June 17, 2024 • 49 mins
What drives someone to commit such unimaginable horrors? Join us as we unravel the terrifying story of Nathaniel Code Jr., the infamous Shreveport serial killer. This episode brings you right to the heart of the Chaney family murders, where Code shockingly mingled with the onlookers. We'll scrutinize his uncharged but suspected killings, such as those of Johnny B Jenkins and Jake Mills, examining whether his monstrous behavior stemmed from genetics, upbringing, or perhaps a haunting combination of both.
The gruesome murders of Little Joe, Eric, and the grandfather of “Junior” Code, William provide a chilling glimpse into Code's methods. Little Joe and Eric met their end swiftly and methodically, while William's murder suggested a personal vendetta with its brutal excess. Was there a connection between the victims and their killer? The lack of forced entry and the disappearance of cash and a small pistol hint that they indeed knew Nathaniel Code Jr. And why did he brazenly appear at the crime scene? These are just some of the chilling questions we tackle.
Our journey doesn’t stop at the crimes themselves; we delve into the frustrating and intricate legal proceedings that followed. From his initial arrest to the contentious trial and eventual death sentence, we explore how the justice system dealt with such a heinous criminal. Despite extensive appeals and legal battles, Code's conviction and death sentence were upheld, underscoring the relentless quest for justice by the victims' families. Tune in for an in-depth examination of Nathaniel Code Jr.'s dark legacy and the enduring impacts on all those touched by his crimes.
Sources:
>>YouTube Video of Family Statement to Death Penalty Panel
Article with video link for panel statement
>> Caddo Parish DA Speaking on Lengthy Death Sentences Awaiting ExecutionÂ
Murderpedia Article on Code
Serial Killer Database - Cedar Grove Killer
EXCELLENT Timeline with Pictures!
August 14, 2015 Town Talk Article
VineLink Inmate Search Results
Code’s Supreme Court Appeal
Auction of Code’s Inmate Letters Website
The gruesome murders of Little Joe, Eric, and the grandfather of “Junior” Code, William provide a chilling glimpse into Code's methods. Little Joe and Eric met their end swiftly and methodically, while William's murder suggested a personal vendetta with its brutal excess. Was there a connection between the victims and their killer? The lack of forced entry and the disappearance of cash and a small pistol hint that they indeed knew Nathaniel Code Jr. And why did he brazenly appear at the crime scene? These are just some of the chilling questions we tackle.
Our journey doesn’t stop at the crimes themselves; we delve into the frustrating and intricate legal proceedings that followed. From his initial arrest to the contentious trial and eventual death sentence, we explore how the justice system dealt with such a heinous criminal. Despite extensive appeals and legal battles, Code's conviction and death sentence were upheld, underscoring the relentless quest for justice by the victims' families. Tune in for an in-depth examination of Nathaniel Code Jr.'s dark legacy and the enduring impacts on all those touched by his crimes.
Sources:
>>YouTube Video of Family Statement to Death Penalty Panel
Article with video link for panel statement
>> Caddo Parish DA Speaking on Lengthy Death Sentences Awaiting ExecutionÂ
Murderpedia Article on Code
Serial Killer Database - Cedar Grove Killer
EXCELLENT Timeline with Pictures!
August 14, 2015 Town Talk Article
VineLink Inmate Search Results
Code’s Supreme Court Appeal
Auction of Code’s Inmate Letters Website
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Additional trigger warnings include murder of
children and some sexual assault.
On August 6, 1987, lawenforcement agencies in Caddo
Parish had just arrested one ofthe most disturbing serial
killers to ever hit Louisiana,at least up to that point.
Come with us as we follow thegruesome trail left by Nathaniel
(00:22):
Code Jr, who had left death anddestruction in his wake for
over three years, between 1984and 1987.
Join us as we unravel thedistinct signature created by a
volatile killer, and then hangon as we inspect the crime
scenes together and discuss justhow a predator becomes such a
disturbed individual.
(00:43):
Is it genetics, his upbringingor both?
Today on Sin Law, episode 28,part two the Shreveport serial
killer.
Hey, how are you doing thisweek?
(01:06):
I hope you're not too mad at mefor leaving you hanging last
week but as promised, here'spart two.
It jumps right back in becauseall I did was split that sucker
in half.
So I hope you enjoy the rest ofthe episode.
Let me know what you think.
Thanks, so I don't want anybodyto be kind of like fumbling
around in the dark here.
Last week we got all the way upto his second set of official
(01:28):
murders.
There I usually refer to him asthe Chaney murders.
There was the family of fourthat were murdered and then the
two youngest girls were leftalive.
And we're picking right back upimmediately after the murders
where we're about to find outthat Code was again standing
outside in the crowd talkingabout those murders.
Okay, and it was also notedthat he was outside in the crowd
(01:51):
of onlookers as the scene wasbeing investigated and so forth.
Things go further on, from July19th 85 to February 21st of 86.
Yeah, there was anotherhomicide of a 54 year old,
(02:14):
johnny B Jenkins.
His sister found his body atabout 1030 on the 21st of
February and he had been deadtwo or three weeks when he was
found.
So he could have been killed asearly as January of 86.
He said, or the report said,that he had been stabbed
multiple times and again he was.
(02:35):
Code was suspected but nevercharged.
Right before his body was foundin February, february 3rd,
remember, code married Verameh.
They moved into the house acouple blocks from the Cedar
Grove neighborhood, the Johnny BJenkins homicide.
His body was found on the 21st.
The next one that is linked butnot proven was the Jake Mills
(02:58):
homicide.
He's a six-year-old man.
He was found lying on the floorof his home and he may have
known his attacker and he hadbeen stabbed multiple times as
well.
Again, suspect, never charged.
So, minus the Jake Mills,johnny B Jenkins and Monica
Renee Barnum and Wes Burke, soyou've got one, two, three, four
(03:21):
possible others Outside ofthose four, if you don't count
those, we already have deborahford, billy joe harris and
vivian colbert cheney, jerrycolbert and carletha colbert,
and then deborah and ford.
So you have those five.
(03:42):
That all occurred before 1986,before he was married to his
wife.
If you count the other onesthat weren't ever charged, he
was never charged.
He was always just a suspectand a person of interest, but he
was never charged.
You add those four to thosefive, that would give you nine
already.
But as it stands the officialrecord is five.
(04:02):
Up to that point, every serialkiller, all of the ones we've
covered, even they all have acertain point, when things start
to unravel, when things startto come to a fever pitch.
You know that is their tippingpoint July 85, 86, as far as we
(04:22):
know, he got married, he movedinto his house Nothing big or
crazy in the year of 86 that weare aware of, unless you want to
count the other two murdersthey say happened in 86.
But we don't know for sure.
He was never charged.
And these murders, up to thispoint, especially in Louisiana,
(04:44):
in Shreveport, there was anassistant police chief that
described them as like nothinghe'd ever seen.
He'd never seen anything morevicious in 25 years of being a
police officer filer, who saidthat they were that Deborah Ann
Ford and the Carletha Colbertmurders.
(05:05):
They were strikingly similar inso much as they were
manipulative.
They had a showy kind of I'vegot the control over you and a
strong sense of domination overand control of the victims.
Strong sense of domination overand control of the victims.
(05:28):
Now, from what I hear and fromwhat I've read, the bodies in
these were similarly posed, sosimilarly posed that you could
have put one next to the otherand they would have been nearly
not entirely, but nearlyidentical, which is bananas to
me.
But again, we're talking abouta distinctive signature serial
(05:48):
killer.
So a serial killer in and ofitself is crazy.
And then they have the thingsthat they do.
Most of the time there's somekind of MO, but in a signature
they can't help but do the samething.
Now some people say that becauseof the differences in between
the two, that they may or maynot have been the same person.
(06:10):
Because they say, well, hedidn't.
Um, he brought the gag with himthe second time, because the
first murder, with Deborah, heused clothing from the home and
the second one he brought theduct tape with him.
So they're saying, oh, becausethat that's then that's
obviously different, that maynot be the same one.
(06:30):
Um, no, that's, that's alearning from your mistakes type
thing, making sure you comeprepared, which is exactly what
he did.
He obviously prepared andplanned all of these things out
in his mind ahead of time, whichis also why he brought the gun
to the second set, because thatwas used to control the victims.
(06:52):
He knew he was going to have aharder time, especially being
one against however many, andobviously they had to have the
fear put in them to be able tokeep them under control, which
was a but I mean like and thatgave him an extra added,
heightened element of his needto control.
It came after his tipping point,so I was talking about that
(07:16):
earlier.
It starts to go downhill.
Really easy to see where codestarted to take that unraveling.
He pulled that thread right.
17 days after the murders ofthe cheney household he struck
again, but this time he made thenumber one rule that all serial
(07:39):
killers are supposed to live byor what, what I would assume
they do you can't kill someoneconnected to you or close to you
.
You can't make that link forthe investigators right, you've
got to keep them impersonal.
Well, he screwed the pooch onthat one On August 5th 1987.
(08:03):
And this is really sad.
Code went to his grandfather'shouse and because obviously he
was known in that household, theonly really crappy part is that
his grandfather probablywouldn't have let him in because
(08:24):
there were many witnesses whotestified later that you know he
had tried to cut ties with codethe grandfather had because he
was scared of him.
