Bloody Angola Podcast by Woody Overton & Jim Chapman

George Thomas shares his family story of dealing with the tragic death of his brother Steve Thomas at the hands of rap star and No Limit Records recording artist Corey Miller also known as C-Murder, the brother of founder Master P.

George goes into detail with Woody Overton and Jim Chapman on Bloody Angola Podcast regarding the case itself, responds to calls from Kim Kardashian to "Free C-Murder" and the impact the case has had on his entire family.

Timestamps

02:15 Diverse Crime Stories

03:42 Personal Backgrounds and Music Influence

05:07 Upbringing in New Orleans

06:54 Temptation of Street Life

08:51 Military Influence

10:20 Life in Leavenworth

15:39 Shocking News of Brother's Murder

18:16 Involvement of C-Murder

20:48 Brother's Love for Rap Battles

22:13 Fond Memories of Brother

32:46 Concealed Information and Media Control

35:53 Emotions in Courtroom

35:56 Uncovering the Truth

38:32 The Wine Flowers Incident

39:31 The Emotional Testimony

40:09 Dealing with Threats

40:53 Unveiling the Industry

42:06 Facing Public Scrutiny

46:32 Reflections on Remorse

46:56 Remembering the Victim

52:39 Seeking Justice

54:15 Seeking the Truth

55:10 Respecting Intentions

56:30 Unexpected Apologies

59:07 Sharing the Story

59:57 Choosing Redemption

1:00:41 Making Life Choices

1:03:14 Making a Difference

1:03:55 Sharing Personal Journeys

1:05:22 Seeking Peace

1:08:45 Speaking Hard Truths

#kimkardashian #cmurder #nolimitrecords #stevethomas #rap #podcast #masterp #deathrow #bloodyangola

In this episode of Bloody Angola Podcast, we explore the dark history of executioners throughout civilizations, from their origins to their roles under tribal leaders and monarchs. 

Woody and Jim delve into the lives of infamous executioners like Derek and John Crosland, revealing chilling details of their deeds. Various methods of execution over the centuries are discussed, including the guillotine's introduction by Dr. Joseph Guillotine, transforming the landscape and speed of executions.

01:30 Introduction

03:45 Origins of Executioners

12:48 Unique Identification Methods

19:27 Love in the Dungeon

In this episode, we explore the life of Lead Belly, a prominent blues singer originating from the infamous Bloody Angola prison. Spanning the 1930s, we witness Lead Belly's turbulent journey from incarceration to musical stardom, showcasing his exceptional 12-string guitar skills and prestigious performances at locales like Carnegie Hall and induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. 

We delve into the harsh realities of life in Bloody Angola during the Great Depression, shedding light on inmate challenges and the vital role of correctional officers in maintaining order. Additionally, we touch upon the evolving landscape of law enforcement, the complexities detectives encounter, and the significance of adequate funding for police departments. 

Timestamps

0:53 Lead Belly's Story Begins

14:23 Lead Belly's Violent Altercations

15:53 Lead Belly's Murder Conviction

20:58 Lead Belly's Recording Opportunity

21:57Lead Belly's Release and Musical Success

26:14 Lead Belly's Hit Song

30:24 Reflections on Lead Belly's Legacy

36:51 Challenges Faced by Correctional Officers

42:45 Law Enforcement Challenges

44:00 Investigative Prioritization

Woody and Jim into the history of the electric chair, discussing various executions that took place in the past. William Kemmler's execution in New York in 1890 marked the first time the electric chair was used, aiming to replace the gruesome public hangings of the time. The podcast highlights the mishaps that occurred during electrocutions, such as William Taylor's legs ripping off during the process. It also explores how Louisiana transitioned from hangings to using the electric chair in 1940 and eventually to lethal injection in 1991.

Additionally, we want to acknowledge the support of Lori Johnson, a Louisiana community figure participating in a fundraising event for the Big Buddy Program. If you would like contribute to the cause and show support for Lori, we provide her specific link below.

https://dancingforbigbuddy.com/dancer/lori-johnson/?fbclid=IwAR0aHVAqaX_u_kCMjAn4mw_7E1eY5MXNUifV8mpKfHEdkT2VCmbJaEtHgig

Timestamps

0:03:57 The History of the Electric Chair

0:06:49 Public Executions and the Shift to Electric Chair

0:14:19 Transition to Electric Chair in Louisiana

0:15:31 Introduction of Portable Electric Chair in Louisiana

0:19:44 Increase in Louisiana Executions via Electric Chair

0:28:05 History of Executioners in the US and Bloody Angola

0:29:30 Exploring Alternate Forms of Execution

0:33:11 Reflections on the Justice System and Executions

0:35:22 Shout-Out to Lori Johnson's Fundraiser

0:37:24 Wrapping Up and Rodeo Plans

In this Part 2 we wraps up this series "The Richest Man in Bloody Angola" .

In this episode, we dive into the story of Wilbert Rideau, a man who spent 44 years in prison for a crime he committed in 1961. 

