June 26, 2025 • 43 mins
In the small Louisiana town of Jennings, a troubling series of murders has remained unsolved for nearly two decades, revealing dark truths about how some communities value certain lives less than others. Between 2005 and 2009, eight women were found dead—Loretta Chasson, Ernestine Patterson, Kristen Gary Lopez, Whitney Dubois, Laconia "Muggy" Brown, Crystal Benoit Zeno, Brittany Gary, and Nicole Guillory—all connected through their struggles with addiction, involvement in sex work, and roles as police informants.
What makes these murders particularly disturbing isn't just their brutality but the web of suspicious circumstances surrounding the investigation. When Loretta Chasson's body was pulled from a canal, a deputy had mysteriously shown up at her friend's door asking about her whereabouts before the body was even identified. The chief detective purchased a truck from a jail inmate—a vehicle that had supposedly transported one of the victims on the day she disappeared—only to have it thoroughly cleaned before quickly reselling it. Multiple victims told loved ones they feared they would be "next," suggesting they knew their killer.
The community remains divided by more than just the railroad tracks that physically separate the affluent from the impoverished. As Sheriff Ricky Edwards repeatedly blamed the victims' "high-risk lifestyles" for their deaths, citizens grew increasingly suspicious of law enforcement involvement. A local figure named Frankie Richard—pimp, drug dealer, and friend to all victims—remained seemingly untouchable until his death in 2020. Most chilling were the allegations that jail staff regularly exchanged contraband for sexual favors with female inmates, and that some victims had witnessed murders committed by or at the behest of law enforcement officers.
Investigative journalist Ethan Brown's exhaustive research raised disturbing questions about systemic corruption in Jefferson Davis Parish, with whistleblowers within law enforcement promptly fired for speaking out. Were these women murdered because they knew too much? Were they eliminated by the very people sworn to protect them? The Jennings Eight case reminds us that when society renders people "invisible," justice becomes elusive. Share this episode with anyone who believes every life deserves equal protection under the law.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Carole Townsend (00:03):
If you know anything at all about small
southern towns, you know thatthey enjoy a unique reputation
all their own.
While most of them are friendly, welcoming, lawful and the
absolute picture of southernhospitality and charm, that's
not true of all of them.
We've all likely heard storiesabout a small southern town run
(00:28):
by an iron-fisted sheriff withhis hands in various pockets,
those pockets lined with crimesof all types.
I myself have looked intosouthern jurisdictions run by
such men, with drugs,prostitution, gambling and even
murder to their credit.
More than once.
(00:49):
I admit that I feared for mysafety.
Is there anything better than awell-told story?
I don't think so.
An engaging tale, told in theright place, at the right time
and by the right person,captures us.
It captures our imaginations.
(01:11):
It takes us away from the hereand now and carries us to the
what if?
When we were kids, was thereanything better than sitting
around a campfire, the cold,dark night at our backs, the
warmth and light of the firedrawing us closer, comforting us
as we listened to a well-spuntale?
(01:34):
Here in the South, a welcomingfront porch is often where we
spin our tales.
Now it's familiar and itwelcomes others to join us At
the end of the day when we'veput away our cares and
responsibilities for just a fewhours.
We sit and we talk, and maybewe rock in a comfortable chair
(01:58):
and we're taken back to a timewhen the story was the thing,
the only thing.
So join me tonight, won't you,as we step into another tale
that's rooted in truth, sodifficult to fathom that it
defies belief.
And to keep the dark and thecold at bay, I'll turn on the
(02:20):
light.
The following podcast containsmaterial that may be disturbing.
Listener discretion is advised.
(02:49):
There's another characteristicof small towns that we've all
heard at one time or another,and that's that there is a very
definite socioeconomic division,sometimes an actual line that
can be drawn separating thehaves from the have-nots.
There's a reason that we hearthe expression the other side of
(03:12):
the tracks.
In Jennings, louisiana, it'sliterally the railroad tracks in
town that draw that line.
On one side of the tracksyou'll find nice, comfortable
houses, expensive cars andbetter schools.
On the other side, you'll findsmall, dilapidated homes,
unkempt yards, old, broken-downcars and deserted businesses.
(03:40):
In our last episode we took alook at a baffling case of
serial killings that hauntedsouthern Louisiana.
The 12-year siege of BatonRouge, louisiana State
University and the surroundingarea, paralyzed women and
frustrated law enforcement, butthe cases, or many of them, were
(04:01):
finally solved and once againsouthern Louisiana could breathe
easy.
This siege of fear, however,left a scar that will likely
never heal.
People are more careful now,more wary, and that small-town
innocence has faded to a mereshadow of what it once was.
(04:21):
In its place lurks suspicionand locked doors.
The solved cases had nothing todo with corruption or dirty
cops.
Quite the opposite.
Local police and the fbi workedtirelessly to apprehend the
monsters who were raping,killing and in some cases even
(04:42):
mutilating women, and in somecases even mutilating women.
Both killers had been arrestedand convicted by the year 2004.
Imagine then when, on May 20,2005, the body of 28-year-old
Loretta Chasson was foundfloating in a canal by a
fisherman.
(05:02):
The fisherman, a soft-spokenman named Jerry Jackson, fished
from the bridge over the GrandMarais Canal.
Quite often he was preparing tocast his line into the water
that morning when he saw what hefirst thought to be a mannequin
bobbing and dipping in theslow-moving current.
Oddly, a recent theft ofmannequins had taken place in
(05:26):
the area, and that was the firstthing that came to Jerry's mind
when he saw the object in thecanal, but he thought mannequins
don't attract flies.
Jackson called 911 to reportwhat he had seen and within five
minutes about a dozen deputiesand detectives arrived on the
(05:48):
scene.
Shortly after they arrived,loretta's badly decomposed body
was fished from the water.
She was wearing blue jeans anda white t-shirt, and the
advanced decomposition of herbody made it impossible to
determine the manner of death aswell as her identity.
(06:10):
Police eventually identifiedher by using her fingerprints.
The autopsy toxicology screenshowed some drugs in her system,
but it wasn't clear as towhether the drugs contributed to
her death in any way.
Examiners also found evidenceof some bleeding under her scalp
.
The coroner estimated thatLoretta had been in the Grand
(06:32):
Marais Canal for about threedays.
The water and the marine life,combined with the suffocating
heat and humidity characteristicof Louisiana, made it
impossible to determineLoretta's cause of death, which
was listed as undetermined.
(06:53):
Loretta's body was found on theoutskirts of Jennings in the
Jefferson Davis Parish, deep inthe heart of Cajun country.
Jennings' official claim tofame is that it's the birthplace
of Louisiana oil.
Unofficially, jennings isunique and somewhat famous for
its darker history.
Loretta Chasson was a lovingwife, mother, sister, daughter
(07:30):
and friend.
She was no stranger to police,however, as she was also a sex
worker battling a cripplingaddiction to crack cocaine, as
so many were doing in southernLouisiana in the early 2000s.
You see, jennings is thehalfway point between Houston
and New Orleans, along the I-10corridor.
(07:53):
I-10 runs from Santa Monica,california, to Jacksonville,
florida, and that ribbon ofhighway carries more than
tourists and business travelers.
According to law enforcementofficials, i-10 is a major drug
corridor and the halfway point,jennings and the surrounding
area is saturated with illicitdrugs, from synthetic marijuana
(08:17):
to cocaine, heroin to fentanyl.
As with any other such corridorin the United States, such as
I-85 through Georgia stops alongthe way bleed these drugs into
the local populations, andcommunities are ravaged by both
the drugs and by the crime andviolence that always accompany
(08:39):
them.
