victims of murder, like Raven's ten year old
little boy. I mean, okay, when the twins were born,
(35:02):
they were extremely premature in my children, and I would
pray every night, Lord, please just help us out of
the hospital.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Please help us out of the hospital. Okay, we got
out of the hospital.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Then it went to Lord, please let me get them stabilized.
Let me get them eating lucy weigh two pounds five
two pounds, as small as a kit.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
All right.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Then we get to one, you know, like, Lord, please
help me get help me get them into school. Just
let me live long enough now is let me get
them through high school. There it's going to be college.
Let me get them, help me, help them find their
I mean, it never ends so for a mother to
be wrenched away from her children, and this little boy
just ten years old. I mean, when you get in
(35:42):
your car and you leave the crime scene. There were
times I'd have to pull over on the side of
the road and just sit there and try to process
all the suffering one bullet caused.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
How do you deal with that?
Speaker 6 (35:58):
Yeah? Sure, there's almost a little bit of like survivor's
guilt in this job sometimes if you let yourself really
think about it, like what right do I have to
be unaffected.
Speaker 5 (36:08):
By violence like this?
Speaker 6 (36:09):
You know, when you go home and if you have kids,
like hug your kid after something like this and just
you know, feel it. But yeah, you're right that so
many are affected by these murders beyond just a victim.
And that doesn't really always clear immediately, but as you
start talking to family, you establish that relationship, it really
(36:31):
becomes evident. And then you know, these cases take years
in court. Sometimes I'll show up to court and I'll
see a kid that's grown up, like hugely in the interim,
and it, like you said, it really just hits you
that this timeline that this child is going to live,
you know, their whole life and grow up in all
these milestones without a parent. It's hard to stomach, especially
once you have kids of your own.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
We were just showing photos of Raven Francis, a mom
of four renched away from four children.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
And then there is a teen girl, Leah Perry.
Speaker 4 (37:03):
Leah Perry, seventeen, is the latest victim in a string
of drive by shootings. Leah, mom to five month old Peyton,
was clearly not the shooter's intended target. Surveillance footage shows
a newer model Infinity with no plate in dark tint,
pull up to the teen and fire several shots. Detective
Fife digs up more video of the alleged driver wearing
a distinct pair of striped red pants. The same exact
(37:26):
pair Kenn Salisbury posts photos in with a gun tucked
in the waistband. Salisbury, already behind bars for two other shootings,
charged with an additional count of murder.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
So five, I'm not going to ask you to comment
on the facts of the case. I'll do it.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Idiot, idiot, So he's posting online the red striped pants
with a gun stuck down the pants.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
I had a guy that wore a.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
Red leather ensemble the night he gunned somebody down dead.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
He was a dope lord.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
He came to court some idiot, another idiot, there's so
many to pick from.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Gave him a bond. Five. What did he wear on
day one of court? The red ensemble. I was so happy.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
I stood behind him and like was literally pointing to
him in front of the jury. So sometimes they throw
you a bone. Heaven just drops a fact in your
lap for you to run with those red striped pants.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
I'm sure that's something you'll never forget. Five.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
I know you have to leave the studio and get
back to the streets, but I want to understand how.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
You deal with a crushing case load.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
I remember I had been on trial for about three
weeks straight, and I would take all my evidence, all
my files with me.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
I would carry them around on rollers.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
And those giants postal white plastic boxes that sit around
the courthouse and the mail people leave and stack them
up and take them back and forth to my car
after court because I didn't want to leave them anywhere
for them to be tampered with. Long story short, I
wasn't back in my office for about two weeks.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
I just go straight to the courtroom. That said.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
When I got back to my office there was still
a jug of milk in there that I had left
there two weeks before. Uneaten Krispy Kreme doughnuts, and every
other day the Indictment Division Record the court records would
bring in new files while I was on trial, and
(39:40):
the stag I had gotten so tall on my desk
it had fallen over like an accordion and started going
down the side of my desk.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
When I walked back in, I'm like, how am I
going to keep up?
Speaker 2 (39:55):
And then I realized I couldn't, So I just took
the next homicide CA and started working, because that's the
only thing I need to do after I threw away
the milk and the Krispy Kreams.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
But how do you deal with a crushing caseload?