We explore his journey from a young man involved in a tragic incident to his time in prison, including solitary confinement and his reflections on regret and survival. 

We discuss his various trials, legal battles, and ultimately his release after being found guilty of manslaughter in his fourth trial. Wilbert's transformation during his time in prison, his accomplishments as a journalist, filmmaker, and author post-release, and the challenges he faced reintegrating into society are all highlighted. 

We also touch on the perspectives of the victims' families and the complexities of forgiveness and redemption. 

The episode explores the question of rehabilitation and whether Wilbert Rideau, now a successful author and consultant, has truly changed from the person he was in 1961. 

Ultimately, we reflect on Wilbert Rideau's journey and the contrasting feelings of justice, forgiveness, and the ongoing impact of his release.

Timestamps:

0:01:51 Facing Regrets and Solitary Confinement

0:03:37 Hope in Solitude

0:06:30 The Hope of Clemency

0:09:39 Linda LaBranche's Support

0:13:55 Legal Dream Team with Johnny Cochran

0:16:47 Judicial Rollercoaster

0:21:33 Opening Statements of Fourth Trial

0:26:01 Conclusion of Fourth Trial

0:28:44 Rideau's Release and Community Divide

0:37:00 Concerns and Plans Post-Prison

0:39:14 Wilbert Rideau's Biographical Success

0:41:58 The Richest Man in Bloody Angola

In this episode of Bloody Angola, Jim Chapman delves into the story of Wilbert Rideau, a prisoner with a remarkable journey. Rideau achieved significant accomplishments behind bars, winning prestigious journalism awards and making substantial reforms within the Angola prison. Chapman vividly describes Rideau's background, including his upbringing in Louisiana and his involvement in a fateful armed bank robbery in 1961. The detailed account of the robbery and its consequences on Rideau's life are presented, highlighting the tragic events that unfolded that night.

Chapman delves into Rideau's multiple trials, each resulting in a first-degree murder conviction and a death sentence. Despite Rideau's claims of panic and lack of premeditation, the courts repeatedly found him guilty. The emotional impact on the victims, especially Dora McCain, a surviving bank teller, is powerfully portrayed through their statements during Rideau's clemency hearings. The tension between Rideau's rehabilitation and the severity of his crime is a central theme throughout the episode.

The episode captures the complex emotions and moral dilemmas surrounding Rideau's case, including insights from journalists, D.A., and Rideau's mother. Despite his outstanding achievements in journalism and documentary filmmaking while in prison, Rideau faces the ongoing challenge of seeking clemency and ultimate release. The episode ends with a hint of a forthcoming episode, promising a continuation of Rideau's story and the surprising turns it takes. Throughout the episode, Chapman's narrative style immerses the listeners in the compelling and controversial story of Wilbert Rideau and the Angola prison.

Timestamps:

0:03:20 Rideau's Accomplishments and Reforms

0:04:53 Recognition and Fame

0:05:13 Wilbert Rideau's Upbringing

0:06:50 The Bank Robbery

0:11:54 The Bank Robbery - Confrontation

0:14:30 The Bank Robbery - Panic Sets In

0:20:32 Publicity Surrounding Rideau's Case

0:23:16 Legal Battles and Appeals

0:26:47 Interview Reflection on the Crime

0:33:54 Rideau's Notable Achievements

0:38:19 Rideau as Editor of Angola

0:41:04 Rideau's Clemency Hearing

0:45:29 Public Response to Rideau's Clemency

0:47:11 Clemency Decision

0:50:41 Rideau's Success in Prison

In this episode of Bloody Angola podcast, we delve into the chilling world of serial killers and the intricate process of catching them. Drawing from the case of Derek Todd Lee, a notorious serial killer in the Baton Rouge area of Louisiana, we discuss how the FBI profiling of serial killers has evolved over the years. We highlight the challenges law enforcement faced in accurately profiling Derek Todd Lee, who defied the initial FBI profile by being a person of color. The episode delves into the power of DNA evidence in catching serial killers, using examples like Brian Koberger's case, where familial DNA played a crucial role in identification.

In this episode of Bloody Angola, the podcast we delve into the life story of Wayne Felde, a troubled individual who was born in 1949 and grew up in a family with a history of military service.

Wayne's father was abusive and struggled with alcoholism, which deeply impacted Wayne's upbringing. Wayne enlisted in the Army during the Vietnam War, hoping to become a war hero, but the harsh reality of the war quickly changed his perspective on conflict. He endured traumatic experiences in Vietnam, including exposure to Agent Orange, which had long-lasting detrimental effects on his health.

After returning from Vietnam, Wayne struggled with PTSD and alcoholism, leading to a series of tumultuous events in his life. Tragically, Wayne ended up in a confrontation where he unintentionally killed a friend due to a PTSD-induced episode. Subsequently, Wayne was involved in a fatal incident with a police officer, resulting in his arrest and imprisonment. Despite attempts to take his own life and a tumultuous legal battle, Wayne was sentenced to death and ultimately executed in the electric chair at Louisiana State Penitentiary on March 15, 1988, just days before his 39th birthday.