It's interesting to note herethat Loretta's friend, a woman
named Barb Ann, watchedanxiously as police set up a
(09:00):
perimeter around the crime sceneand fished her friend's body
out of the Grand Marais Canal.
Barb Ann and Loretta's brother,nick, watched from a distance,
in fear and in silence.
You see, at that point no onehad reported Loretta missing.
So how did those two know to goto the canal at all?
(09:21):
Well, mysteriously, a deputyfrom Jefferson Davis Parish had
knocked on Barban's door thatvery morning asking when she had
last seen her friend.
When Barban asked him why hewanted to know that, he said we
think she might be missing.
And with that he turned andwalked away.
(09:44):
Shortly after the deputy's oddvisit, whispers began ruffling
through the neighborhood.
A woman's body had been foundin the canal.
Barbann called Nick and theyboth had a sinking feeling of
dread that that woman wasLoretta.
Nick remembered that the lasttime he had seen his sister
(10:05):
alive was at a Phillips 66 gasstation in Jennings.
Three days earlier he saw hissister willingly get into a car
with a man named Frankie Richard.
Frankie was very well connectedin Jennings' criminal
underworld, rife with drugs, sexand violence.
Everyone law enforcement,criminals and citizens alike
(10:35):
knew Frankie.
Anyway, later that same eveningLoretta was seen at the
Boudreaux Inn, a seedy hotel andbar famous for sex work and
drug activity.
There she was seen in thecompany of two other prostitutes
(10:56):
, friends of hers.
I'm going to take a minute hereto share an observation, a fact,
actually, that you probablyalready know, but I want to
share it anyway because itmatters in this story and
elsewhere.
There are people in this worldwho are invisible to many of us,
to polite society.
They're those who live on theedges, on the fringe of society,
(11:18):
whether by choice or bycircumstance.
They are the sex workers, thepeople with substance use
disorders, the mentally ill andthe homeless.
Of course, they're not reallyinvisible, but most people don't
actually want to see them.
They politely look the otherway or they dehumanize them by
(11:39):
labeling them as being this orthat.
The bottom line is that if oneof these invisible people was to
actually disappear, who wouldnotice, who would care and who
would take the time and make theeffort to find them or at least
to find out what happened tothem?
(12:00):
In Jennings, those living on thesouth side of the tracks the
wrong side believed that no onewould care.
They trusted neither theJennings PD nor the Jefferson
Davis Parish Sheriff's Office.
Such crimes in Jennings tendedto languish unsolved for years,
if they're ever solved.
Loretta was one of theinvisible people known and loved
(12:26):
by her family and friends, butmerely a statistic in the world
of media and law enforcement.
She did, after all, live ahigh-risk lifestyle.
She spent a good deal of timein and out of jail.
She committed the crimes ofprostitution using illegal drugs
, drugs and theft, but she was ahuman being and she was dead,
(12:54):
and she died under suspiciousand unusual circumstances.
Those who knew her knew thatshe didn't slip and fall into
the water by accident.
She didn't commit suicide, butshe knew things about people,
powerful people, who didn't wanttheir secrets known.
She was also an informant forcops regarding the drug trade in
(13:15):
Jennings and she knew thingsabout those same cops.
Her loved ones knew that much.
A reporter for the localJennings newspaper remembers
that the day after Loretta'sbody was found, he was inundated
with phone calls seeming topush the rumor of a serial
killer at work in Jennings.
(13:35):
While, yes, the murders in theBaton Rouge area had been
committed by two differentserial killers, this was
Jefferson Davis Parish.
This was a year after thosemurderers were apprehended and
this was a single death, notseveral.
Why were people talking about aserial killer?
(13:57):
Surprisingly, even cops,including then-Sheriff Ricky
Edwards, hinted that a serialkiller could be the culprit.
It just didn't make sense.
Less than a month afterLoretta's body was pulled from
the Grand Marais Canal on June17th, froggers in a dark bayou
(14:20):
about six miles from that canalwere quietly cruising the still
dark waters of the bayou in theblack of night, hunting frogs
for a hearty Cajun meal of friedfrog legs.
Fog blanketed the black waterand their flashlights
(14:42):
illuminated thick, stickyspiderwebs laced from tree to
tree.
Not long into their fishingexpedition, the froggers smelled
something sick and sweet androtten, that unmistakable scent
of death.
Once you've smelled it, younever forget it.
Following that smell, theydiscovered the body of Ernestine
(15:06):
Patterson floating in the water.
Her body too was badlydecomposed, and when a body is
in that condition it takesmonths to identify the person.
There were, however, obviouswounds to her body, deep cuts to
her throat and her face,bruises on her hands.
(15:26):
Examiners used bone tissue toeventually identify her.
Drugs were found in Ernestine'stalk screen as well.
And listen to this.
Ernestine and Loretta knew eachother.
They moved in the same circlesand knew a lot of the same
people.
They both had a relentless drughabit on their backs and they
(15:49):
both resorted to sex work tofeed that habit.
Of course, now that two womenwere dead and both dumped in
canals, the serial killer rumorbegan to gain traction again.
But in Ernestine's case, therewere also rumors circulating
that two men had killed herByron Chad Jones and Lawrence
(16:10):
Nixon.
Supposedly, ernestine hadapproached these two men,
offered Byron sex for money, andthen the three went to an
abandoned house to complete thetransaction.
The rumor was that these twomen killed Ernestine and dumped
her body in the bayou.
Nixon's wife even told police.
(16:31):
The two men showed up at herhouse with a large trash bag
filled with something and soakedwith blood.
The two men left the bag thereon the front porch and told her
that they killed Ernestine.
Nixon's own daughter saw herdad that night.
His clothes soaked in blood.
Later, eyewitnesses said thatthese men had left a jagged
(16:55):
hunting knife in a nearbyabandoned home.
Based on these witness accounts, nixon and Jones were indicted
for second-degree murder.
The case fell apart prettyquickly, though, as the
so-called evidence was justhearsay and unsubstantiated
accusations.
Police didn't test the frontporch for blood for 16 months
(17:21):
and, of course, none was found.
Cops never went back to findthe hunting knife.
Charges against both men weredismissed.
What was clear was thatErnestine had been murdered.
Clearly her throat had been cutand her face was badly bruised.
Bruises and cuts on her handstold the story of a
(17:42):
life-or-death struggle.
Once again, the communityvibrated with the rumors of a
serial killer, and lawenforcement fanned that
narrative.
Two years passed followingErnestine's murder.
(18:02):
Her death and Loretta'sremained unsolved.
Jennings' citizens, those fromthe other side of the tracks,
didn't believe that lawenforcement was putting any
effort at all into solving thesecases.
These women were, after all,invisible, disposable.
These women were, after all,invisible, disposable.
(18:24):
At least that's what thecommunity believed, that the
police and deputies believed.
Then, in March 2007, a thirdbody was discovered, that of
21-year-old Kristen Gary Lopez.
She was found floating in acanal nearly nude.
She had very obviously been inthe water for quite some time
and her body was identifiedusing dental records.
(18:46):
According to her friends,kristen had a habit of
disappearing for days, sometimesweeks.
When she was binging on drugs,her father would smoke crack
cocaine with her, so when shewould disappear, no one would be
too worried.
After all, she was likely withher dad and she always came back
(19:07):
eventually.
You see, kristen and other youngwomen, including Loretta and
sometimes Ernestine, would oftenhang out at Kristen's dad's
camper and use drugs.
And always with them alwayswith the seemingly endless
supply of those drugs, was theman I mentioned earlier, frankie
(19:28):
Richard.
Some of Kristen's friends didtell police, however, that in
the days leading up to her death, kristen seemed nervous, even
paranoid, always looking overher shoulder, but she would
never say why.