Um, because of the many timesthat you know things have
happened before he, he had beenknown to do drugs and things of
that nature and he just wasn'tvery reliable.
And also he often came to hisgrandfather because, I mean, his
(08:45):
grandfather helped raise him,him and his great aunt, and they
generally had a rockyrelationship.
Like after all of his otherfamily members died, the
grandfather was the last onethat he really wanted to go be
with, but he didn't have muchelse family and he would go and
ask his grandfather William TCode, he would ask him for money
.
Grandfather, william T Code, hewould ask him for money.
He also lived in Shreveport andon August 4th, william, he had
(09:11):
been working in his yard with acouple of uh, a friend of his
had two grandsons and they hadcome over to help him with the
yard.
They did it a lot.
They I mean like they wouldcome over and help him with the
yard and then sleep over andthen like go home the next.
Like that's how close this,this bunch were.
They had last been seen out inthe yard at about 8 pm and that
was when the grandparent of thetwo boys had given permission to
(09:37):
the boys to spend the nightover the phone.
Now, the next morning she wassupposed they were supposed to
come home, home because theywere supposed to go do stuff.
They had plans that evening andthis is how bad it had gotten
for for William T Code, the 73year old grandfather of
Nathaniel Code, it had gotten sobad that he always kept his
doors locked and he had steelburglar bars on his windows and
(10:00):
doors because he was thatconcerned about someone breaking
in, or possibly his grandsonbreaking in.
So when Miss Williams realizedthat it was getting later in the
morning and then the boyshadn't shown back up.
She went to go by the house tosee what was going on.
There was no sign of forcedentry.
Everything was locked up tighttight and even though nobody was
(10:24):
answering her knocking andyelling, she could hear music
playing.
It was later discovered therewas a television on and,
unfortunately for her, throughthe window she could see a bound
foot.
So she knew that there wassomething wrong.
The night before, like I said,they had been working in the
yard and the two boys one was8-year-old Eric Williams, the
(10:47):
other one was 12-year-old, joeRobinson, fun-loving, sweet boys
helping out their friend of thefamily, you know, just doing
what 8 and 12-year-olds do and12 year olds do.
(11:10):
And later, based on thediscovery of the bodies, miss
williams, she obviously she wentback home, called the police
again.
No cell phone, she had to go toa landline.
She returned with her brother,niece and granddaughter to the
house before the cops ever gotthere and they used her key to
open the burglar bars on one ofthe windows and miss williams
and her brother discovered thebodies of the two boys and mr
(11:30):
william, and again, the bodieshad been in separate rooms, each
victim in a different part ofthe house.
Little joe, who was 12, he wasfound lying face down on the
living room couch.
He had been struck in the headand they say that it was hard
enough to like daze him, so itwas a good hit, but it wasn't a
(11:55):
death blow.
So they know that he didn't dieinstantly from that.
He had bruises that were on hislike shoulders, beneath his
skin and over both of hiscollarbones, so it was almost
like somebody had pushedpressure down on his like
shoulders, uh, beneath the skinand over both of his collarbones
.
So it was almost like somebodyhad pushed pressure down on his
upper, the upper part of hisbody, or like trying to hold him
down, maybe.
And his ankles were tiedtogether with white plastic cord
and again each of them weretied with a gap between like the
(12:18):
handcuffs and that had beenused to go back up to his hands,
behind his back, one wrist andthe other.
And then there was a looselength of cord that was around
his neck, that held a gag in hismouth and that had been doubled
and used to strangle him.
The boy Joe, joe had been foundin nothing but his underwear and
(12:46):
that was the same for Eric aswell.
They had on underwear againinside out.
And when they found eric, whowas eight, he was face down
between two twin beds in thesmall bedroom and he it looked
like he had been dragged fromone of the beds and there was a
plastic rope that held a gagthat was around his neck and his
(13:09):
hands had been tied,identically to how Joe was tied.
And then the killer tookelectrical cord as an extra
because he didn't have enough ofthe other one to finish tying
up the ankles, and then he usedanother piece of electrical cord
to strangle him and there wasno sign of a struggle and, like
(13:32):
I said, he was only wearing apair of underwear.
So the two boys were murderedin about the same fashion as the
other victims.
Yes, it was brutal, yes, theyhad been bound, yes, they had
been strangled, and that's allpersonal as it is, but all very
similar.
There was no overkill.
Once they were dead, they weredead.
(13:53):
There wasn't a whole lot ofother pieces to that.
It didn't show any like emotionor personal.
The reason I say that isbecause that's completely
different when we come toWilliam the 73-year-old 74, 73,
74.
I've got different reports, buteither way, well into his 70s
(14:14):
he was found face down in bedwearing his nightclothes.
He was found exactly the same,with electrical cord and the
tele.
There was a telephone cord thatwas used to hold a gag in place
around his neck.
Now his autopsy showed somethingstarkly just different,
(14:37):
completely different from allthe other victims of nathaniel
coke.
So so when McCormick did thisautopsy, he found that there was
initially a very heavy blow tothe side of his head that in and
of itself could have causeddeath all by itself.
He had been beaten so severelyabout the head with bare hands,
(15:03):
with fists.
It wasn't, it was obviouslyblunt force trauma, but there
was so much brain hemorrhagingAgain that alone could have
killed him.
He had been stabbed 13 times.
He had, according to this crimescene evidence, he had rolled
side to side, back and forth,from back to front and been
(15:27):
stabbed repeatedly.
And he couldn't have done thison his own, he had to have been
manually moved.
So Code was rolling him over,stabbing him, rolling him back
over, stabbing him again.
He was stabbed five times inthe chest, seven times in the
back and there was one stabwound to his right upper arm
that severed a major artery.
(15:47):
There was no sign of a struggle, none.
So he said, obviously, mccormick, he said obviously this is the
same guy who killed all theother people.
He said that William Code, thegrandfather he, died from the
(16:09):
overall cumulative.
He couldn't say for sure whichone specifically killed him, but
the overall effect, the bloodloss, the severe beating, the
brain hemorrhaging, all of itcombined is his cause of death.
There was also, because of theamount of beating and because of
the brutal viciousness of theattack, there was medium
(16:30):
velocity blood spatter found onone of the walls in his bedroom
where he was killed, right.
So McCormick later testifiedthat same work of the signature,
the signature serial killer,but the difference here was that
there was a personal, emotional, rage-type incentive for the
(16:51):
killing of William and also thatthere was no sign of forced
entry.
All the other cases he'd had topry the window open, he's had
to pull the screen off, he's hadto something, but not here.
So it was probably someone thatthese people knew and that the
victims themselves were probablyfound the way that they were
(17:14):
probably murdered, the way thatthey were found.
So it would have been Joe.
As soon as he opened the doorhe was hit over the head, gag,
tied, strangled.
Williams in the front bedroomwas probably surprised as he was
sleeping in the twin bedroombed.
Twin bed bedroom, drug out ofbed surprised Tide killed.
(17:37):
He said that the focus was aWilliam code and he said that
there were the overkill and thebeating repeatedly over the head
and it showed the emotionalrelationship between the victim
and the murderer.
Also, again, just like in theChaney homicides, no money was
(17:58):
found in the residence, althoughWilliam Coe did cash checks
totaling about a grand the daybefore, william Co did cash
checks totaling about a grandthe day before, and they also
had a small pistol that wasmissing.
There was a set of keys andsomething else, but they found a
knife and a set of keys in astorm drain that was like 600
(18:20):
feet from the residence right,and the knife that was found in
the storm drain was similar tothe set that was in william's
kitchen and the key fit the door.
So once they get all that andthey have a scene processed,
guess who walks up to talk tothe officers?
Yeah, mr code.
(18:43):
Nathaniel code Jr walks up andsays hey, I'm the grandson.
I, you know, I'm here to help,you know whatever.
So they decided to take him in.
But before they do that theytalked to some other witnesses.
There was a neighbor whotestified that he saw Nathaniel
Code Jr exit the house sometimeafter 8 pm the night of the
murders and he said he saw himshut the door and then the iron
(19:05):
bars and check to make sure theywere locked.
Then he walked out to a vehicle.
He said that he saw co-drivedown the street.
He stopped to say hello throughthe car window and he
introduced the female passengerin the car as his new wife.
Then the two drove off.
John uh the neighbor.
He thought the situation wasweird because mr william the
(19:27):
grandfather always walked gueststo the door to make sure that
the bars were locked and he knewthat William would never have
let Nathaniel in the housebecause they had had kind of a
falling out because he had askedto borrow money from him.
And he said no, all of thesethings pointed to why was he
(19:48):
there?
Why did he not get followed byhis grandpa to lock the door,
make sure the bars were lockedbehind them?
So all these things are kind ofstacking up.
Okay.
So, like I said, after thebodies were found he code
actually approached the officersintroduced himself.
As the grandson said, he hadreceived a call the night before
.
This was after he got into hisinterrogation.
(20:10):
He said he received a call thenight before from his grandpa at
about like 10, 30, 11 and hisgrandpa had asked him to come to
the house complaining becausethere were people hanging out
around the house and he didn'twant him there.
So he said that he went over tothe house at like 2 am on the
morning of August 5th and hesaid that his grandpa let him in
the house.
He checked the house, the areaand then he left on his bike.
(20:32):
He said he returned once againto make sure that nobody was
outside and then he rode hisbike home.