The podcast reflects on Wayne's complex life, the impact of war trauma on his actions, and the justice system's final verdict on his fate. The story highlights the complexities of PTSD, accountability for one's actions, and the tragic end that Wayne faced. Through detailed storytelling and historical context, Bloody Angola provides a deep dive into the life of Wayne Felde and his ultimate demise in the electric chair at the notorious prison.

Timestamps:

0:02:16 ]: Wayne Felde's Childhood

0:05:58 ]: Wayne's Enlistment in Vietnam

0:10:03 ]: Impact of Agent Orange

0:14:02 ]: Wayne's Return to the U.S.

0:15:24 ]: Wayne's Struggles after Vietnam

0:22:31 ]: Wayne's Murder Trial

0:30:09 ]: Wayne's Escape

0:34:56 ]: Wayne's Time on Death Row

0:36:37 ]: Wayne's Execution

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In this episode, we explore the history and future of the Louisiana's Correctional Institute for Women (LCIW). We discuss the challenges faced by women at LCIW, including limited access to education and overcrowding. We also highlight the appointment of Kristen Thomas as the second-ever female warden and the construction of a new facility with improved amenities.

#BloodyAngolaPodcast #LadyConvicts #LCIW #Podcast

Timestamps

0:02:20 Women's fate after leaving Angola: LCIW and its history

0:04:04 Construction of St. Gabriel, a female-only prison near Baton Rouge

0:04:31 Early years of LCIW: Housing, Orientation, and Behavioral Assessments

0:06:37 Work release program and healthcare at LCIW

0:14:58 Female warden appointed to increase diversity in leadership

0:19:18 Groundbreaking for new LCIW facility in September 2022

0:27:14 Success Stories: Horticulture, Upholstery, and Welding Classes

0:29:13 Re-entry Programs and Support for Incarcerated Women

0:36:43 Inside Knowledge of Prison Life and Security Measures

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In this episode of the Bloody Angola podcast, we explore the Louisiana State Penitentiary Execution Manual. We discuss the procedures and requirements for executions, the role of witnesses, and the importance of professionalism. We also touch on the legal process and the rarity of exoneration.

Timestamps

0:03:20 Chain of Command and Roles in the Execution Process

0:05:48 Incarceration and Transport of Death Row Offenders

0:07:02 Communications and Media Regulations

0:09:11 Visits, Visits with Family, and Special Visits

0:15:47 Preparation and Security Measures for Executions

0:18:13 Witness Selection and Pool Reporters

0:23:25 Execution Process and Post-Execution Procedures

0:28:34 Execution process and the role of the coroner

0:30:13 Paperwork involved in the execution process

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A 16-year-old brutally murders an 8-year-old while biking in Saint Francisville, Louisiana. Trevor Reese confesses which leads to a sentence in Bloody Angola for life without parole. We discuss the horrific crime, the legal proceedings, impact statements in this episode of Bloody Angola Podcast.

Timestamps

0:04:24 Background on Clinton and St. Francisville

0:12:44 A typical summer day in Louisiana

0:14:32 Tragic encounter with Trevor Reese

0:16:36 Monique's Desperate Attempt to Save Jack

0:18:10 Trevor Confesses to the Carpenter

0:18:34 Trevor's Brutal Crime

0:20:11 District Judge rules Trevor eligible for prosecution as an adult

0:22:54 Arraignment: Not guilty by reason of insanity plea entered

0:23:42 The shocking murder and the grief-stricken parents

0:26:06 Trial dates set and the plea deal confusion

0:28:14 Judge Carmichael questions Trevor's plea and explains the process

0:30:49 Trevor's monstrous nature and absence of remorse examined

0:32:15 Dr. Scott speaks about Monique's trauma and PTSD

0:34:04 Monique's realization and the horrifying details of Jackson's injuries

0:35:56 Jack's grandfather's heart-wrenching victim impact statement

0:36:32 Devastation and Hatred: The Scar You Left Behind

0:37:39 Jack's Father Pleads for Maximum Sentence

0:40:04 Trevor's Admission of Guilt and Sentencing

0:42:31 The complexity of victims on both sides

0:43:04 A Father's Responsibility and the Change in Law

Thank you to Cyndi Overton for her assistance in researching this case.

In todays episode we discuss the Louisiana Supreme Court decision called Montgomery v. Louisiana, which involved Henry Montgomery, the longest-serving convict in Angola Prison's history. 

Henry was released in 2021 after spending 57 years behind bars. We start with the events of November 13th, 1963, when Officer Hurt encountered Henry at a park which led to the murder of the officer. The community goes into lockdown, and Montgomery is eventually found, confesses to the shooting, and is convicted of first-degree murder. 

Despite initially receiving a death sentence, he is later granted a new trial, resulting in a life sentence. The 2010 case Graham v. Florida, in which the Supreme Court deemed juvenile life without parole sentences unconstitutional for crimes other than murder was the start of some life changing Supreme Court rulings for juvenile offenders. 