Now Frank Richard was aself-described friend to these
(19:51):
young women and he admittedlyused the illegal drugs he so
freely supplied to them.
Frank said that as a friend hewould introduce these young
women to older gentlemen,protect the women when necessary
and collect money from the menat the Boudreaux Inn or wherever
the sex work took place.
Frank called himself a friendand a facilitator to these
(20:16):
vulnerable women.
Others, I believe, might callthat a pimp.
Now, when Kristen was reportedmissing, her friend Hannah
Cooper thought that was odd.
Kristen, like the othermurdered women, would sometimes
disappear for days when she'dbinge her drugs.
Her friends never thoughtanything of it, as she always
(20:39):
turned up again in a few days orweeks.
In fact, hannah, kristen,kristen's father, billy, and
Frankie Richard often hung outtogether in Billy's camper and
used drugs together.
Hannah, who happens to beFrankie Richard's niece, offered
her help to cops as they lookedinto Kristen's disappearance.
(21:04):
Three women now dead, threewomen who knew each other and
who shared similar lifecircumstances.
Sheriff Ricky Edwards, stillpushing the serial killer theory
, began hinting that these womenmet their violent end because
of their high-risk lifestyle.
In other words, they wereasking for it.
(21:24):
Such women, he would add, makethemselves easy targets for
murderers.
There was just one problem withthat narrative Victims of
serial killers rarely know eachother and usually don't move in
the same close circles.
Still, edwards' insinuationsseem to make those who lived on
(21:47):
the right side of the tracksfeel safer.
On May 12, 2007, a fourth bodywas found in Jefferson Davis
Parish.
26-year-old Whitney Dubois'nude body was discovered not
(22:07):
floating in a canal but dumpedon a country road.
The parish coroner againcouldn't determine a cause of
death.
It was obvious by the conditionof her remains, however, that
Whitney's face and body had beenbadly beaten.
And yes, whitney knew the othervictims well.
She was addicted to crackcocaine and she often resorted
(22:31):
to sex work to fund her habit.
She was also a police informant, as were the other victims.
Whitney's body had been foundby another drug user, a man
named Jamie Trujuan, who toldpolice he discovered the body
that morning.
Another informant said thatTrujuan was lying and he had
(22:53):
actually seen Whitney's body inthe road the night before.
It turns out that Trujan is afriend of Frankie Richard's and
it's been suggested that bothRichard and Trujan knew about
Whitney's death and theplacement of her body well
before both were reported to lawenforcement.
(23:14):
Sheriff Ricky Edwards told themedia that his department had a
few persons of interest at thetime, but they were never named
and no arrest was ever made.
In this case either Four bodies.
The public was scared and onboth sides of the tracks, the
sheriff, for the first time,steering clear of the serial
(23:35):
killer conversation, gliblysuggested to a reporter that
while he didn't suspect a serialkiller, he suspected that they
may have a serial dumper ontheir hands.
And he continued to insinuatethat the young women's
lifestyles were likely thereasons for their deaths, that
the young women's lifestyleswere likely the reasons for
their deaths.
Families who called his office,begging for updates and answers
(23:58):
, got nothing.
And then two arrests were madefor Kristen's murder.
Hannah Cooper and her uncle,frankie Richard, were taken into
custody for killing KristenLopez, based on accusations made
by Jennings' woman, tracyChanson.
The two were accused ofmurdering the young woman,
(24:21):
frankie for beating her andHannah for holding her head
underwater, all because Whitneyreportedly refused to have sex
with Frankie.
The sheriff's office made a bigmedia splash about the arrests
and fears for the time werequelled.
A couple of weeks later,however, both suspects were
(24:41):
released.
Due to lack of conclusiveevidence, tracy recanted her
statement.
Hannah and Frankie were quietlycleared of all wrongdoing and
released back out into thecommunity.
And now listen to this.
In 2007, the chief of detectivesin the Jefferson Davis Parish
(25:04):
Sheriff's Office, warren Gary,purchased a Chevy Silverado
truck from a female inmate inthe county jail.
This inmate was a knownassociate of Frankie Richard.
After buying the truck foraround $7,000, gary allegedly
had it washed and thoroughlycleaned and then quickly resold
(25:25):
it for about $15,000.
A witness had told police thatshe saw Kristen Lopez in that
same truck on the very day shedisappeared, but by then the
detective had washed and resoldthe truck.
The white Chevy Silverado waslikely the vehicle in which
(25:46):
Kristen Lopez's body wastransported after she was
murdered.
This transaction was clearly abreach of professional ethics,
at the very least Obstruction ofjustice, maybe Concealing
evidence, maybe Really reallypoor judgment?
No doubt Now are you sittingdown, warren?
(26:12):
Gary was fined $10,000 by theLouisiana Board of Ethics, but
he was cleared of any criminalcharges and Sheriff Ricky
Edwards then promoted him tobecome the head of the evidence
room at the sheriff's office.
I don't know what rats smelllike, but I think I'm smelling
(26:34):
one now.
By now, frankie Richard's namewas becoming associated in one
way or another with all four ofthese murders.
He owned several strip clubs,he was a pimp, he was a drug
dealer, and yet he seemedabsolutely untouchable with
respect to these murders or forany of the other crimes he
(26:55):
committed on a daily basis.
And yet he seemed absolutelyuntouchable with respect to
these murders or for any of theother crimes he committed on a
daily basis.
Why?
On May 29, 2008, the body ofLaconia Muggy Brown was found
partially nude dumped on anout-of-the-way, deserted dirt
road in Jennings.
(27:15):
She had told her mom just a daybefore she was murdered that
she felt like she'd be the nextvictim.
She knew the other four womenand she obviously knew even more
than just that.
She left her parents' housethat night to go to a friend's
(27:37):
house for a gumbo a get-togetherwhere that thick, spicy Creole
stew is served and before sheleft she asked her mother to
promise that if anything shouldhappen to her, her mom would
promise to raise her young son.
Laconia, or Muggy's body wasfound lying in the middle of
Raka Road by a cop around 5 amthe next day.
(27:58):
Muggy's sister had a questionabout that why would a cop be
driving way out on a very ruralroad, a dirt road at that hour.
And she had another questionwhy was Muggy's family not
allowed to see her body?
Police told them, as they hadtold the other victims families,
(28:20):
that her body was toodecomposed to identify her, but
she had been at her parents home, basically predicting her own
murder less than 12 hoursearlier.
Her own murder less than 12hours earlier.
Five bodies now, five murders.
(28:42):
People in the community werebeginning to draw their own
conclusions and they believedthat all the killings were
connected, but not necessarilycommitted by one deranged serial
killer.
They were connecting themurders using the one common
thread Frankie Richard.
So why was he so free to walkthe streets and live his life
unencumbered in the communitythat was home to these women?
(29:03):
Sheriff Ricky Edwards, however,didn't see it that way.
Edwards again pointed to thewomen's drug use and the sex
trade as the likely reasons fortheir deaths.
And then, on September 11, 2008,a body was found on a levee in
a remote wooded area just southof Jennings.
(29:25):
The body was so badlydecomposed that hunters couldn't
even tell what it was.
They thought it might have beena coyote until they found a
human skull nearby.
When law enforcement officersarrived, they couldn't tell if
the remains belonged to a man ora woman black or white.
Evaluation of the remainsidentified 26-year-old Crystal
(29:51):
Benoit Zeno as the victim andher death was ruled a homicide.
She was last seen alive onAugust 27th.
Crystal knew the other victims.
She battled substance abuse,she fed her habit with sex work
and she knew many JeffersonDavis Parish deputies and
(30:13):
jailers, as did the other women,because they were in and out of
that jail often.