Speaker 6 (40:13):
Yeah, I can totally relate to that, and it's, you know,
the caseload itself. You're right to is just focus on
the task at hand and then sort of juggle some
time and bounce back to other cases when you can.
But beyond that, it's you know, when you don't solve
these they continue to follow you and they haunt you,
(40:33):
and the families parents of those cases will call, you know,
sometimes weekly for an update, and you have to tell
them this parent every week for years that there are
no updates on the case, I'm sorry, and that can
that sort of collects and it's like more of a
burden on your shoulders every year you do this job.
(40:53):
So it's about not giving in to apathy's cynicism or
just treating it like it's an assembly line, you know,
try to maintain that whatever optimism you can and not
come up with any dramatic conclusions about the nature of
mankind or.
Speaker 5 (41:06):
Anything like that.
Speaker 6 (41:07):
And then beyond that, everybody has their organizational tricks. You
have to really know how you work and what makes
you effective as an investigator, what your weak points might be,
and just try to tread with water and hope for
a time when the murder rate is down.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
You know, it's interesting to me five well, so many things,
but we always hear about police conspiracies. For instance, that
Lapdate framed OJ Simpson.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
That's a really good example.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
And my experience, I was inundated, like a tidal wave
after wave after wave.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Of new cases.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
I didn't have time to even think about framing somebody.
I could hardly keep my nose above water handling all
the cases I was given. Right, what do you what
is your reaction? And yeah, I know they're dirty cops.
I know that they're there. But all the theories that,
for instance, there's a theory right now that Brian Coberger
(42:09):
was fryed.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
Really he just played guilty. I don't get it.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
What's your response when everyone points back on the police.
Speaker 6 (42:19):
Yeah, I mean I think not with that, not totally
without justification to be suspicious of the criminal justice system.
Sometimes if you go back and look at our history, yeah,
there are plenty of incidents of you know, egregious actions
by many of our you know, DA's police. But that said,
one of the frustrating things about this line of work
(42:40):
is that the systems often seen as like this monolithic thing,
like you know, they're There are so many different departments,
all with varying levels of oversight and different relationships to
their communities that it feels sometimes unfair if something happens
in you know, Oklahoma, and then the community here in
(43:01):
New Orleans now loses trust in police. And it's a
hard thing to sort of to pitch to the people
that know we're different.
Speaker 5 (43:09):
Because you know we're not.
Speaker 6 (43:10):
Then I'm a person, We're owned department, Please trust us.
But when police are all in uniform and sort of
seeing as the same thing, yeah, those a lot of
those scandals sort of follow all departments in the country.
It's sort of like we were all in this together
as police. Don't screw it up for the rest of
us by doing something awful.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
You know.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
Five, When I heard about all the specials about you
and your solve rates so far knock on web product,
I didn't know what to expect. I'm glad to know
that you're not a show horse. You are a workhorse,
(43:53):
and I'm very proud.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
That you are humble. I notice you never take credit,
and you're right.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
You wouldn't be where you are if it wasn't for
what they are doing.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
It's a team.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
I would never have won a single case if it
weren't for my investigator, Earnest, trudging out in the cold
and the rain, sometimes of snow, going through crack houses
and whorehouses and strip bars.
Speaker 1 (44:24):
And you name it, trying to find witnesses.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
Combing through a shooting scene for any ballistics left behind
up at one o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
In the morning.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
I could never have done it without him, right, So
I really appreciate you saying that it's your unit, and
you just happen to be in the chair right now
talking about these cases. I wish you the very very best,
(44:56):
and you're ongoing struggle against the violent crime and one
of my favorite cities, New Orleans. God bless you and
stay safe to take to Fife. And thank you for
your time.
Speaker 5 (45:10):
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It's been
a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
We stop now and we remember an American hero, Sergeant
Thomas DuRane el Reno, PD, Oklahoma, killed in the line
of duty after fourteen years leaving behind a grieving wife
and children with no dad. American hero Sergeant Thomas Durant
Nancy Grace signing off
Host
Nancy Grace
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