And because he went down andagreed to give a statement
because you know, at this pointthe police are like duh he's the
last person to see hisgrandfather alive they got very
suspicious because, like I said,they'd already been suspicious
of him for the other murders aswell.
They just had no proof they gethim to come down to the station
and he further goes into detailabout stating he touched
(20:57):
certain things and he lists themoff.
He touched the vacuum, the fan,the humidifier, a phone phone
all the night before and shocker, no, shocker.
Those are all of the items fromwhich the cords were used to
bind the victims.
Which is odd, because if you'recoming to check for people
hanging out outside the house,why would you be touching the
(21:19):
vacuum, the fan and thehumidifier, the phone maybe you
could get away with.
But all the other stuff Come onand eventually, I guess because
they had such a good rapportCode, agreed to give them his
clothes and the shoes that hehad worn the day before and he
gave them fingerprints, palmprints, all that good stuff and
(21:41):
they matched the Chaney homicide.
So at that point he's booked,he's questioned and arrested for
the Chaney homicides.
He later is informed that theshoes that he gave to the lab
for the police office, the crimelab, had located medium
velocity blood spatter, exactlylike, was in the bedroom of his
(22:03):
father or grandfather.
They couldn't prove whose bloodit was because they just didn't
have enough and at that timethey were lucky that they were
doing anything and other thanlike being able to tell it was
human.
So later they got consent fromvera to search the residence and
they see several cut electricalcords and also because he was
(22:28):
in construction and plumbing andall that stuff.
He had professional grade ducttape To kind of tie it all
together.
They think that the majority ofthe reason for the murder of
William was because NathanielCode was upset because his
grandfather had refused to loanhim any money.
And there was multiple people,multiple witnesses, that
(22:48):
testified to Code asking for aloan just prior to the murders.
And he'd even gone so far as toapproach narcotics officers in
Shreveport and offered hisservice as a CI, a confidential
informant, because he knew ofpeople that were dealing drugs
and he needed to pay one of them$100.
Yeah, something is obviouslynot connecting in his mind,
(23:11):
because that's not something.
A normal logical progressionthinker, I don't know how to say
that, but like, in your rightmind, you would not go up to a
narc and be like, hey, I owethis drug dealer $100.
I'll be a CI if you'll help mepay him back.
It just that sounded all kindsof crazy to me.
It would stand to reason thathe wouldn't have any money to
(23:34):
his name, right?
Well, another witness, a cousinnamed Beatrice Holmes, said she
got a call from Nathaniel CoteJr the day the bodies were found
and he invited her to come tohis house.
The two them shared a gram ofcocaine, which coach supplied.
Then they went to the liquorstore where the code purchased
beer and then on the way home hestopped and purchased another
(23:57):
gram of cocaine.
They were shooting cocaine whenthey were interrupted by a
phone call informing them oftheir grandpa's death and her I
don't't know uncle, whatever heis and at that point they had
the witness, the cousin.
She testified that a gram ofcocaine sold for about $150 at
the time.
So he had $300 plus enoughmoney for beer.
(24:20):
Where do you get that money Ifhe was just asking, immediately
prior to grandpa dying, for aloan?
But he had 300 to spend oncocaine.
Maybe that's why he had tospend the 300, maybe that's why
he wanted the loan, who knows?
On august 6th 1987 he wasarrested for the cheney
(24:40):
homicides because, remember, thepalm prints match the ones that
were found at the scene of thathomicide scene.
So he's been named in eightother homicides, including the
killing of his grandfather andthe two sweet boys.
Now nothing about this is goingto be satisfying.
(25:04):
I apologize in advance.
Please forgive me.
This is where it starts to geta little infuriating.
So initially, when they start,they do the indictments.
The grand jury indicts code forinitially they do the five
first five victims that they canconfidently tie him to.
(25:27):
So that's Deborah Ford and theChaney Colbert Harris murders,
right?
So that's five total victims.
And because of the way that thedockets were worded I guess
they decided to sever the Fordmurder, deborah Ford's murder,
(25:48):
from the other four.
Okay, reasons probably able toexplain, but most of it just
comes down to the fact that theyhad the majority of the
evidence that they had wassubstantial and they were the
most confident in those fourmurders in that one day that one
act.
Okay.
So he was indicted first degreemurder all four.
(26:10):
So he had four charges of firstdegree murder.
For the Cheney homicides Juryselection began on September
1990, which is actually prettyquick, I would say, because the
majority of the stuff that we doin Louisiana these days it
seems like it takes two to threeyears just to get to a point of
doing a trial and then juryselection gets delayed at least
(26:31):
twice.
So with the code trial it wentfrom September 17th to October
6th.
So 12 days, is that right?
13?
No, 13 and 6 would be 19 days.
So three weeks give or take,with weekends and they find him
(26:52):
guilty of the quadruple homicideof Vivian, billy, joe, jerry
and Carlita.
Now he's also been charged withkilling Deborah Fordah, ford
william code, joe robinson anderic williams, but he's not
prosecuted for those.
And on october 9th three days,because that's standard and
(27:18):
we've talked about this beforethey have to have a cooling off
period for the jury in deathpenalty cases because they have
to give them time to simmer downfrom the guilty verdict and
then then they have to do likeanother trial, mock trial type
situation where now they canintroduce different evidence.
But the interesting thing aboutthis one was they were allowed,
(27:39):
because of the specific type ofkilling, because of the modus
operandi, the specific anddistinctive signature that he
left at all these crime scenes,to be able to show the
proclivity or the majorityreasoning, a belief to be that
(27:59):
these had all been committed bythe same person.
They had to get specialpermission to actually allow
evidence of other crimes thathad not been adjudicated, which
simply means he had not beenfound guilty or not guilty of
those crimes yet.
But they were allowed to talkabout them at the trial, which
is usually a big no, no, no, no,no, because you're only
(28:24):
supposed to be tried on yourguilt or innocence based on the
crime that you're being chargedwith, not other crimes that you
have not been proven to havecommitted yet.
They made a lot of a big dealabout this and it went on
forever and ever, and that wasthe major assignment of error
(28:45):
that they pled in his appeal wasthat they used the evidence of
other crimes in both the guiltand sentencing, because you can
use it majority of the time.
You can use it in thesentencing phase when they
decided if it's death or life,but in the guilt phase you're
not supposed to do it unless youhave a really good reason, and
(29:06):
it had to have have.
Basically, it has to beindependently relevant, so it
couldn't just be oh well, heprobably did this too.
It has to have relevance andstand on its own in its
revelance and it has to outweighthe damage it could do in
creating a bias in the jury.
I know that sounds like a lot,but basically the law says that
(29:30):
the juror could get confused andwhen there are other issues
that are introduced, they may ormay not be able to
differentiate right.
So exceptions to this rule iswhen they use other crimes for
purposes other than to show thecharacter of the defendant.
(29:52):
So, basically, you can't say,oh, look, how bad of a guy he is
because he did this.
It's oh look, this is the exactsame ligature knot he used in
this one, this one and this one.
So you have eight people tiedup in the exact same way.
You're not saying, oh look, howbad of a guy he is.
You're saying look at the exactsame knot he ties every time.
(30:13):
If he did this one, then I mean, obviously the person who tied
that knot had to have tied thisknot, and that's the difference.
They are saying that it'sindependently relevant, that the
evidence used from the othercrimes, even though he hadn't
been fully adjudicated.
It's relevant because itdoesn't just say, oh, he's such
(30:37):
a bad guy, he did all these badthings.
It shows his distinct signatureand that was the major
difference, meaning his appealgot overturned eventually.
However, let's get back to thejury deciding whether or not he
was guilty.
What do you guys think?
Oh, yeah, they let him off.
I'm kidding, that would beawful.
No, they found him guilty offour charges of first degree
(31:00):
murder, like I said already, buthe was also sentenced to death.
Yeah, death, death and death.
So that happens, and this iswhere it's going to get really
upsetting.
He was found guilty on October6th.
On October 9th he got the deathpenalty.
(31:23):
He was formally sentenced todeath on.
December 28th.
Now they waited that long forthe formal sentencing because in
a death penalty case you get anautomatic post-conviction
review and a motion for a newtrial and that has to go through
all of the places places.
It has to go all the way up anddown and then it takes a lot of
(31:46):
time.
So the very end of 1990,december 28th 1990, he was
formally sentenced to deathafter his acquittal and motion
for a new trial were denied andthe caddo judge, gail k ham
Hamilton, sentenced him to death.
That was December 28th 1991,990.
(32:09):
Three years later, december 2nd, the Supreme Court
automatically they review alldeath penalty cases.
We've talked about this.
They affirm his sentence, hisguilt and his death sentence.
August 8th of 94, so ninemonths later, a judge signed a
(32:33):
death warrant for the executionof Nathaniel Code.
Because apparently once you getsentenced to death this is and
I think this is why people waitsit so long on death row.
Now there's a lot of a lot ofreasoning for this.
And what happens when you aresentenced to death?
(32:54):
Either by a jury or it can onlybe by jury, otherwise you get
life.
However, the way this works isyou're sentenced to death, it
automatically goes to thesupreme court.
If that's affirmed, the guiltand the sentence, then it's
turned over to the districtcourt.
This is in louisiana only, soevery state's different and when
(33:16):
it goes back to the districtcourt, the district court has to
sign the execution warrant,which then starts the ball
rolling in the process ofexecution.