Here's another interesting factthat just doesn't add up.
About 20 minutes after theradio call went out about a body
being found on the levee,detectives were knocking on the
(30:34):
front door at Crystal's houseasking questions about when she
was last seen and whether shewas feared missing.
But the body found on the leveewasn't identified as being
Crystal's for some time becauseof the condition it was in.
How did the detectives knowthat it was Crystal or that it
could have been her?
(30:54):
Were these women being killedsimply because they were
considered disposable, invisible, and if so, who was doing the
killing and why?
In November 2008, 17-year-oldBrittany Gary went missing.
Brittany was the cousin of thethird murder victim, kristen
(31:17):
Gary Lopez.
She was last seen at the DollarGeneral store just minutes from
her home where she lived withher mother Teresa.
Two weeks later, the decomposedbody of a young girl was found
in some tall grasses by a creek.
She was posed as though she wassleeping on her side, her head
(31:44):
resting on her hands.
Sheriff Edwards told Brittany'smother about tattoos on the
body and asked if she couldidentify Brittany by those
tattoos.
The body was Brittany's, sadly,but her mother questioned how
the sheriff knew about hertattoos, as none were visible on
her body as she was found.
She has never believed that aserial killer or that even
(32:05):
Frankie Richard is the murderer.
Brittany's mother believes thatlaw enforcement is somehow
involved After seven murders inabout four years, believes that
law enforcement is somehowinvolved After seven murders in
about four years, sheriffEdwards finally commissioned a
task force to investigate andsolve the crimes.
If he thought that move wouldpacify and build confidence in
(32:26):
the Sheriff's Department'sefforts, he was mistaken.
He was heckled, booed andquestioned relentlessly about
his department's failure to makeheadway in the cases.
And if anyone did hold out hopethat the task force would make
a difference, that hope wasquickly snuffed out.
Many tipsters reported that thetask force wouldn't even return
(32:49):
their calls or follow up onleads they were given, suspicion
began to swell with respect towrongdoing by both the sheriff's
office and the Jennings PD.
On August 19, 2009,.
(33:12):
Body number 8 was found dumpedon the side of I-10.
This act alone indicated thebrazenness of the killer, or
killers, who would dump a bodyon the side of a very busy
interstate highway and with atask force in place to hunt down
the killer.
The young woman's body wasidentified as being that of
Jennings resident NicoleGuillory.
Nicole was no stranger to lawenforcement.
(33:35):
She spent almost as much timein jail as she did at home.
She abused drugs, she committedcrimes to pay for those drugs
and her uncle, Terry Guillory,was the warden in the jail in
Jefferson Davis Parish andformerly a Jennings police
officer.
Nicole had told him and anotherofficer in an interview that
(33:59):
the jailers regularly had sexwith the female inmates, either
consensual or by force.
Those jailers said Nicole wouldgive the women cigarettes,
drugs, alcohol and other thingsfor their compliance and for
their silence.
Nicole knew all seven of theother murder victims and she
(34:22):
confirmed that the victims werepolice informants about drug
dealers and sometimes they evenprovided information about each
other to law enforcement.
Many of the murder victims hadhad sex with jailers while
incarcerated, nicole included.
Some of the victims had evenwitnessed the murders as they
(34:42):
took place and they alleged thatit was law enforcement officers
or those hired to do theirbidding who had committed the
murders.
It is alleged that TerryGuillory had had sexual
relations with several of thevictims, including Loretta
Chasson.
Disgraced but promotedDetective Warren Gary was guilty
(35:06):
of the same transgression, aswere others others.
Shortly before her death, nicoletold her mother that she was
sure she'd be the next victim.
She had become so paranoidabout her safety that she locked
(35:28):
herself in her room for twoweeks, afraid to come out at all
.
When her mother asked her whatkind of birthday cake she'd like
for her upcoming celebration,nicole told her that she
wouldn't live to see her nextbirthday and not to bother
making a cake.
After Nicole's body was found,sheriff Ricky Edwards raised the
(35:51):
reward amount and reiteratedthat the task force was looking
for a single killer in all eightmurders In a town of about
10,000 people.
How could no one know anythingabout these murders?
It seems impossible, but Nicole, before her death, had said
(36:12):
something that would prove to bevery important to this case.
She had told a couple of peoplethat she knew from the
beginning who was murdering theyoung women.
She said it was members of lawenforcement, troubling all of it
(36:35):
.
Let me say that as of 2025,these murders, now referred to
as the Jeff Davis Eight orJennings Eight, remain unsolved.
When New York Times reporterCampbell Robertson reported this
unsettling phenomenon in 2010,investigative reporter Ethan
(36:57):
Brown paid attention.
He visited Jennings and he wastroubled from the very beginning
.
He was troubled by the apathyhe felt from law enforcement.
He was troubled by the obviousmistrust the people had for the
sheriff's office and policedepartment.
He was troubled that there wereclear conflicts of interest
(37:17):
among some task force members,such as Terry Guillory's ex-wife
being a member of that taskforce.
He was troubled that the onlytwo people in any position of
authority in law enforcement ajail nurse and a detective who
tried to blow the whistle aboutthe blatant wrongdoing in
(37:38):
Jefferson Davis Parish had beenfired.
He was troubled when heeventually learned of a
Jefferson Davis Parish deputywho was a frequent client of the
murder victims and he had areputation for being a sexual
sadist and a deviant.
Something is very wrong inJennings, louisiana, and if not
(38:00):
for the brutal murders of eightwomen considered by law
enforcement and others, to beinvisible, to be disposable.
The world might never haveknown.
Brown spent years doing some ofthe most thorough investigative
work I've ever seen, and thebulk of the information I've
shared here is a direct resultof his work.
(38:22):
In fact, his book Murder in theBayou sparked a well-produced
2019 docuseries by the same name.
There was hope that the bookand the series would rekindle
the investigation into the slainwomen, the Jefferson Davis
Eight.
(38:42):
Frankie Richard died on March 22, 2020, at the age of 64.
He went to his grave, denyingany involvement in the murders.
He went to his grave denyingany involvement in the murders.
Sheriff Ricky Edwards didn'tseek re-election in 2011 and he
(39:04):
left office in 2012, joining theLouisiana Sheriffs Association,
where he works in operations.
Support.
Sheriff Ivey Woods was electedJefferson Davis Parish Sheriff
replacing Edwards.
Hopes ran high that Woods, whoran on a platform of solving the
murders, would finally get tothe truth about the brutal
killings, but these hopes weresoon dashed, as any tips or
(39:34):
leads went exactly nowhere underhis leadership.
Law enforcement in the JeffersonDavis Parish in Jennings denies
any allegations of misconductor of sloppy investigative work
and, of course, of anyinvolvement in any of the eight
unsolved murders, and UnitedStates Representative Charles
Boustany, a Republican lawmakerfrom Lafayette, louisiana, filed
(39:57):
suit against author Ethan Brownand his publisher for
suggesting that the congressmansolicited prostitutes at the
Boudreaux Inn and that heprofited financially from the
inn's shady business dealings.
Feelings Boustani dropped thatsuit a few months later, after
he lost the November 2016election, saying he felt it was
(40:23):
best for all concerned.
Who murdered these women?
Was it Frankie Richard, the manwho seemed untouchable in
Jefferson Davis Parish?
Was he protected by lawenforcement because of his
connections and the things heknew about drugs and crime in
Jennings?
Were the murders committed byseveral people for various
(40:43):
reasons, and it was merelycoincidence that the victims all
knew each other, all hadsubstance abuse issues and they
were all sex workers?
Did corrupt men in lawenforcement murder these women
because they saw and heardthings that were incriminating
to police?
Or was there, in fact, a serialkiller loose in the parish?