Miller v. Alabama followed and was used as a precedent to have Henry Montgomery's case reviewed by the Supreme Court, resulting in his life without parole sentence being thrown out. 

Known as Montgomery vs Louisiana this ruling became one of the most historic rulings in history as it relates to juvenile lifer's.

You are going to want to tune into this one! It's FIRE!

Chapters

0:07:17 Officer Charles Hurt and Henry Montgomery's Fateful Encounter

0:11:27 Confrontation Turns Dangerous with a Pistol Drawn

0:15:18 Montgomery's Trial and Sentencing

0:22:14 Montgomery's Eligibility for Parole

0:28:02 Tough Decision: Denying Parole

0:33:12 Henry Montgomery's Release and Reflections on Freedom

0:42:19 A Police Officer's Perspective and the Verdict

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This emergency drop is in response to information received regarding the most recent drop of Bloody Angola titled "The Changing of the Guard".

For the article referenced in the "Changing of the Guard" episode, see the attached link below.

https://www.fox8live.com/2023/12/21/governor-edwards-pardons-57-inmates-october-through-december/

***We are retracting the portion of this podcast referencing that all of these inmates received a full pardon, we like most of the general public received incomplete information. While all received "a" pardon", most received clemency meaning they got a reduction in sentence, However 5 inmates in particular did receive a full pardon. The episode following this episode contains the details of this retraction.***

In this episode of Bloody Angola, we explore the recent transition of power with the election of Governor Jeff Landry as it relates to crime and the recent pardons of outgoing Louisiana Governor John Bell Edwards.. 

Previous governor, John Bel Edwards, is known for his leniency in crime and numerous acts of clemency. We delve into the governor's authority to grant sentence commutation, the role of the pardon board in reviewing applications, and the different types of clemency that exist.

We focus on the actions of John Bel Edwards, who commuted the sentences of many prisoners and granted several inmates full pardons.

The current governor, Jeff Landry, known for his tough stance on crime, Landry stands firm on his commitment to restoring law and order.

Chapters

0:02:07 Changing of the Guard: New Governor, New Policies

0:05:36 Clemency Applications and Eligibility Requirements

0:14:09 John Bel Edwards' High Rate of Sentence Commutations

0:16:03 Pardons explained

0:17:12 Pardons of Convicted Individuals.

0:19:07 Continuation of List: Pardons.

0:21:03 Additional Pardons for Murder and Other Crimes

0:28:29 Jeff Landry's Tough Stance on Crime

0:30:26 Jeff Landry's Anti-Crime Ads as Governor Candidate

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In this episode of Bloody Angola, Woody and Jim share the firsthand recollections of the harsh and violent environment at the prison as told by Clifford Hampton. Hampton sheds light on the meager funding, strict work routines, and rampant violence in the mid to late sixties in Camp H. Hampton vividly describes the physical demands of farm labor and the presence of sexual activities.

#bloodyangola #cliffordhampton #prison #camph #podcast #crime #truecrime

Chapters

0:01:33 Introduction to Bloody Angola podcast

0:03:47 The Story of Camp H and Inmate Clifford Hampton

0:11:13 Change of Plans and Placement in B Block

0:20:29 Daily Routine on the Farm

0:23:02 Dorm Life and Lack of Security

0:30:49 Life in Camp H Prison

0:34:51 Jeff Landry's commitment to the letter of the law

0:36:23 Thanking Patreon members and encouraging sharing of the podcast

0:38:32 Imprisoned and Bound: Life Behind Bars

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In this episode of Bloody Angola Podcast, Woody and Jim bring you some new details and insight into the C-Murder case and a revamped edition of our top downloaded episode of 2023!

In this episode of Bloody Angola: A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman Kelly Jennings if Unspeakable: A True Crime Podcast by Kelly Jennings joins Woody and Jim and shares some stories about her time in Angola.

This episode has never been released to the general public and prior to today only available to patreon members but due to the extreme popularity of our patreon we decided to make it available to everyone.

Kelly's podcast can be found wherever you listen or on her website at:

www.unspeakablethepodcast.com

Our patreon and Apple subscribers get Bonus episodes not released to the public at least once per month so if you enjoy this episode, we would love to have your support on Patreon! 

In this episode of Bloody Angola: A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman the guys tell give you current updates on the teens being housed at Angola as well as female inmate being recently moved to the facility.

#bloodyangolapodcast #revolvingdoor #Podcast #Louisianastatepenitentiary #womeninprison #teensatangola

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In this episode of Bloody Angola: A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman, they discuss and give you the full details regarding the history of Women incarcerated at Louisiana State Penitentiary before it was known as Bloody Angola and was simply known as "The Walls". 

This episode though hard to hear is an important part of our past that should we forget, we would be doomed to repeat.

#bloodyangolapodcast #convictleasing #Podcast #Louisianastatepenitentiary #womeninprison #thewalls

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In this episode of Bloody Angola: A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman, they tell you the story of one of the most notorious Hate Crime serial killers in history. 