Okay, now Louisiana has been onkind of a hiatus.
It hasn't really been um,what's the word I'm looking for?
It hasn't been stayed or therehasn't been like a memororium or
however.
You say that.
Oh my gosh, I'm sucking today.
(33:39):
Anyway, my point being is thatthey haven't really said we're
not going to do them, butbasically they've said we don't
have the drugs to do thembecause lethal injection up
until this year and our newgovernor, up until this year we
could only do, we could onlycarry out death sentences by
lethal injection.
However, we now have aRepublican sitting as our
(34:01):
governor, as Mr Jeff Landry hasofficially signed in.
It was done, it's a done deal.
There are now two other methodsof execution.
Anybody guess, any guesses?
One of them is, well, still,lethal injection, obviously, but
(34:24):
now and keep in mind, it's been13 years, I think, since the
last person was executed.
However, now they're adding thenitrogen gas, the suffocation
(34:45):
method basically.
And also they're bringing backOlsparky, that's right,
electrocution.
So they're saying that and thisbill has been signed, it has
been passed, it is now an act ofthe Louisiana Criminal Court of
Procedures.
Now we can kill them by lethalinjection, nitrogen suffocation
(35:06):
or the electric chair.
I am surprised they didn't gowith.
Oh my god, what state was thathere recently?
They now have, or they theystill.
I don't even know if they evertook it off, but firing squad
you can choose to be killed by afiring squad.
I'll have to look that up andput it on my tiktok or something
but, yeah, still think so.
(35:29):
Apparently none of that startsgoing, though, until the judge
from the district court wherethey were initially found guilty
and sentenced, and all of theother appeals and everything
else.
All of that time has run out.
They've exhausted all of thoseappeals.
They've run out of time forwhatever.
Once he signs that execution,everybody else gets made aware.
(35:52):
Then they have a date, that'sset and then that counts down
and that gets that whole ballrolling.
Now, interestingly, codeactually sued I believe it was
the warden or someone of theprison because some sort of
procedural failure to makesomeone aware, because you have
(36:13):
a whole laundry list of peoplethat have to be given a copy of
the lethal injection procedurefor execution.
If you don't do that, it can bea big deal for execution.
If you don't do that, it can bea big deal.
And apparently he tried to makeit a big deal and nothing came
of it.
He was still sentenced to death.
(36:33):
All of his appeals none of themwere any good.
I mean everything from the timehe was arrested.
Basically, he never got anotherbreak, I guess you could say
Because for a long time there Isay a long time, it was from 84
to 87 that he pretty much gotaway with it and if he hadn't,
(36:54):
like, stepped in and introducedhimself into the murder of his
grandfather I mean eventually,I'm sure, because there were
just too many advances intechnology and things like that
that eventually it would havehappened.
But it might have taken alittle bit longer.
He may have been able toabscond from justice and got and
lived, you know, like theGolden State Killer that lived
(37:17):
an entire lifetime and now wasjust now starting to serve time
for the murders he committed,the atrocities that he committed
.
So 1990, december 1990, is whenhe was actually convicted.
Here's where you're gonna hateme.
He's still alive, he's still ondeath row.
(37:38):
They are still arguing.
This man has been on death rowtwo years longer than I've been
alive.
Yeah, almost 40 years almost.
And and the part that gets meis that he's had an execution
(38:07):
warrant signed three differenttimes, not once, not twice.
Three separate times, separatetimes.
(38:28):
That's how many times he's hada warrant signed for by the
judge saying let's get this guyout of here.
And then what happens?
Well, I'm gonna tell you acouple times.
It's been a stay by the governoror something along those lines.
It's's been various reasons,whether it be the governor, or
because technically, by law, thegovernor doesn't have to have
(38:52):
permission from the probationand parole board.
He doesn't have permission fromthem to stay in execution.
He has to have permission togrant clemency or to commute,
but he does not have to havepermission to extend clemency or
to commute, but he does nothave to have permission to
extend the time a little bit.
So basically what it comes downto is that you know he's he's
(39:14):
had some time and he's gottenthe ability.
Like I said, he's, he's hadthree different ones signed, but
his first one was initiallysigned, so he was affirmed.
His life sentence was affirmedDecember 2nd 93.
Nine months or so later, inAugust of 94, they signed his
(39:36):
first death warrant.
Okay, but not even before theend of the month.
17 days later it was recalled.
And then in February of 95,they signed another one.
No execution takes place.
Now I did read the law on thisone Nothing happens if they
(39:58):
don't do it.
By the time they say to,nothing happens, it, just it
invalidates it and they have tostart over.
So that's what happened in thiscase.
They just didn't execute him.
So again, february 27th, seconddeath warrant filed no
execution.
June 19th, 95th, third deathwarrant filed but even though it
was scheduled for july 28th1985, it didn't happen.
(40:21):
So that's three differentjudges that have signed three
different warrants and it stillhasn't happened.
On july 10th of 95 he did uh putin a post-conviction relief
petition, um for like a writ ofhabeas corpus motion for
(40:45):
evidentiary hearing, and hefiled that himself pro se.
And then he filed a motionagain in 97 for an extension of
time to file additionalpleadings for the
post-conviction proceeding orpetition the supreme court in
1999.
So this he had.
His first death warrant wassigned in 94.
(41:08):
This is now 99, and they'restill going over a
post-conviction relief petition.
Apparently, of the 17 claims inthat relief petition they took
five of them on.
The Supreme Court did.
And then in 2003, he actuallyappeared in district court with
(41:30):
his attorneys for a hearing ofthis post-conviction relief and
it is the first of at least ninecourt appearances that he made
between 2003 and 2006.
Finally, in 2008, hispost-conviction claims are
denied.
But that still has to go backto the Supreme Court.
(41:53):
They have to uphold that.
If it's not upheld then theysend it back.
They have 365 days to filefederal post-conviction appeals.
So this is just the state like.
This is the state levelpost-conviction appeals okay If
it's denied by the Supreme Court, if they say, if they uphold
(42:14):
the decision by the state,that's the end of his state
level post-conviction appeals?
He has one year to file federalpost-conviction appeals.
That was in 2008.
And now 2009,.
His appeal was still underreview.
He's still in Angola and thisis 2009,.
So five years ago the familiesat this point are beyond
(42:38):
frustrated.
The Supreme Court is stillreviewing because of course,
they'd be busy, it happens.
The Supreme Court is stillreviewing because of course
they'd be busy, it happens.
But we're talking about 2009 iswhen they're talking about the
review, and then 2008, the statedenied it and it was sent away.
So 2008, all the way I know,till 2012, 2012 they have a
(43:06):
hearing or a meeting of theAdministration of Criminal
Justice.
They held a panel on the deathpenalty and this was in March of
2019, march 12th.
That has a snippet of it that Icompletely and utterly borrowed
.
That's what I'm going to gowith Albert Colbert Jr, colbert,
(43:33):
the family member of JerryColbert, vivian Colbert Chaney,
Carlitha Colbert and the twogirls he is allowed to speak and
give a statement at thathearing and it's powerful.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
Our mother was a strong woman, the one that we
needed to lean on, but ourmother did not talk too much
about the death of her daughter,her son and her grandbaby, but
(44:13):
when she did, she always askedthis one question why?
Why did he do what he did to mychildren?
So I would also like to askthis panel today after so many
years, why has nothing been done?
Speaker 1 (44:33):
Why has nothing been done?
Excellent question.
Now, apparently, according toJeff Landry and the reason that
he signed this new bill isbecause he's trying to get
justice for the families whohave been waiting years and
years and years, because, as ofright now, there are 70 people
(44:53):
waiting on Louisiana's death row.
But there's a lot of, you know,debate on the death penalty.
There always has been, therealways will be debate on the
death penalty.
There always has been, therealways will be.
But this is one of those thingsthat I feel like it should be
let's do it or let's not do it.
Let's not just say we're gonnaor not, like figure it out one
(45:15):
way or the other.
I just don't like the peoplewho don't shit or get off the
pot.
And Louisiana is one of the 27states where the death penalty
still exists, even though it'sbeen 13 years since we executed
anybody.
The last one was GeraldBordelon, which we're going to
cover him.
His was death by lethalinjection and he actually waived
all of his appeals.
And he is the 28th person todie by the execution because of
(45:42):
the death penalty.
And since it was brought back Ithink it was a 70 something
that they brought it back.
Anyway.
The reason for that, though, isthat oh, I'm sorry, it's 57.
They're 57 currently on deathrow.
So the reason they implementedthis new way of killing people,
(46:06):
but legally, is because, like Isaid, they couldn't get the
drugs because they've had ashortage a national shortage on
a lot of different drugs allacross the board, so that's
where the bill came in, so nowthey're just waiting, basically,
and I don't know what else totell you on that, honestly.
(46:27):
Interestingly enough, I thinkthat Nathaniel Coe Jr has sued
the state and the prison systemsmore often than anyone I've
ever seen in my life, like in2015,.
He lost the right to his airconditioning, for whatever
reason, and he took them tocourt over that.
He's taken them to court overthe procedure, like I said, with
(46:48):
the paperwork or whatever thatdidn't get turned in.
He's appealed for clemencyevery time it's been available
to do so, never been granted.