(41:05):
I believe that Ethan Brown gotvery close to the answers and
the things he discovered madethese invisible women visible.
He made them real and hereminded us that they mattered.
To date, all eight murdersremain unsolved.
(41:34):
I'm Carole Townsend, veterannewspaper journalist and
six-time award-winning author.
You can find me atcaroltownsendcom, anywhere on
social media and be sure tocheck out the Front Porch
Mysteries Facebook page.
I'd love to hear from you, asalways.
(41:55):
Thanks for listening, and ifyou're enjoying these tales of
Southern history and lore, Ihope you'll tell your friends.
My team and I reference thefollowing sources to bring this
sobering story to you the bookMurder in the Bayou by Ethan
Brown, the docuseries by thesame name, investigation
(42:18):
Discovery's Five Things you Needto Know About the Complex Case
of the Jennings Eight,Biographycom Jeff Davis Ate.
The True Story of the Murder inthe Bayou Killings.
And Channel 10 WBNS news inLouisiana.
You.
If you know anything at all about small
southern towns, you know thatthey enjoy a unique reputation
all their own.
While most of them are friendly, welcoming, lawful and the
absolute picture of southernhospitality and charm, that's
not true of all of them.
We've all likely heard storiesabout a small southern town run
(00:28):
by an iron-fisted sheriff withhis hands in various pockets,
those pockets lined with crimesof all types.
I myself have looked intosouthern jurisdictions run by
such men, with drugs,prostitution, gambling and even
murder to their credit.
More than once.
(00:49):
I admit that I feared for mysafety.
Is there anything better than awell-told story?
I don't think so.
An engaging tale, told in theright place, at the right time
and by the right person,captures us.
It captures our imaginations.
(01:11):
It takes us away from the hereand now and carries us to the
what if?
When we were kids, was thereanything better than sitting
around a campfire, the cold,dark night at our backs, the
warmth and light of the firedrawing us closer, comforting us
as we listened to a well-spuntale?
(01:34):
Here in the South, a welcomingfront porch is often where we
spin our tales.
Now it's familiar and itwelcomes others to join us At
the end of the day when we'veput away our cares and
responsibilities for just a fewhours.
We sit and we talk, and maybewe rock in a comfortable chair
(01:58):
and we're taken back to a timewhen the story was the thing,
the only thing.
So join me tonight, won't you,as we step into another tale
that's rooted in truth, sodifficult to fathom that it
defies belief.
And to keep the dark and thecold at bay, I'll turn on the
(02:20):
light.
The following podcast containsmaterial that may be disturbing.
Listener discretion is advised.
(02:49):
There's another characteristicof small towns that we've all
heard at one time or another,and that's that there is a very
definite socioeconomic division,sometimes an actual line that
can be drawn separating thehaves from the have-nots.
There's a reason that we hearthe expression the other side of
(03:12):
the tracks.
In Jennings, louisiana, it'sliterally the railroad tracks in
town that draw that line.
On one side of the tracksyou'll find nice, comfortable
houses, expensive cars andbetter schools.
On the other side, you'll findsmall, dilapidated homes,
unkempt yards, old, broken-downcars and deserted businesses.
(03:40):
In our last episode we took alook at a baffling case of
serial killings that hauntedsouthern Louisiana.
The 12-year siege of BatonRouge, louisiana State
University and the surroundingarea, paralyzed women and
frustrated law enforcement, butthe cases, or many of them, were
(04:01):
finally solved and once againsouthern Louisiana could breathe
easy.
This siege of fear, however,left a scar that will likely
never heal.
People are more careful now,more wary, and that small-town
innocence has faded to a mereshadow of what it once was.
(04:21):
In its place lurks suspicionand locked doors.
The solved cases had nothing todo with corruption or dirty
cops.
Quite the opposite.
Local police and the fbi workedtirelessly to apprehend the
monsters who were raping,killing and in some cases even
(04:42):
mutilating women, and in somecases even mutilating women.
Both killers had been arrestedand convicted by the year 2004.
Imagine then when, on May 20,2005, the body of 28-year-old
Loretta Chasson was foundfloating in a canal by a
fisherman.
(05:02):
The fisherman, a soft-spokenman named Jerry Jackson, fished
from the bridge over the GrandMarais Canal.
Quite often he was preparing tocast his line into the water
that morning when he saw what hefirst thought to be a mannequin
bobbing and dipping in theslow-moving current.
Oddly, a recent theft ofmannequins had taken place in
(05:26):
the area, and that was the firstthing that came to Jerry's mind
when he saw the object in thecanal, but he thought mannequins
don't attract flies.
Jackson called 911 to reportwhat he had seen and within five
minutes about a dozen deputiesand detectives arrived on the
(05:48):
scene.
Shortly after they arrived,loretta's badly decomposed body
was fished from the water.
She was wearing blue jeans anda white t-shirt, and the
advanced decomposition of herbody made it impossible to
determine the manner of death aswell as her identity.
(06:10):
Police eventually identifiedher by using her fingerprints.
The autopsy toxicology screenshowed some drugs in her system,
but it wasn't clear as towhether the drugs contributed to
her death in any way.
Examiners also found evidenceof some bleeding under her scalp
.
The coroner estimated thatLoretta had been in the Grand
(06:32):
Marais Canal for about threedays.
The water and the marine life,combined with the suffocating
heat and humidity characteristicof Louisiana, made it
impossible to determineLoretta's cause of death, which
was listed as undetermined.
(06:53):
Loretta's body was found on theoutskirts of Jennings in the
Jefferson Davis Parish, deep inthe heart of Cajun country.
Jennings' official claim tofame is that it's the birthplace
of Louisiana oil.
Unofficially, jennings isunique and somewhat famous for
its darker history.
Loretta Chasson was a lovingwife, mother, sister, daughter
(07:30):
and friend.
She was no stranger to police,however, as she was also a sex
worker battling a cripplingaddiction to crack cocaine, as
so many were doing in southernLouisiana in the early 2000s.
You see, jennings is thehalfway point between Houston
and New Orleans, along the I-10corridor.
(07:53):
I-10 runs from Santa Monica,california, to Jacksonville,
florida, and that ribbon ofhighway carries more than
tourists and business travelers.
According to law enforcementofficials, i-10 is a major drug
corridor and the halfway point,jennings and the surrounding
area is saturated with illicitdrugs, from synthetic marijuana
(08:17):
to cocaine, heroin to fentanyl.
As with any other such corridorin the United States, such as
I-85 through Georgia stops alongthe way bleed these drugs into
the local populations, andcommunities are ravaged by both
the drugs and by the crime andviolence that always accompany
(08:39):
them.
It's interesting to note herethat Loretta's friend, a woman
named Barb Ann, watchedanxiously as police set up a
(09:00):
perimeter around the crime sceneand fished her friend's body
out of the Grand Marais Canal.
Barb Ann and Loretta's brother,nick, watched from a distance,
in fear and in silence.
You see, at that point no onehad reported Loretta missing.
So how did those two know to goto the canal at all?
(09:21):
Well, mysteriously, a deputyfrom Jefferson Davis Parish had
knocked on Barban's door thatvery morning asking when she had
last seen her friend.
When Barban asked him why hewanted to know that, he said we
think she might be missing.
And with that he turned andwalked away.
(09:44):
Shortly after the deputy's oddvisit, whispers began ruffling
through the neighborhood.
A woman's body had been foundin the canal.
Barbann called Nick and theyboth had a sinking feeling of
dread that that woman wasLoretta.
Nick remembered that the lasttime he had seen his sister
(10:05):
alive was at a Phillips 66 gasstation in Jennings.
Three days earlier he saw hissister willingly get into a car
with a man named Frankie Richard.