Kenneth Gleason made headlines in 2017 when he was charged with the execution style murders of 2 black men in Baton Rouge, LA in which a massive manhunt lead to his arrest, his eventual sentence to life inside Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, his eventual death at Angola, and the insane precident that threatened to wipe his record clean before the Louisiana State Supreme Court intervened.

#bloodyangolapodcast #kennethgleason #murder #Podcast #Louisianastatepenitentiary #jefflandry #hatecrime

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In this episode of Bloody Angola: A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman, they wrap up the case of the murder of Audra Bland. In 2007 William Lee Jr. was convicted of her murder and sentenced to life in prison at Louisiana State Penitentiary. A new law passed in 2021 made way for a reduction in his sentence, but that was just the start of a winding roller coaster ride that eventually led to the Louisiana State Supreme Court and a landmark decision pushed by Governor Elect and Attorney General Jeff Landry.

Christine Tillman joins them in this Woody Overton.

(part 3 of a 3 part series)

#bloodyangolapodcast #Thelakehousemurder #williamleejr #Podcast #Louisianastatepenitentiary #jefflandry #louisianaact104

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In this PART 2 episode of Bloody Angola: A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman, woody and Jim continue to bring you into the case of the murder of Audra Bland. In 2007 William Lee Jr. was convicted of her murder and sentenced to life in prison at Louisiana State Penitentiary. A new law passed in 2021 made way for a reduction in his sentence, but that was just the start of a winding roller coaster ride that eventually led to the Louisiana State Supreme Court and a landmark decision pushed by Governor Elect and Attorney General Jeff Landry.

(part 2 of a 3 part series)

#bloodyangolapodcast #Thelakehousemurder #williamleejr #Podcast #Louisianastatepenitentiary #jefflandry #louisianaact104

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In this episode of Bloody Angola: A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman, they bring you into the case of the murder of Audra Bland. In 2007 William Lee Jr. was convicted of her murder and sentenced to life in prison at Louisiana State Penitentiary. A new law passed in 2021 made way for a reduction in his sentence, but that was just the start of a winding roller coaster ride that eventually led to the Louisiana State Supreme Court and a landmark decision pushed by Governor Elect and Attorney General Jeff Landry.

(part 1 of a 3 part series)

#bloodyangolapodcast #Thelakehousemurder #williamleejr #Podcast #Louisianastatepenitentiary #jefflandry #louisianaact104

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HelloFresh delivers step-by-step recipes and fresh, pre-portioned ingredients right to your door. First, you set your meal plan preferences with options for carnivores, vegetarians, calorie-counters, and more. You'll choose from 30+ delicious weekly recipes carefully put together by the amazing chefs!

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In today's podcast episode of Bloody Angola we tell you 3 short stories of Life at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola including the story of Warden John Whitley who started his professional life and ended it at Angola, the story of Billy Blake Johnson who lost his life attempting to escape Angola, and the Prison View Golf Course which makes "Life" better for the Correctional Officers at Angola.

#bloodyangolapodcast #LifemeansLife #JohnWhitley #Podcast #Louisianastatepenitentiary

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TRANSCRIPT

BLOODY ANGOLA PODCAST: LIFE MEANS LIFE

Jim:Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Bloody Angola, a podcast, 142 years in the making the complete story of America's bloodiest prison. And I'm Jim Chapman. Woody Overton could not join us today. We're working on some big, big stuff. And Woody's on assignment, that's all I can say. But there's going to be some really big stuff coming around the bend for everybody, so look forward to that. And I thought today, it would be fun to tell you some of the stories of Angola that you may not be familiar with, that aren't necessarily stories that can fill up, like, a whole hour of content, but at the same time, need to be told and are really good stories. So I wanted to share those with you, and we're going to jump right into it. 

The first story I'm going to tell you about is actually about a former warden of Angola by the name of John Whitley. And John Whitley was actually the warden of Angola from 1990 until 1995. Look, John Whitley, the prison warden, was probably as prototypical as you can get to a prison warden when you would think of one. Kind of like the opposite of Burl Cain. Burl Cain was someone that, when you saw him, you wouldn't think he was the warden for the largest maximum-security prison in America. Same thing with John Whitley, but on the total opposite end, he is exactly what you would picture. He was a cowboy character. Actually, wore a cowboy hat and dressed with button up shirt. The picture I'm actually looking at now, he has a vest. It's almost like a leather vest over that button up shirt, and wears glasses, mustache, just looks like someone you would picture as a warden. And had a short but storied history at Angola relative to being a warden. Although he started off at the very bottom, and we're going to tell you all about that. 

John Whitley attended Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana, which is actually probably about an hour and 20 minutes from Angola. From where we record, right outside of Baton Rouge, it's actually about a half hour from us. It is I guess the second largest college in Louisiana outside of Louisiana State University. Good college. Whitley attended that college. He was actually born in Hammond, Louisiana as well. So he went to school same place he was born in. Now, after he left college, he ended up graduating in 1968. He enlisted in the United States Army. That's important. That was an important step in his life, because that was kind of in the heyday of Vietnam. People weren't necessarily just enlisting into the army. They were getting drafted. So it shows you John Whitley's courage and his commitment to his country that he would enlist in the United States Army. He actually served during the Vietnam War and was discharged in 1970. 