However, I do want to notesince 1976, 82% of Louisiana's
death sentences have beenoverturned by appeals.
Serious violations quote thatoccurred at trial.
(47:13):
Most sentences were reduced tolife.
Some were completely exonerated.
Obviously, there is some kindof fundamental inequity that is
systematically failing inLouisiana over these death
sentences, but this man is amultiple murderer, he is a
serial killer.
(47:33):
He was convicted and sentencedand I appreciate the checks and
the balances, but something'sgotta give and if anything
happens in the future, I'll besure to update everybody and I'm
going to leave you guys withone last time what the family
representative said at that 2012meeting on the death penalty
(47:57):
panel.
And you guys, I'll leave asource link or a link in the
source notes episode notes forthat YouTube video that I got
that from and you should listento the whole thing.
It's very good, very succinctand not like my hour or so
droning on, but it goes over alot of the different nuances of
(48:17):
the case and covers it in abite-sized version.
And I've also got all of theother links that'll be down
there and you can look atpictures and things like that
that I found and came across.
That'll be attached to thewebsite on the blog post there.
If you get a minute rate reviewwhat's up, you can even text.
(48:39):
You can send me a text.
Some of the platforms that youlisten they allow you to click a
button down there.
It's at the very top of theepisode notes, or snow, whatever
.
It is down there underneath theepisode.
In the description it says textus now.
You click that and you can sendus a text.
It comes immediately to myphone, no email or nothing.
Thank you so much for comingback.
(49:00):
I still love you, awesome nerds, thank you.
Check us out All of our socialsTwitter, x, whatever, or TikTok
.
Check out the website.
If you want to support the show, you can go to Patreon Sin
Lawsome.
Thank you guys so much.
Take care out there.
Additional trigger warnings include murder of
children and some sexual assault.
On August 6, 1987, lawenforcement agencies in Caddo
Parish had just arrested one ofthe most disturbing serial
killers to ever hit Louisiana,at least up to that point.
Come with us as we follow thegruesome trail left by Nathaniel
(00:22):
Code Jr, who had left death anddestruction in his wake for
over three years, between 1984and 1987.
Join us as we unravel thedistinct signature created by a
volatile killer, and then hangon as we inspect the crime
scenes together and discuss justhow a predator becomes such a
disturbed individual.
(00:43):
Is it genetics, his upbringingor both?
Today on Sin Law, episode 28,part two the Shreveport serial
killer.
Hey, how are you doing thisweek?
(01:06):
I hope you're not too mad at mefor leaving you hanging last
week but as promised, here'spart two.
It jumps right back in becauseall I did was split that sucker
in half.
So I hope you enjoy the rest ofthe episode.
Let me know what you think.
Thanks, so I don't want anybodyto be kind of like fumbling
around in the dark here.
Last week we got all the way upto his second set of official
(01:28):
murders.
There I usually refer to him asthe Chaney murders.
There was the family of fourthat were murdered and then the
two youngest girls were leftalive.
And we're picking right back upimmediately after the murders
where we're about to find outthat Code was again standing
outside in the crowd talkingabout those murders.
Okay, and it was also notedthat he was outside in the crowd
(01:51):
of onlookers as the scene wasbeing investigated and so forth.
Things go further on, from July19th 85 to February 21st of 86.
Yeah, there was anotherhomicide of a 54 year old,
(02:14):
johnny B Jenkins.
His sister found his body atabout 1030 on the 21st of
February and he had been deadtwo or three weeks when he was
found.
So he could have been killed asearly as January of 86.
He said, or the report said,that he had been stabbed
multiple times and again he was.
(02:35):
Code was suspected but nevercharged.
Right before his body was foundin February, february 3rd,
remember, code married Verameh.
They moved into the house acouple blocks from the Cedar
Grove neighborhood, the Johnny BJenkins homicide.
His body was found on the 21st.
The next one that is linked butnot proven was the Jake Mills
(02:58):
homicide.
He's a six-year-old man.
He was found lying on the floorof his home and he may have
known his attacker and he hadbeen stabbed multiple times as
well.
Again, suspect, never charged.
So, minus the Jake Mills,johnny B Jenkins and Monica
Renee Barnum and Wes Burke, soyou've got one, two, three, four
(03:21):
possible others Outside ofthose four, if you don't count
those, we already have deborahford, billy joe harris and
vivian colbert cheney, jerrycolbert and carletha colbert,
and then deborah and ford.
So you have those five.
(03:42):
That all occurred before 1986,before he was married to his
wife.
If you count the other onesthat weren't ever charged, he
was never charged.
He was always just a suspectand a person of interest, but he
was never charged.
You add those four to thosefive, that would give you nine
already.
But as it stands the officialrecord is five.
(04:02):
Up to that point, every serialkiller, all of the ones we've
covered, even they all have acertain point, when things start
to unravel, when things startto come to a fever pitch.
You know that is their tippingpoint July 85, 86, as far as we
(04:22):
know, he got married, he movedinto his house Nothing big or
crazy in the year of 86 that weare aware of, unless you want to
count the other two murdersthey say happened in 86.
But we don't know for sure.
He was never charged.
And these murders, up to thispoint, especially in Louisiana,
(04:44):
in Shreveport, there was anassistant police chief that
described them as like nothinghe'd ever seen.
He'd never seen anything morevicious in 25 years of being a
police officer filer, who saidthat they were that Deborah Ann
Ford and the Carletha Colbertmurders.
(05:05):
They were strikingly similar inso much as they were
manipulative.
They had a showy kind of I'vegot the control over you and a
strong sense of domination overand control of the victims.
Strong sense of domination overand control of the victims.
(05:28):
Now, from what I hear and fromwhat I've read, the bodies in
these were similarly posed, sosimilarly posed that you could
have put one next to the otherand they would have been nearly
not entirely, but nearlyidentical, which is bananas to
me.
But again, we're talking abouta distinctive signature serial
(05:48):
killer.
So a serial killer in and ofitself is crazy.
And then they have the thingsthat they do.
Most of the time there's somekind of MO, but in a signature
they can't help but do the samething.
Now some people say that becauseof the differences in between
the two, that they may or maynot have been the same person.
(06:10):
Because they say, well, hedidn't.
Um, he brought the gag with himthe second time, because the
first murder, with Deborah, heused clothing from the home and
the second one he brought theduct tape with him.
So they're saying, oh, becausethat that's then that's
obviously different, that maynot be the same one.
(06:30):
Um, no, that's, that's alearning from your mistakes type
thing, making sure you comeprepared, which is exactly what
he did.
He obviously prepared andplanned all of these things out
in his mind ahead of time, whichis also why he brought the gun
to the second set, because thatwas used to control the victims.
(06:52):
He knew he was going to have aharder time, especially being
one against however many, andobviously they had to have the
fear put in them to be able tokeep them under control, which
was a but I mean like and thatgave him an extra added,
heightened element of his needto control.
It came after his tipping point,so I was talking about that
(07:16):
earlier.
It starts to go downhill.
Really easy to see where codestarted to take that unraveling.
He pulled that thread right.
17 days after the murders ofthe cheney household he struck
again, but this time he made thenumber one rule that all serial
(07:39):
killers are supposed to live byor what, what I would assume
they do you can't kill someoneconnected to you or close to you
.
You can't make that link forthe investigators right, you've
got to keep them impersonal.
Well, he screwed the pooch onthat one On August 5th 1987.
(08:03):
And this is really sad.
Code went to his grandfather'shouse and because obviously he
was known in that household, theonly really crappy part is that
his grandfather probablywouldn't have let him in because
(08:24):
there were many witnesses whotestified later that you know he
had tried to cut ties with codethe grandfather had because he
was scared of him.
Um, because of the many timesthat you know things have
happened before he, he had beenknown to do drugs and things of
that nature and he just wasn'tvery reliable.
And also he often came to hisgrandfather because, I mean, his
(08:45):
grandfather helped raise him,him and his great aunt, and they
generally had a rockyrelationship.
Like after all of his otherfamily members died, the
grandfather was the last onethat he really wanted to go be
with, but he didn't have muchelse family and he would go and
ask his grandfather William TCode, he would ask him for money
.
Grandfather, william T Code, hewould ask him for money.
He also lived in Shreveport andon August 4th, william, he had
(09:11):
been working in his yard with acouple of uh, a friend of his
had two grandsons and they hadcome over to help him with the
yard.
They did it a lot.
They I mean like they wouldcome over and help him with the
yard and then sleep over andthen like go home the next.
Like that's how close this,this bunch were.
They had last been seen out inthe yard at about 8 pm and that
was when the grandparent of thetwo boys had given permission to
(09:37):
the boys to spend the nightover the phone.
Now, the next morning she wassupposed they were supposed to
come home, home because theywere supposed to go do stuff.
They had plans that evening andthis is how bad it had gotten
for for William T Code, the 73year old grandfather of
Nathaniel Code, it had gotten sobad that he always kept his
doors locked and he had steelburglar bars on his windows and
(10:00):
doors because he was thatconcerned about someone breaking
in, or possibly his grandsonbreaking in.
So when Miss Williams realizedthat it was getting later in the
morning and then the boyshadn't shown back up.
She went to go by the house tosee what was going on.
There was no sign of forcedentry.
Everything was locked up tighttight and even though nobody was
(10:24):
answering her knocking andyelling, she could hear music
playing.