Frankie was very well connectedin Jennings' criminal
underworld, rife with drugs, sexand violence.
Everyone law enforcement,criminals and citizens alike
(10:35):
knew Frankie.
Anyway, later that same eveningLoretta was seen at the
Boudreaux Inn, a seedy hotel andbar famous for sex work and
drug activity.
There she was seen in thecompany of two other prostitutes
(10:56):
, friends of hers.
I'm going to take a minute hereto share an observation, a fact,
actually, that you probablyalready know, but I want to
share it anyway because itmatters in this story and
elsewhere.
There are people in this worldwho are invisible to many of us,
to polite society.
They're those who live on theedges, on the fringe of society,
(11:18):
whether by choice or bycircumstance.
They are the sex workers, thepeople with substance use
disorders, the mentally ill andthe homeless.
Of course, they're not reallyinvisible, but most people don't
actually want to see them.
They politely look the otherway or they dehumanize them by
(11:39):
labeling them as being this orthat.
The bottom line is that if oneof these invisible people was to
actually disappear, who wouldnotice, who would care and who
would take the time and make theeffort to find them or at least
to find out what happened tothem?
(12:00):
In Jennings, those living on thesouth side of the tracks the
wrong side believed that no onewould care.
They trusted neither theJennings PD nor the Jefferson
Davis Parish Sheriff's Office.
Such crimes in Jennings tendedto languish unsolved for years,
if they're ever solved.
Loretta was one of theinvisible people known and loved
(12:26):
by her family and friends, butmerely a statistic in the world
of media and law enforcement.
She did, after all, live ahigh-risk lifestyle.
She spent a good deal of timein and out of jail.
She committed the crimes ofprostitution using illegal drugs
, drugs and theft, but she was ahuman being and she was dead,
(12:54):
and she died under suspiciousand unusual circumstances.
Those who knew her knew thatshe didn't slip and fall into
the water by accident.
She didn't commit suicide, butshe knew things about people,
powerful people, who didn't wanttheir secrets known.
She was also an informant forcops regarding the drug trade in
(13:15):
Jennings and she knew thingsabout those same cops.
Her loved ones knew that much.
A reporter for the localJennings newspaper remembers
that the day after Loretta'sbody was found, he was inundated
with phone calls seeming topush the rumor of a serial
killer at work in Jennings.
(13:35):
While, yes, the murders in theBaton Rouge area had been
committed by two differentserial killers, this was
Jefferson Davis Parish.
This was a year after thosemurderers were apprehended and
this was a single death, notseveral.
Why were people talking about aserial killer?
(13:57):
Surprisingly, even cops,including then-Sheriff Ricky
Edwards, hinted that a serialkiller could be the culprit.
It just didn't make sense.
Less than a month afterLoretta's body was pulled from
the Grand Marais Canal on June17th, froggers in a dark bayou
(14:20):
about six miles from that canalwere quietly cruising the still
dark waters of the bayou in theblack of night, hunting frogs
for a hearty Cajun meal of friedfrog legs.
Fog blanketed the black waterand their flashlights
(14:42):
illuminated thick, stickyspiderwebs laced from tree to
tree.
Not long into their fishingexpedition, the froggers smelled
something sick and sweet androtten, that unmistakable scent
of death.
Once you've smelled it, younever forget it.
Following that smell, theydiscovered the body of Ernestine
(15:06):
Patterson floating in the water.
Her body too was badlydecomposed, and when a body is
in that condition it takesmonths to identify the person.
There were, however, obviouswounds to her body, deep cuts to
her throat and her face,bruises on her hands.
(15:26):
Examiners used bone tissue toeventually identify her.
Drugs were found in Ernestine'stalk screen as well.
And listen to this.
Ernestine and Loretta knew eachother.
They moved in the same circlesand knew a lot of the same
people.
They both had a relentless drughabit on their backs and they
(15:49):
both resorted to sex work tofeed that habit.
Of course, now that two womenwere dead and both dumped in
canals, the serial killer rumorbegan to gain traction again.
But in Ernestine's case, therewere also rumors circulating
that two men had killed herByron Chad Jones and Lawrence
(16:10):
Nixon.
Supposedly, ernestine hadapproached these two men,
offered Byron sex for money, andthen the three went to an
abandoned house to complete thetransaction.
The rumor was that these twomen killed Ernestine and dumped
her body in the bayou.
Nixon's wife even told police.
(16:31):
The two men showed up at herhouse with a large trash bag
filled with something and soakedwith blood.
The two men left the bag thereon the front porch and told her
that they killed Ernestine.
Nixon's own daughter saw herdad that night.
His clothes soaked in blood.
Later, eyewitnesses said thatthese men had left a jagged
(16:55):
hunting knife in a nearbyabandoned home.
Based on these witness accounts, nixon and Jones were indicted
for second-degree murder.
The case fell apart prettyquickly, though, as the
so-called evidence was justhearsay and unsubstantiated
accusations.
Police didn't test the frontporch for blood for 16 months
(17:21):
and, of course, none was found.
Cops never went back to findthe hunting knife.
Charges against both men weredismissed.
What was clear was thatErnestine had been murdered.
Clearly her throat had been cutand her face was badly bruised.
Bruises and cuts on her handstold the story of a
(17:42):
life-or-death struggle.
Once again, the communityvibrated with the rumors of a
serial killer, and lawenforcement fanned that
narrative.
Two years passed followingErnestine's murder.
(18:02):
Her death and Loretta'sremained unsolved.
Jennings' citizens, those fromthe other side of the tracks,
didn't believe that lawenforcement was putting any
effort at all into solving thesecases.
These women were, after all,invisible, disposable.
These women were, after all,invisible, disposable.
(18:24):
At least that's what thecommunity believed, that the
police and deputies believed.
Then, in March 2007, a thirdbody was discovered, that of
21-year-old Kristen Gary Lopez.
She was found floating in acanal nearly nude.
She had very obviously been inthe water for quite some time
and her body was identifiedusing dental records.
(18:46):
According to her friends,kristen had a habit of
disappearing for days, sometimesweeks.
When she was binging on drugs,her father would smoke crack
cocaine with her, so when shewould disappear, no one would be
too worried.
After all, she was likely withher dad and she always came back
(19:07):
eventually.
You see, kristen and other youngwomen, including Loretta and
sometimes Ernestine, would oftenhang out at Kristen's dad's
camper and use drugs.
And always with them alwayswith the seemingly endless
supply of those drugs, was theman I mentioned earlier, frankie
(19:28):
Richard.
Some of Kristen's friends didtell police, however, that in
the days leading up to her death, kristen seemed nervous, even
paranoid, always looking overher shoulder, but she would
never say why.
Now Frank Richard was aself-described friend to these
(19:51):
young women and he admittedlyused the illegal drugs he so
freely supplied to them.
Frank said that as a friend hewould introduce these young
women to older gentlemen,protect the women when necessary
and collect money from the menat the Boudreaux Inn or wherever
the sex work took place.
Frank called himself a friendand a facilitator to these
(20:16):
vulnerable women.
Others, I believe, might callthat a pimp.
Now, when Kristen was reportedmissing, her friend Hannah
Cooper thought that was odd.
Kristen, like the othermurdered women, would sometimes
disappear for days when she'dbinge her drugs.
Her friends never thoughtanything of it, as she always
(20:39):
turned up again in a few days orweeks.
In fact, hannah, kristen,kristen's father, billy, and
Frankie Richard often hung outtogether in Billy's camper and
used drugs together.
Hannah, who happens to beFrankie Richard's niece, offered
her help to cops as they lookedinto Kristen's disappearance.
(21:04):
Three women now dead, threewomen who knew each other and
who shared similar lifecircumstances.