Now, shortly after that, he started his career in corrections. So Whitley started that career at Angola in 1970, and he rose pretty much through those ranks quickly. He eventually became a deputy warden, and then he was promoted to warden of another Louisiana prison. So he was deputy warden at Angola. I know you've heard about us talk about Hunt Correctional Center, which is a prison, it's kind of like the baby brother to Angola, just a smaller, not so violent a prison as Angola. They needed a warden, and he actually got promoted to the warden of Hunt Correctional. From there, he left the state, and he ran a private prison in Texas. I know you've heard us talk about that with the private prisons are actually-- they're not ran by state employees. They're ran privately, and the state pays them for that service, and Texas has several of those, and he ran one of those private prisons in Texas. 

Now, in 1990, Louisiana was like, “Man, what's going on here? This guy is in Texas, and he's got all this experience. He's a Louisiana guy, and we need him at Angola.” This was 1990, and Angola was in just a mess at that point, and they needed someone to restore order there, basically. At the time that they were seeking out John Whitley, they were having frequent, very frequent stabbings, suicides. They were dealing with a lot of escapes. And a US federal judge had actually declared, what's known as, a state of emergency at the prison in response to an ACLU lawsuit against the state specifically for the horrendous conditions at Angola. So it was a situation where they needed someone, not only with some Louisiana ties that really cared, but they also needed someone that had the experience to handle such a prison. John Whitley started there, rose all the way up to deputy warden. That was back since 1970. He was the perfect candidate for that. And so he took that job. 

Within two years, Whitley had pretty much stemmed all of that violence. He established incentives for good behavior, which is something they did not have in Angola prior to his arrival there as warden. Some of those incentives for good behavior, he'd allow the inmates to have extra visits. He would increase the educational opportunities for the inmates. If you were good, maybe you had the opportunity to learn a trade that you had to have good behavior in order to get to learn, like maybe welding or something. I mean, you don't want someone that's causing a bunch of trouble in Angola getting a halt to a welding machine. So those things, he figured out-- He figured out the important thing-- When you're running a prison, and that is you've got to have incentives for the inmates. If there's no incentive for good behavior, they're not going to be good. That's just the bottom line. 

So that was something he really stemmed, education wise for them. Also, literacy tutoring, computer and paralegal courses. He started bringing those into the prison not quite at the level that Warden Cain did later on, but the infancy of that is a credit to John Whitley and the things that he did. So he also enabled some trustworthy and deserving inmates to travel outside of the prison as part of some athletic teams and inmate bands that provided entertainment for-- They would entertain churches, they would entertain nursing homes and other charitable organizations throughout the area. John Whitley was kind of the guy who came up with the idea to start offering these things as a deterrent, if you will, against violence. He knew that these programs were the way to start. 

So he also launched an outreach program to all the criminal justice programs in the state of Louisiana. So he would basically send prison officials and inmates, and they would go into these college classrooms, and they would help, both the students and the faculty better understand the realities of not only managing a prison, but life in prison as an inmate. Those things weren't done, at least with Angola inmates, before John Whitley became warden. 

Now, one thing that's very important in prison, but is not commonly practiced, I guess you could say, is having an open-door policy with the media. Take it from me, y'all know that I love to research. It's not easy at all to find information about Angola, or probably most of your state prisons, and that is, they keep things that go on inside that prison, and you got to really dig to find information on stuff like that. But he was committed to, what I would call, an open-door policy with the media, and even The Angolite, which-- We've done several episodes about The Angolite and read many, many articles on that. 

Well, The Angolite, the biggest concern with that magazine as time went on, and I noticed this as I was reading it was, it got a little farther and farther away from what was actually happening. What they were printing was the truth. But where in the 40s and 50s, when The Angolite was produced, they were talking about all these escapes and stabbings and all the things that happened inside that prison. When it got around to the 80s and 90s, it was a lot softer. There were things going on, but they weren't allowing The Angolite publishers or editors, rather, to print that [chuckles] or talk about it. And so didn't necessarily mean it wasn't going on. It's just the editors weren't putting it in there. But he wanted to have a welcoming nature with the media and try to cooperate with them rather.

And so one of the things that he allowed The Angolite to do was to produce material for radio and television journalism inside the prison, which-- Believe it or not, they have their own radio station there. They have a lot of film equipment there. They can actually film documentaries and stuff. The prisoners actually learn how to do this, and are as good as-- They got some producers in Angola that are as good or better than I am at doing that. Some of them probably better, and just amazing people out inside that prison that produced these things. But he didn't want them censored. The claim is that John Whitley did not censor the radio shows and stuff that were coming out of Angola, which is very interesting. 