It was later discovered therewas a television on and,
unfortunately for her, throughthe window she could see a bound
foot.
So she knew that there wassomething wrong.
The night before, like I said,they had been working in the
yard and the two boys one was8-year-old Eric Williams, the
(10:47):
other one was 12-year-old, joeRobinson, fun-loving, sweet boys
helping out their friend of thefamily, you know, just doing
what 8 and 12-year-olds do and12 year olds do.
(11:10):
And later, based on thediscovery of the bodies, miss
williams, she obviously she wentback home, called the police
again.
No cell phone, she had to go toa landline.
She returned with her brother,niece and granddaughter to the
house before the cops ever gotthere and they used her key to
open the burglar bars on one ofthe windows and miss williams
and her brother discovered thebodies of the two boys and mr
(11:30):
william, and again, the bodieshad been in separate rooms, each
victim in a different part ofthe house.
Little joe, who was 12, he wasfound lying face down on the
living room couch.
He had been struck in the headand they say that it was hard
enough to like daze him, so itwas a good hit, but it wasn't a
(11:55):
death blow.
So they know that he didn't dieinstantly from that.
He had bruises that were on hislike shoulders, beneath his
skin and over both of hiscollarbones, so it was almost
like somebody had pushedpressure down on his like
shoulders, uh, beneath the skinand over both of his collarbones
.
So it was almost like somebodyhad pushed pressure down on his
upper, the upper part of hisbody, or like trying to hold him
down, maybe.
And his ankles were tiedtogether with white plastic cord
and again each of them weretied with a gap between like the
(12:18):
handcuffs and that had beenused to go back up to his hands,
behind his back, one wrist andthe other.
And then there was a looselength of cord that was around
his neck, that held a gag in hismouth and that had been doubled
and used to strangle him.
The boy Joe, joe had been foundin nothing but his underwear and
(12:46):
that was the same for Eric aswell.
They had on underwear againinside out.
And when they found eric, whowas eight, he was face down
between two twin beds in thesmall bedroom and he it looked
like he had been dragged fromone of the beds and there was a
plastic rope that held a gagthat was around his neck and his
(13:09):
hands had been tied,identically to how Joe was tied.
And then the killer tookelectrical cord as an extra
because he didn't have enough ofthe other one to finish tying
up the ankles, and then he usedanother piece of electrical cord
to strangle him and there wasno sign of a struggle and, like
(13:32):
I said, he was only wearing apair of underwear.
So the two boys were murderedin about the same fashion as the
other victims.
Yes, it was brutal, yes, theyhad been bound, yes, they had
been strangled, and that's allpersonal as it is, but all very
similar.
There was no overkill.
Once they were dead, they weredead.
(13:53):
There wasn't a whole lot ofother pieces to that.
It didn't show any like emotionor personal.
The reason I say that isbecause that's completely
different when we come toWilliam the 73-year-old 74, 73,
74.
I've got different reports, buteither way, well into his 70s
(14:14):
he was found face down in bedwearing his nightclothes.
He was found exactly the same,with electrical cord and the
tele.
There was a telephone cord thatwas used to hold a gag in place
around his neck.
Now his autopsy showed somethingstarkly just different,
(14:37):
completely different from allthe other victims of nathaniel
coke.
So so when McCormick did thisautopsy, he found that there was
initially a very heavy blow tothe side of his head that in and
of itself could have causeddeath all by itself.
He had been beaten so severelyabout the head with bare hands,
(15:03):
with fists.
It wasn't, it was obviouslyblunt force trauma, but there
was so much brain hemorrhagingAgain that alone could have
killed him.
He had been stabbed 13 times.
He had, according to this crimescene evidence, he had rolled
side to side, back and forth,from back to front and been
(15:27):
stabbed repeatedly.
And he couldn't have done thison his own, he had to have been
manually moved.
So Code was rolling him over,stabbing him, rolling him back
over, stabbing him again.
He was stabbed five times inthe chest, seven times in the
back and there was one stabwound to his right upper arm
that severed a major artery.
(15:47):
There was no sign of a struggle, none.
So he said, obviously, mccormick, he said obviously this is the
same guy who killed all theother people.
He said that William Code, thegrandfather he, died from the
(16:09):
overall cumulative.
He couldn't say for sure whichone specifically killed him, but
the overall effect, the bloodloss, the severe beating, the
brain hemorrhaging, all of itcombined is his cause of death.
There was also, because of theamount of beating and because of
the brutal viciousness of theattack, there was medium
(16:30):
velocity blood spatter found onone of the walls in his bedroom
where he was killed, right.
So McCormick later testifiedthat same work of the signature,
the signature serial killer,but the difference here was that
there was a personal, emotional, rage-type incentive for the
(16:51):
killing of William and also thatthere was no sign of forced
entry.
All the other cases he'd had topry the window open, he's had
to pull the screen off, he's hadto something, but not here.
So it was probably someone thatthese people knew and that the
victims themselves were probablyfound the way that they were
(17:14):
probably murdered, the way thatthey were found.
So it would have been Joe.
As soon as he opened the doorhe was hit over the head, gag,
tied, strangled.
Williams in the front bedroomwas probably surprised as he was
sleeping in the twin bedroombed.
Twin bed bedroom, drug out ofbed surprised Tide killed.
(17:37):
He said that the focus was aWilliam code and he said that
there were the overkill and thebeating repeatedly over the head
and it showed the emotionalrelationship between the victim
and the murderer.
Also, again, just like in theChaney homicides, no money was
(17:58):
found in the residence, althoughWilliam Coe did cash checks
totaling about a grand the daybefore, william Co did cash
checks totaling about a grandthe day before, and they also
had a small pistol that wasmissing.
There was a set of keys andsomething else, but they found a
knife and a set of keys in astorm drain that was like 600
(18:20):
feet from the residence right,and the knife that was found in
the storm drain was similar tothe set that was in william's
kitchen and the key fit the door.
So once they get all that andthey have a scene processed,
guess who walks up to talk tothe officers?
Yeah, mr code.
(18:43):
Nathaniel code Jr walks up andsays hey, I'm the grandson.
I, you know, I'm here to help,you know whatever.
So they decided to take him in.
But before they do that theytalked to some other witnesses.
There was a neighbor whotestified that he saw Nathaniel
Code Jr exit the house sometimeafter 8 pm the night of the
murders and he said he saw himshut the door and then the iron
(19:05):
bars and check to make sure theywere locked.
Then he walked out to a vehicle.
He said that he saw co-drivedown the street.
He stopped to say hello throughthe car window and he
introduced the female passengerin the car as his new wife.
Then the two drove off.
John uh the neighbor.
He thought the situation wasweird because mr william the
(19:27):
grandfather always walked gueststo the door to make sure that
the bars were locked and he knewthat William would never have
let Nathaniel in the housebecause they had had kind of a
falling out because he had askedto borrow money from him.
And he said no, all of thesethings pointed to why was he
(19:48):
there?
Why did he not get followed byhis grandpa to lock the door,
make sure the bars were lockedbehind them?
So all these things are kind ofstacking up.
Okay.
So, like I said, after thebodies were found he code
actually approached the officersintroduced himself.
As the grandson said, he hadreceived a call the night before
.
This was after he got into hisinterrogation.
(20:10):
He said he received a call thenight before from his grandpa at
about like 10, 30, 11 and hisgrandpa had asked him to come to
the house complaining becausethere were people hanging out
around the house and he didn'twant him there.
So he said that he went over tothe house at like 2 am on the
morning of August 5th and hesaid that his grandpa let him in
the house.
He checked the house, the areaand then he left on his bike.
(20:32):
He said he returned once againto make sure that nobody was
outside and then he rode hisbike home.
And because he went down andagreed to give a statement
because you know, at this pointthe police are like duh he's the
last person to see hisgrandfather alive they got very
suspicious because, like I said,they'd already been suspicious
of him for the other murders aswell.
They just had no proof they gethim to come down to the station
and he further goes into detailabout stating he touched
(20:57):
certain things and he lists themoff.
He touched the vacuum, the fan,the humidifier, a phone phone
all the night before and shocker, no, shocker.
Those are all of the items fromwhich the cords were used to
bind the victims.
Which is odd, because if you'recoming to check for people
hanging out outside the house,why would you be touching the
(21:19):
vacuum, the fan and thehumidifier, the phone maybe you
could get away with.
But all the other stuff Come onand eventually, I guess because
they had such a good rapportCode, agreed to give them his
clothes and the shoes that hehad worn the day before and he
gave them fingerprints, palmprints, all that good stuff and
(21:41):
they matched the Chaney homicide.
So at that point he's booked,he's questioned and arrested for
the Chaney homicides.
He later is informed that theshoes that he gave to the lab
for the police office, the crimelab, had located medium
velocity blood spatter, exactlylike, was in the bedroom of his
(22:03):
father or grandfather.
They couldn't prove whose bloodit was because they just didn't
have enough and at that timethey were lucky that they were
doing anything and other thanlike being able to tell it was
human.
So later they got consent fromvera to search the residence and
they see several cut electricalcords and also because he was
(22:28):
in construction and plumbing andall that stuff.
He had professional grade ducttape To kind of tie it all
together.
They think that the majority ofthe reason for the murder of
William was because NathanielCode was upset because his
grandfather had refused to loanhim any money.