Sheriff Ricky Edwards, stillpushing the serial killer theory
, began hinting that these womenmet their violent end because
of their high-risk lifestyle.
In other words, they wereasking for it.
(21:24):
Such women, he would add, makethemselves easy targets for
murderers.
There was just one problem withthat narrative Victims of
serial killers rarely know eachother and usually don't move in
the same close circles.
Still, edwards' insinuationsseem to make those who lived on
(21:47):
the right side of the tracksfeel safer.
On May 12, 2007, a fourth bodywas found in Jefferson Davis
Parish.
26-year-old Whitney Dubois'nude body was discovered not
(22:07):
floating in a canal but dumpedon a country road.
The parish coroner againcouldn't determine a cause of
death.
It was obvious by the conditionof her remains, however, that
Whitney's face and body had beenbadly beaten.
And yes, whitney knew the othervictims well.
She was addicted to crackcocaine and she often resorted
(22:31):
to sex work to fund her habit.
She was also a police informant, as were the other victims.
Whitney's body had been foundby another drug user, a man
named Jamie Trujuan, who toldpolice he discovered the body
that morning.
Another informant said thatTrujuan was lying and he had
(22:53):
actually seen Whitney's body inthe road the night before.
It turns out that Trujan is afriend of Frankie Richard's and
it's been suggested that bothRichard and Trujan knew about
Whitney's death and theplacement of her body well
before both were reported to lawenforcement.
(23:14):
Sheriff Ricky Edwards told themedia that his department had a
few persons of interest at thetime, but they were never named
and no arrest was ever made.
In this case either Four bodies.
The public was scared and onboth sides of the tracks, the
sheriff, for the first time,steering clear of the serial
(23:35):
killer conversation, gliblysuggested to a reporter that
while he didn't suspect a serialkiller, he suspected that they
may have a serial dumper ontheir hands.
And he continued to insinuatethat the young women's
lifestyles were likely thereasons for their deaths, that
the young women's lifestyleswere likely the reasons for
their deaths.
Families who called his office,begging for updates and answers
(23:58):
, got nothing.
And then two arrests were madefor Kristen's murder.
Hannah Cooper and her uncle,frankie Richard, were taken into
custody for killing KristenLopez, based on accusations made
by Jennings' woman, tracyChanson.
The two were accused ofmurdering the young woman,
(24:21):
frankie for beating her andHannah for holding her head
underwater, all because Whitneyreportedly refused to have sex
with Frankie.
The sheriff's office made a bigmedia splash about the arrests
and fears for the time werequelled.
A couple of weeks later,however, both suspects were
(24:41):
released.
Due to lack of conclusiveevidence, tracy recanted her
statement.
Hannah and Frankie were quietlycleared of all wrongdoing and
released back out into thecommunity.
And now listen to this.
In 2007, the chief of detectivesin the Jefferson Davis Parish
(25:04):
Sheriff's Office, warren Gary,purchased a Chevy Silverado
truck from a female inmate inthe county jail.
This inmate was a knownassociate of Frankie Richard.
After buying the truck foraround $7,000, gary allegedly
had it washed and thoroughlycleaned and then quickly resold
(25:25):
it for about $15,000.
A witness had told police thatshe saw Kristen Lopez in that
same truck on the very day shedisappeared, but by then the
detective had washed and resoldthe truck.
The white Chevy Silverado waslikely the vehicle in which
(25:46):
Kristen Lopez's body wastransported after she was
murdered.
This transaction was clearly abreach of professional ethics,
at the very least Obstruction ofjustice, maybe Concealing
evidence, maybe Really reallypoor judgment?
No doubt Now are you sittingdown, warren?
(26:12):
Gary was fined $10,000 by theLouisiana Board of Ethics, but
he was cleared of any criminalcharges and Sheriff Ricky
Edwards then promoted him tobecome the head of the evidence
room at the sheriff's office.
I don't know what rats smelllike, but I think I'm smelling
(26:34):
one now.
By now, frankie Richard's namewas becoming associated in one
way or another with all four ofthese murders.
He owned several strip clubs,he was a pimp, he was a drug
dealer, and yet he seemedabsolutely untouchable with
respect to these murders or forany of the other crimes he
(26:55):
committed on a daily basis.
And yet he seemed absolutelyuntouchable with respect to
these murders or for any of theother crimes he committed on a
daily basis.
Why?
On May 29, 2008, the body ofLaconia Muggy Brown was found
partially nude dumped on anout-of-the-way, deserted dirt
road in Jennings.
(27:15):
She had told her mom just a daybefore she was murdered that
she felt like she'd be the nextvictim.
She knew the other four womenand she obviously knew even more
than just that.
She left her parents' housethat night to go to a friend's
(27:37):
house for a gumbo a get-togetherwhere that thick, spicy Creole
stew is served and before sheleft she asked her mother to
promise that if anything shouldhappen to her, her mom would
promise to raise her young son.
Laconia, or Muggy's body wasfound lying in the middle of
Raka Road by a cop around 5 amthe next day.
(27:58):
Muggy's sister had a questionabout that why would a cop be
driving way out on a very ruralroad, a dirt road at that hour.
And she had another questionwhy was Muggy's family not
allowed to see her body?
Police told them, as they hadtold the other victims families,
(28:20):
that her body was toodecomposed to identify her, but
she had been at her parents home, basically predicting her own
murder less than 12 hoursearlier.
Her own murder less than 12hours earlier.
Five bodies now, five murders.
(28:42):
People in the community werebeginning to draw their own
conclusions and they believedthat all the killings were
connected, but not necessarilycommitted by one deranged serial
killer.
They were connecting themurders using the one common
thread Frankie Richard.
So why was he so free to walkthe streets and live his life
unencumbered in the communitythat was home to these women?
(29:03):
Sheriff Ricky Edwards, however,didn't see it that way.
Edwards again pointed to thewomen's drug use and the sex
trade as the likely reasons fortheir deaths.
And then, on September 11, 2008,a body was found on a levee in
a remote wooded area just southof Jennings.
(29:25):
The body was so badlydecomposed that hunters couldn't
even tell what it was.
They thought it might have beena coyote until they found a
human skull nearby.
When law enforcement officersarrived, they couldn't tell if
the remains belonged to a man ora woman black or white.
Evaluation of the remainsidentified 26-year-old Crystal
(29:51):
Benoit Zeno as the victim andher death was ruled a homicide.
She was last seen alive onAugust 27th.
Crystal knew the other victims.
She battled substance abuse,she fed her habit with sex work
and she knew many JeffersonDavis Parish deputies and
(30:13):
jailers, as did the other women,because they were in and out of
that jail often.
Here's another interesting factthat just doesn't add up.
About 20 minutes after theradio call went out about a body
being found on the levee,detectives were knocking on the
(30:34):
front door at Crystal's houseasking questions about when she
was last seen and whether shewas feared missing.
But the body found on the leveewasn't identified as being
Crystal's for some time becauseof the condition it was in.
How did the detectives knowthat it was Crystal or that it
could have been her?
(30:54):
Were these women being killedsimply because they were
considered disposable, invisible, and if so, who was doing the
killing and why?
In November 2008, 17-year-oldBrittany Gary went missing.
Brittany was the cousin of thethird murder victim, kristen
(31:17):
Gary Lopez.
She was last seen at the DollarGeneral store just minutes from
her home where she lived withher mother Teresa.
Two weeks later, the decomposedbody of a young girl was found
in some tall grasses by a creek.
She was posed as though she wassleeping on her side, her head
(31:44):
resting on her hands.
Sheriff Edwards told Brittany'smother about tattoos on the
body and asked if she couldidentify Brittany by those
tattoos.