So he's continuing on and he's starting all these programs. Shortly after his first year at Angola as a warden, it was actually July 1991, some inmate welders were ordered by the corrections department to build a “hospital examining table.” So they soon learned that it was a gurney to enable executions by lethal injection. Now, this took place hours after an execution by electric chair had taken place. One of the welders actually had a brother who had been executed at the prison. And learning of these plans that this “hospital examining table” was actually going to be the table they were going to use for lethal injection, he didn't like that too much. So of course, as we told you, inmates like to gossip, inmates like to talk, and so he goes around and he starts firing up inmates and telling them of this plan. They're not making us build a hospital examining table, they're wanting us to build the table for the lethal injections. He's riling up these inmates, and they're bucking up. So they decide to stage a work strike. This is hundreds of fellow inmates. 

Now, when Whitley learned this was happening, what does he do? He locks up all the guys that are striking. He says, “Okay, y'all-- Are all getting locked up in solitary.” He brings in the SWAT teams and he tells them to get prepared for that strike. He also told the media that deceiving the inmate workers was wrong and the work order should have never been issued. He understood that it put the inmates in a bad position and he wasn't going to subject them to building the lethal injection gurney. 

When the inmates heard that, they basically ended that strike. There was no violence. And honestly, Whitley gained a lot of respect, not only with the inmate population, but also with his security force over coming out and saying, “Hey, this was a bad call and a major lack of judgment.” And look, regardless of what you may think about inmates inside of Angola, I agree that it's not right to ask inmates to build the lethal injection table for death row. I can see why they'd get pissed off about something like that. And he did too, and he admitted to that that was a little bit too much to ask. 

The Baton Rouge Morning Advocate, let's talk about them for a second. They're the premier paper I guess in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and are no fans of Angola, to say the least, especially with Burl Cain, The Baton Rouge Morning Advocate and Burl Cain have a long history of hatred, to say the least. So they're a very conservative paper. Even they commended him in two editorials for admitting that the prison had screwed up and made a mistake by asking the convicts to build that table. They went as far to say that was a refreshing thing to have a warden actually come out and admit that mistake. He was nationally even accredited for that with national magazines such as Time magazine, which had a glowing article that they put out on John Whitley. So I'm going to go ahead. I want to read you that article because this is really going to paint a picture of who he was, and then I've got another story I'm going to tell you about the prison view golf course. There's actually a golf course in Angola that we're going to talk about, but I'm going to go ahead and read you this article by Time magazine that was put out Monday, December 14th, 1992, and the headline says, Bringing Decency Into Hell: JOHN WHITLEY. 

So it says, When John Whitley wanders into the courtyard of Camp H, he's not just any visitor. He is the warden. The Man. Yet his presence stirs hardly a ripple. He inspects a flower bed, points to some asbestos dangling from a pipe. Mostly he just loiters, signaling that he is open for business. Slowly, as if they have all the time in the world, which, of course, many of them do, half a dozen inmates drift his way. One complains about missing laundry another asks that recreational time be extended. All are polite, but none display the eagerness of someone anxious to please. 

Whitley, 48, listens intently, asking occasional questions in a gravelly twang. Nothing in his courteous demeanor suggests, “I am the keeper, you are the kept. You understand that even if it's a small problem, it may be the biggest problem they have,” he says later. You don't just blow anyone off. Conditions were not always so relaxed and congenial at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola. Just three years ago, the main prison and five outcamps at the 18,000-acre facility were rocking with murders, suicides and escape attempts. The mood was so tense that a federal judge declared a state of emergency, which included a state investigation and tightened federal oversight. Discontent among the 5,186 inmates could be summed up in a word, hopelessness. Prisoners, the vast majority of them lifers in a state where a life term means life, blamed their despair on tough parole laws. At risk was a reprise of the chaos that in the early 70s earned Angola the dubious distinction of being the nation's bloodiest prison. 

Enter John Whitley, a quiet-spoken Louisiana native with a lazy smile, whose cowboy hats and elephant-hide boots, hey, y’all, I like that, make more of an impression than his low-key manner. In just 32 months, he has turned Angola around, relying on little more than his sense of decency and fairness. The number of stabbings, hangings, and escape attempts has dropped dramatically. The malfeasance has lifted. Security officers say that Whitley has improved communications between the prisoners and the 1,500 member staff. Inmates credit Whitley with providing new educational and recreational programs. Most important, inmates feel they have an advocate in Whitley at a time when the courts and the Louisiana legislature seem bent on locking up felons. The way inmates and security guards tell it, “Whitley sounds like the hero of a movie. He is open-minded, impartial, considerate.” “Warden's pretty cool people,” says Curtis Kyles, one of 35 inmates on death row. "He sees people as individuals, not throwaways." 