And there was multiple people,multiple witnesses, that
(22:48):
testified to Code asking for aloan just prior to the murders.
And he'd even gone so far as toapproach narcotics officers in
Shreveport and offered hisservice as a CI, a confidential
informant, because he knew ofpeople that were dealing drugs
and he needed to pay one of them$100.
Yeah, something is obviouslynot connecting in his mind,
(23:11):
because that's not something.
A normal logical progressionthinker, I don't know how to say
that, but like, in your rightmind, you would not go up to a
narc and be like, hey, I owethis drug dealer $100.
I'll be a CI if you'll help mepay him back.
It just that sounded all kindsof crazy to me.
It would stand to reason thathe wouldn't have any money to
(23:34):
his name, right?
Well, another witness, a cousinnamed Beatrice Holmes, said she
got a call from Nathaniel CoteJr the day the bodies were found
and he invited her to come tohis house.
The two them shared a gram ofcocaine, which coach supplied.
Then they went to the liquorstore where the code purchased
beer and then on the way home hestopped and purchased another
(23:57):
gram of cocaine.
They were shooting cocaine whenthey were interrupted by a
phone call informing them oftheir grandpa's death and her I
don't't know uncle, whatever heis and at that point they had
the witness, the cousin.
She testified that a gram ofcocaine sold for about $150 at
the time.
So he had $300 plus enoughmoney for beer.
(24:20):
Where do you get that money Ifhe was just asking, immediately
prior to grandpa dying, for aloan?
But he had 300 to spend oncocaine.
Maybe that's why he had tospend the 300, maybe that's why
he wanted the loan, who knows?
On august 6th 1987 he wasarrested for the cheney
(24:40):
homicides because, remember, thepalm prints match the ones that
were found at the scene of thathomicide scene.
So he's been named in eightother homicides, including the
killing of his grandfather andthe two sweet boys.
Now nothing about this is goingto be satisfying.
(25:04):
I apologize in advance.
Please forgive me.
This is where it starts to geta little infuriating.
So initially, when they start,they do the indictments.
The grand jury indicts code forinitially they do the five
first five victims that they canconfidently tie him to.
(25:27):
So that's Deborah Ford and theChaney Colbert Harris murders,
right?
So that's five total victims.
And because of the way that thedockets were worded I guess
they decided to sever the Fordmurder, deborah Ford's murder,
(25:48):
from the other four.
Okay, reasons probably able toexplain, but most of it just
comes down to the fact that theyhad the majority of the
evidence that they had wassubstantial and they were the
most confident in those fourmurders in that one day that one
act.
Okay.
So he was indicted first degreemurder all four.
(26:10):
So he had four charges of firstdegree murder.
For the Cheney homicides Juryselection began on September
1990, which is actually prettyquick, I would say, because the
majority of the stuff that we doin Louisiana these days it
seems like it takes two to threeyears just to get to a point of
doing a trial and then juryselection gets delayed at least
(26:31):
twice.
So with the code trial it wentfrom September 17th to October
6th.
So 12 days, is that right?
13?
No, 13 and 6 would be 19 days.
So three weeks give or take,with weekends and they find him
(26:52):
guilty of the quadruple homicideof Vivian, billy, joe, jerry
and Carlita.
Now he's also been charged withkilling Deborah Fordah, ford
william code, joe robinson anderic williams, but he's not
prosecuted for those.
And on october 9th three days,because that's standard and
(27:18):
we've talked about this beforethey have to have a cooling off
period for the jury in deathpenalty cases because they have
to give them time to simmer downfrom the guilty verdict and
then then they have to do likeanother trial, mock trial type
situation where now they canintroduce different evidence.
But the interesting thing aboutthis one was they were allowed,
(27:39):
because of the specific type ofkilling, because of the modus
operandi, the specific anddistinctive signature that he
left at all these crime scenes,to be able to show the
proclivity or the majorityreasoning, a belief to be that
(27:59):
these had all been committed bythe same person.
They had to get specialpermission to actually allow
evidence of other crimes thathad not been adjudicated, which
simply means he had not beenfound guilty or not guilty of
those crimes yet.
But they were allowed to talkabout them at the trial, which
is usually a big no, no, no, no,no, because you're only
(28:24):
supposed to be tried on yourguilt or innocence based on the
crime that you're being chargedwith, not other crimes that you
have not been proven to havecommitted yet.
They made a lot of a big dealabout this and it went on
forever and ever, and that wasthe major assignment of error
(28:45):
that they pled in his appeal wasthat they used the evidence of
other crimes in both the guiltand sentencing, because you can
use it majority of the time.
You can use it in thesentencing phase when they
decided if it's death or life,but in the guilt phase you're
not supposed to do it unless youhave a really good reason, and
(29:06):
it had to have have.
Basically, it has to beindependently relevant, so it
couldn't just be oh well, heprobably did this too.
It has to have relevance andstand on its own in its
revelance and it has to outweighthe damage it could do in
creating a bias in the jury.
I know that sounds like a lot,but basically the law says that
(29:30):
the juror could get confused andwhen there are other issues
that are introduced, they may ormay not be able to
differentiate right.
So exceptions to this rule iswhen they use other crimes for
purposes other than to show thecharacter of the defendant.
(29:52):
So, basically, you can't say,oh, look, how bad of a guy he is
because he did this.
It's oh look, this is the exactsame ligature knot he used in
this one, this one and this one.
So you have eight people tiedup in the exact same way.
You're not saying, oh look, howbad of a guy he is.
You're saying look at the exactsame knot he ties every time.
(30:13):
If he did this one, then I mean, obviously the person who tied
that knot had to have tied thisknot, and that's the difference.
They are saying that it'sindependently relevant, that the
evidence used from the othercrimes, even though he hadn't
been fully adjudicated.
It's relevant because itdoesn't just say, oh, he's such
(30:37):
a bad guy, he did all these badthings.
It shows his distinct signatureand that was the major
difference, meaning his appealgot overturned eventually.
However, let's get back to thejury deciding whether or not he
was guilty.
What do you guys think?
Oh, yeah, they let him off.
I'm kidding, that would beawful.
No, they found him guilty offour charges of first degree
(31:00):
murder, like I said already, buthe was also sentenced to death.
Yeah, death, death and death.
So that happens, and this iswhere it's going to get really
upsetting.
He was found guilty on October6th.
On October 9th he got the deathpenalty.
(31:23):
He was formally sentenced todeath on.
December 28th.
Now they waited that long forthe formal sentencing because in
a death penalty case you get anautomatic post-conviction
review and a motion for a newtrial and that has to go through
all of the places places.
It has to go all the way up anddown and then it takes a lot of
(31:46):
time.
So the very end of 1990,december 28th 1990, he was
formally sentenced to deathafter his acquittal and motion
for a new trial were denied andthe caddo judge, gail k ham
Hamilton, sentenced him to death.
That was December 28th 1991,990.
(32:09):
Three years later, december 2nd, the Supreme Court
automatically they review alldeath penalty cases.
We've talked about this.
They affirm his sentence, hisguilt and his death sentence.
August 8th of 94, so ninemonths later, a judge signed a
(32:33):
death warrant for the executionof Nathaniel Code.
Because apparently once you getsentenced to death this is and
I think this is why people waitsit so long on death row.
Now there's a lot of a lot ofreasoning for this.
And what happens when you aresentenced to death?
(32:54):
Either by a jury or it can onlybe by jury, otherwise you get
life.
However, the way this works isyou're sentenced to death, it
automatically goes to thesupreme court.
If that's affirmed, the guiltand the sentence, then it's
turned over to the districtcourt.
This is in louisiana only, soevery state's different and when
(33:16):
it goes back to the districtcourt, the district court has to
sign the execution warrant,which then starts the ball
rolling in the process ofexecution.
Okay, now Louisiana has been onkind of a hiatus.
It hasn't really been um,what's the word I'm looking for?
It hasn't been stayed or therehasn't been like a memororium or
however.
You say that.
Oh my gosh, I'm sucking today.
(33:39):
Anyway, my point being is thatthey haven't really said we're
not going to do them, butbasically they've said we don't
have the drugs to do thembecause lethal injection up
until this year and our newgovernor, up until this year we
could only do, we could onlycarry out death sentences by
lethal injection.
However, we now have aRepublican sitting as our
(34:01):
governor, as Mr Jeff Landry hasofficially signed in.
It was done, it's a done deal.
There are now two other methodsof execution.
Anybody guess, any guesses?
One of them is, well, still,lethal injection, obviously, but
(34:24):
now and keep in mind, it's been13 years, I think, since the
last person was executed.
However, now they're adding thenitrogen gas, the suffocation
(34:45):
method basically.
And also they're bringing backOlsparky, that's right,
electrocution.
So they're saying that and thisbill has been signed, it has
been passed, it is now an act ofthe Louisiana Criminal Court of
Procedures.
Now we can kill them by lethalinjection, nitrogen suffocation
(35:06):
or the electric chair.
I am surprised they didn't gowith.
Oh my god, what state was thathere recently?
They now have, or they theystill.
I don't even know if they evertook it off, but firing squad
you can choose to be killed by afiring squad.
I'll have to look that up andput it on my tiktok or something
but, yeah, still think so.
(35:29):
Apparently none of that startsgoing, though, until the judge
from the district court wherethey were initially found guilty
and sentenced, and all of theother appeals and everything
else.