The body was Brittany's, sadly,but her mother questioned how
the sheriff knew about hertattoos, as none were visible on
her body as she was found.
She has never believed that aserial killer or that even
(32:05):
Frankie Richard is the murderer.
Brittany's mother believes thatlaw enforcement is somehow
involved After seven murders inabout four years, believes that
law enforcement is somehowinvolved After seven murders in
about four years, sheriffEdwards finally commissioned a
task force to investigate andsolve the crimes.
If he thought that move wouldpacify and build confidence in
(32:26):
the Sheriff's Department'sefforts, he was mistaken.
He was heckled, booed andquestioned relentlessly about
his department's failure to makeheadway in the cases.
And if anyone did hold out hopethat the task force would make
a difference, that hope wasquickly snuffed out.
Many tipsters reported that thetask force wouldn't even return
(32:49):
their calls or follow up onleads they were given, suspicion
began to swell with respect towrongdoing by both the sheriff's
office and the Jennings PD.
On August 19, 2009,.
(33:12):
Body number 8 was found dumpedon the side of I-10.
This act alone indicated thebrazenness of the killer, or
killers, who would dump a bodyon the side of a very busy
interstate highway and with atask force in place to hunt down
the killer.
The young woman's body wasidentified as being that of
Jennings resident NicoleGuillory.
Nicole was no stranger to lawenforcement.
(33:35):
She spent almost as much timein jail as she did at home.
She abused drugs, she committedcrimes to pay for those drugs
and her uncle, Terry Guillory,was the warden in the jail in
Jefferson Davis Parish andformerly a Jennings police
officer.
Nicole had told him and anotherofficer in an interview that
(33:59):
the jailers regularly had sexwith the female inmates, either
consensual or by force.
Those jailers said Nicole wouldgive the women cigarettes,
drugs, alcohol and other thingsfor their compliance and for
their silence.
Nicole knew all seven of theother murder victims and she
(34:22):
confirmed that the victims werepolice informants about drug
dealers and sometimes they evenprovided information about each
other to law enforcement.
Many of the murder victims hadhad sex with jailers while
incarcerated, nicole included.
Some of the victims had evenwitnessed the murders as they
(34:42):
took place and they alleged thatit was law enforcement officers
or those hired to do theirbidding who had committed the
murders.
It is alleged that TerryGuillory had had sexual
relations with several of thevictims, including Loretta
Chasson.
Disgraced but promotedDetective Warren Gary was guilty
(35:06):
of the same transgression, aswere others others.
Shortly before her death, nicoletold her mother that she was
sure she'd be the next victim.
She had become so paranoidabout her safety that she locked
(35:28):
herself in her room for twoweeks, afraid to come out at all
.
When her mother asked her whatkind of birthday cake she'd like
for her upcoming celebration,nicole told her that she
wouldn't live to see her nextbirthday and not to bother
making a cake.
After Nicole's body was found,sheriff Ricky Edwards raised the
(35:51):
reward amount and reiteratedthat the task force was looking
for a single killer in all eightmurders In a town of about
10,000 people.
How could no one know anythingabout these murders?
It seems impossible, but Nicole, before her death, had said
(36:12):
something that would prove to bevery important to this case.
She had told a couple of peoplethat she knew from the
beginning who was murdering theyoung women.
She said it was members of lawenforcement, troubling all of it
(36:35):
.
Let me say that as of 2025,these murders, now referred to
as the Jeff Davis Eight orJennings Eight, remain unsolved.
When New York Times reporterCampbell Robertson reported this
unsettling phenomenon in 2010,investigative reporter Ethan
(36:57):
Brown paid attention.
He visited Jennings and he wastroubled from the very beginning
.
He was troubled by the apathyhe felt from law enforcement.
He was troubled by the obviousmistrust the people had for the
sheriff's office and policedepartment.
He was troubled that there wereclear conflicts of interest
(37:17):
among some task force members,such as Terry Guillory's ex-wife
being a member of that taskforce.
He was troubled that the onlytwo people in any position of
authority in law enforcement ajail nurse and a detective who
tried to blow the whistle aboutthe blatant wrongdoing in
(37:38):
Jefferson Davis Parish had beenfired.
He was troubled when heeventually learned of a
Jefferson Davis Parish deputywho was a frequent client of the
murder victims and he had areputation for being a sexual
sadist and a deviant.
Something is very wrong inJennings, louisiana, and if not
(38:00):
for the brutal murders of eightwomen considered by law
enforcement and others, to beinvisible, to be disposable.
The world might never haveknown.
Brown spent years doing some ofthe most thorough investigative
work I've ever seen, and thebulk of the information I've
shared here is a direct resultof his work.
(38:22):
In fact, his book Murder in theBayou sparked a well-produced
2019 docuseries by the same name.
There was hope that the bookand the series would rekindle
the investigation into the slainwomen, the Jefferson Davis
Eight.
(38:42):
Frankie Richard died on March 22, 2020, at the age of 64.
He went to his grave, denyingany involvement in the murders.
He went to his grave denyingany involvement in the murders.
Sheriff Ricky Edwards didn'tseek re-election in 2011 and he
(39:04):
left office in 2012, joining theLouisiana Sheriffs Association,
where he works in operations.
Support.
Sheriff Ivey Woods was electedJefferson Davis Parish Sheriff
replacing Edwards.
Hopes ran high that Woods, whoran on a platform of solving the
murders, would finally get tothe truth about the brutal
killings, but these hopes weresoon dashed, as any tips or
(39:34):
leads went exactly nowhere underhis leadership.
Law enforcement in the JeffersonDavis Parish in Jennings denies
any allegations of misconductor of sloppy investigative work
and, of course, of anyinvolvement in any of the eight
unsolved murders, and UnitedStates Representative Charles
Boustany, a Republican lawmakerfrom Lafayette, louisiana, filed
(39:57):
suit against author Ethan Brownand his publisher for
suggesting that the congressmansolicited prostitutes at the
Boudreaux Inn and that heprofited financially from the
inn's shady business dealings.
Feelings Boustani dropped thatsuit a few months later, after
he lost the November 2016election, saying he felt it was
(40:23):
best for all concerned.
Who murdered these women?
Was it Frankie Richard, the manwho seemed untouchable in
Jefferson Davis Parish?
Was he protected by lawenforcement because of his
connections and the things heknew about drugs and crime in
Jennings?
Were the murders committed byseveral people for various
(40:43):
reasons, and it was merelycoincidence that the victims all
knew each other, all hadsubstance abuse issues and they
were all sex workers?
Did corrupt men in lawenforcement murder these women
because they saw and heardthings that were incriminating
to police?
Or was there, in fact, a serialkiller loose in the parish?
(41:05):
I believe that Ethan Brown gotvery close to the answers and
the things he discovered madethese invisible women visible.
He made them real and hereminded us that they mattered.
To date, all eight murdersremain unsolved.
(41:34):
I'm Carole Townsend, veterannewspaper journalist and
six-time award-winning author.
You can find me atcaroltownsendcom, anywhere on
social media and be sure tocheck out the Front Porch
Mysteries Facebook page.
I'd love to hear from you, asalways.
(41:55):
Thanks for listening, and ifyou're enjoying these tales of
Southern history and lore, Ihope you'll tell your friends.
My team and I reference thefollowing sources to bring this
sobering story to you the bookMurder in the Bayou by Ethan
Brown, the docuseries by thesame name, investigation
(42:18):
Discovery's Five Things you Needto Know About the Complex Case
of the Jennings Eight,Biographycom Jeff Davis Ate.
The True Story of the Murder inthe Bayou Killings.
And Channel 10 WBNS news inLouisiana.
You.
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