All of that time has run out.
They've exhausted all of thoseappeals.
They've run out of time forwhatever.
Once he signs that execution,everybody else gets made aware.
(35:52):
Then they have a date, that'sset and then that counts down
and that gets that whole ballrolling.
Now, interestingly, codeactually sued I believe it was
the warden or someone of theprison because some sort of
procedural failure to makesomeone aware, because you have
(36:13):
a whole laundry list of peoplethat have to be given a copy of
the lethal injection procedurefor execution.
If you don't do that, it can bea big deal for execution.
If you don't do that, it can bea big deal.
And apparently he tried to makeit a big deal and nothing came
of it.
He was still sentenced to death.
(36:33):
All of his appeals none of themwere any good.
I mean everything from the timehe was arrested.
Basically, he never got anotherbreak, I guess you could say
Because for a long time there Isay a long time, it was from 84
to 87 that he pretty much gotaway with it and if he hadn't,
(36:54):
like, stepped in and introducedhimself into the murder of his
grandfather I mean eventually,I'm sure, because there were
just too many advances intechnology and things like that
that eventually it would havehappened.
But it might have taken alittle bit longer.
He may have been able toabscond from justice and got and
lived, you know, like theGolden State Killer that lived
(37:17):
an entire lifetime and now wasjust now starting to serve time
for the murders he committed,the atrocities that he committed
.
So 1990, december 1990, is whenhe was actually convicted.
Here's where you're gonna hateme.
He's still alive, he's still ondeath row.
(37:38):
They are still arguing.
This man has been on death rowtwo years longer than I've been
alive.
Yeah, almost 40 years almost.
And and the part that gets meis that he's had an execution
(38:07):
warrant signed three differenttimes, not once, not twice.
Three separate times, separatetimes.
(38:28):
That's how many times he's hada warrant signed for by the
judge saying let's get this guyout of here.
And then what happens?
Well, I'm gonna tell you acouple times.
It's been a stay by the governoror something along those lines.
It's's been various reasons,whether it be the governor, or
because technically, by law, thegovernor doesn't have to have
(38:52):
permission from the probationand parole board.
He doesn't have permission fromthem to stay in execution.
He has to have permission togrant clemency or to commute,
but he does not have to havepermission to extend clemency or
to commute, but he does nothave to have permission to
extend the time a little bit.
So basically what it comes downto is that you know he's he's
(39:14):
had some time and he's gottenthe ability.
Like I said, he's, he's hadthree different ones signed, but
his first one was initiallysigned, so he was affirmed.
His life sentence was affirmedDecember 2nd 93.
Nine months or so later, inAugust of 94, they signed his
(39:36):
first death warrant.
Okay, but not even before theend of the month.
17 days later it was recalled.
And then in February of 95,they signed another one.
No execution takes place.
Now I did read the law on thisone Nothing happens if they
(39:58):
don't do it.
By the time they say to,nothing happens, it, just it
invalidates it and they have tostart over.
So that's what happened in thiscase.
They just didn't execute him.
So again, february 27th, seconddeath warrant filed no
execution.
June 19th, 95th, third deathwarrant filed but even though it
was scheduled for july 28th1985, it didn't happen.
(40:21):
So that's three differentjudges that have signed three
different warrants and it stillhasn't happened.
On july 10th of 95 he did uh putin a post-conviction relief
petition, um for like a writ ofhabeas corpus motion for
(40:45):
evidentiary hearing, and hefiled that himself pro se.
And then he filed a motionagain in 97 for an extension of
time to file additionalpleadings for the
post-conviction proceeding orpetition the supreme court in
1999.
So this he had.
His first death warrant wassigned in 94.
(41:08):
This is now 99, and they'restill going over a
post-conviction relief petition.
Apparently, of the 17 claims inthat relief petition they took
five of them on.
The Supreme Court did.
And then in 2003, he actuallyappeared in district court with
(41:30):
his attorneys for a hearing ofthis post-conviction relief and
it is the first of at least ninecourt appearances that he made
between 2003 and 2006.
Finally, in 2008, hispost-conviction claims are
denied.
But that still has to go backto the Supreme Court.
(41:53):
They have to uphold that.
If it's not upheld then theysend it back.
They have 365 days to filefederal post-conviction appeals.
So this is just the state like.
This is the state levelpost-conviction appeals okay If
it's denied by the Supreme Court, if they say, if they uphold
(42:14):
the decision by the state,that's the end of his state
level post-conviction appeals?
He has one year to file federalpost-conviction appeals.
That was in 2008.
And now 2009,.
His appeal was still underreview.
He's still in Angola and thisis 2009,.
So five years ago the familiesat this point are beyond
(42:38):
frustrated.
The Supreme Court is stillreviewing because of course,
they'd be busy, it happens.
The Supreme Court is stillreviewing because of course
they'd be busy, it happens.
But we're talking about 2009 iswhen they're talking about the
review, and then 2008, the statedenied it and it was sent away.
So 2008, all the way I know,till 2012, 2012 they have a
(43:06):
hearing or a meeting of theAdministration of Criminal
Justice.
They held a panel on the deathpenalty and this was in March of
2019, march 12th.
That has a snippet of it that Icompletely and utterly borrowed
.
That's what I'm going to gowith Albert Colbert Jr, colbert,
(43:33):
the family member of JerryColbert, vivian Colbert Chaney,
Carlitha Colbert and the twogirls he is allowed to speak and
give a statement at thathearing and it's powerful.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
Our mother was a strong woman, the one that we
needed to lean on, but ourmother did not talk too much
about the death of her daughter,her son and her grandbaby, but
(44:13):
when she did, she always askedthis one question why?
Why did he do what he did to mychildren?
So I would also like to askthis panel today after so many
years, why has nothing been done?
Speaker 1 (44:33):
Why has nothing been done?
Excellent question.
Now, apparently, according toJeff Landry and the reason that
he signed this new bill isbecause he's trying to get
justice for the families whohave been waiting years and
years and years, because, as ofright now, there are 70 people
(44:53):
waiting on Louisiana's death row.
But there's a lot of, you know,debate on the death penalty.
There always has been, therealways will be debate on the
death penalty.
There always has been, therealways will be.
But this is one of those thingsthat I feel like it should be
let's do it or let's not do it.
Let's not just say we're gonnaor not, like figure it out one
(45:15):
way or the other.
I just don't like the peoplewho don't shit or get off the
pot.
And Louisiana is one of the 27states where the death penalty
still exists, even though it'sbeen 13 years since we executed
anybody.
The last one was GeraldBordelon, which we're going to
cover him.
His was death by lethalinjection and he actually waived
all of his appeals.
And he is the 28th person todie by the execution because of
(45:42):
the death penalty.
And since it was brought back Ithink it was a 70 something
that they brought it back.
Anyway.
The reason for that, though, isthat oh, I'm sorry, it's 57.
They're 57 currently on deathrow.
So the reason they implementedthis new way of killing people,
(46:06):
but legally, is because, like Isaid, they couldn't get the
drugs because they've had ashortage a national shortage on
a lot of different drugs allacross the board, so that's
where the bill came in, so nowthey're just waiting, basically,
and I don't know what else totell you on that, honestly.
(46:27):
Interestingly enough, I thinkthat Nathaniel Coe Jr has sued
the state and the prison systemsmore often than anyone I've
ever seen in my life, like in2015,.
He lost the right to his airconditioning, for whatever
reason, and he took them tocourt over that.
He's taken them to court overthe procedure, like I said, with
(46:48):
the paperwork or whatever thatdidn't get turned in.
He's appealed for clemencyevery time it's been available
to do so, never been granted.
However, I do want to notesince 1976, 82% of Louisiana's
death sentences have beenoverturned by appeals.
Serious violations quote thatoccurred at trial.
(47:13):
Most sentences were reduced tolife.
Some were completely exonerated.
Obviously, there is some kindof fundamental inequity that is
systematically failing inLouisiana over these death
sentences, but this man is amultiple murderer, he is a
serial killer.
(47:33):
He was convicted and sentencedand I appreciate the checks and
the balances, but something'sgotta give and if anything
happens in the future, I'll besure to update everybody and I'm
going to leave you guys withone last time what the family
representative said at that 2012meeting on the death penalty
(47:57):
panel.
And you guys, I'll leave asource link or a link in the
source notes episode notes forthat YouTube video that I got
that from and you should listento the whole thing.
It's very good, very succinctand not like my hour or so
droning on, but it goes over alot of the different nuances of
(48:17):
the case and covers it in abite-sized version.
And I've also got all of theother links that'll be down
there and you can look atpictures and things like that
that I found and came across.
That'll be attached to thewebsite on the blog post there.
If you get a minute rate reviewwhat's up, you can even text.
(48:39):
You can send me a text.
Some of the platforms that youlisten they allow you to click a
button down there.
It's at the very top of theepisode notes, or snow, whatever
.
It is down there underneath theepisode.
In the description it says textus now.
You click that and you can sendus a text.
It comes immediately to myphone, no email or nothing.
Thank you so much for comingback.
(49:00):
I still love you, awesome nerds, thank you.
Check us out All of our socialsTwitter, x, whatever, or TikTok
.
Check out the website.
If you want to support the show, you can go to Patreon Sin
Lawsome.
Thank you guys so much.
Take care out there.
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