To illustrate their point, prisoners start with an incident that occurred on July 22nd, 1991. At 12:10 on that date, Whitley presided over Louisiana's final execution by electric chair. Later the same day, orders reached the prison metal shop to construct the gurney that would henceforth be used for lethal injections. Two inmate welders balked, then 375 convicts joined their work buck. Confronted by every warden's worst nightmare, a prisoner rebellion. Whitley did the unthinkable, he backed down. He publicly called the idea a bad one and said a private contractor would build the table instead. "He admitted he was wrong," says lifer Patrick DeVille. "Wardens just don't do that." So, y’all can see he was earning their respect there.

Initially, some prisoners interpreted Whitley's reversal as a sign of weakness. But many changed their mind. A few months later, after the state legislature imposed a strict October 1991 deadline for inmates to challenge their convictions, Whitley, alone of Louisiana's 12 prison wardens, helped inmates beat the cutoff. He authorized the prison printshop to run off 5,000 appeal applications. He instructed the prison radio station to hold a question-and-answer program, brought in a lawyer to field questions, then ordered all inmates to listen. He also made sure that illiterate inmates which is about 70% of Angola’s population got help filling out the forms. 

So you can see there that he was building up this rapport with the inmates. And then the article goes on later. Whitley describes himself as very conservative on crime. He favors the death penalty and believes executions would serve as a deterrent if they were carried out more swiftly. He has presided over two executions. After each, he said, he went home and fell into a deep, undisturbed sleep. Whitley also says that his number one concern is security and that he has no-- his number one concern is security rather and that he has no moral problem locking up an inmate for life as long as citizens understand that it'll cost them. As a starry-eyed corrections rookie, Whitley admits, "I was going to save them all." 22 years later, he thinks it's a complete farce to speak of rehabilitating inmates. They must do that for themselves. "All we can do," he said, "is provide the opportunity. Does he believe a person can really change? Sure, I've seen it. They've aged. They've matured. They've shown they can handle their emotions." Would he give some of them a second chance? "Sure," he said. Coaxed, the warden allows that there are a couple hundred he could set free tomorrow and he would have no reservations.

Now some of those men were inmates back in 1970 when Whitley first started out at Angola as a classification officer. Armed with sociology and zoology degrees from Southeastern Louisiana University, he tried and failed to secure an appointment to the state police. Disappointed, he settled for a corrections job. After nine years at Angola, he moved to Louisiana's Hunt Correctional Center, where in 1983 he became The Man. "I never really had a desire to be a warden," he says. "I just kept being promoted up." Sybil, his wife of 17 years counters that She says, “He says he's not ambitious, but I say he is." 

After retiring from the civil service in 1989, he became warden of a privately run prison in Texas. When the call came from Louisiana asking him to return, Whitley's first reaction was to laugh. "I couldn't see coming back to a prison of the size and the problems of Angola.". He set what he believed to be an unreasonably high salary. Get this y’all, $70,000. Then found the joke was on him when his price was met. These days, Whitley's stiffest challenge is finding time to himself. The 28 square mile domain over which he reigns is as demanding as any small town. There are fire and sanitation departments, a civilian population of 300, which is mostly security staff and their families. A cemetery, a community, swimming pool and even a post office with its own zip code. 

Although Whitley and his wife and seven-year-old daughter, Susan, live in grand isolation in a spacious brick house atop a hill overlooking Angola, the sense of privacy is just an illusory. He can't even see Susan's swim meet without someone saying, “Hey, boss, I've got a problem. So when you live on Angola, you not only high access to the prisoners that are constantly complaining but you're employees that are constantly complaining.” That was one thing about Burl Cain when he was at Angola. If you remember, he didn’t live on the B-Line. He actually kept his house, which was at Dixon Correctional Center. I would imagine some of that might have been he foresaw these issues. Now the article goes on, it says, when Whitley took the wardenship, he signed on for three years. Extending his stay, he says, it would depend on how much he feels he can accomplish. It is clear he wants more. More medical, culinary and maintenance staff, a bigger hospital, more classroom space like every other warden in America though he runs up against budget limitations. 

Let’s talk about that second. That is the biggest issue with any state prison. Nobody, including myself, wants to pay for prisoners. And wardens from every prison in America will tell you they never have enough money. It makes sense in a way. I mean, “I don't want to pay extra tax dollars to lock someone up. I know it needs to be done, but I don't like to have to pay for that." So some of these programs are very expensive. When you have to rehab a prison, it's very expensive. And although I know there's a need there, nobody likes to pay for it. So these state prisons always have budget issues. “It was short sighted,” he said. What you send out of prisons is going to reflect what you had in them, if that includes the warden, Angola’s graduates are now just a little more likely to come out to fair, decent, straight up people just like The Man[?].

That was written by Time magazine, another magazine that you wouldn't expect necessarily to be very complimentary of wardens. But in this case, it was. That should tell you a lot more about who John Whitley was. Just a reminder there. He served right before Burl Cain. So Burl Cain came in and the foundation was built. It wasn't what Burl Cain brought it to while he was there, we all know, and we did a three-part series, so I'm not going to harp on this too much. It wasn't what Burl Cain did after he got there, but it laid the foundation for that. Whitley did a good job of that. So there's a little bit about John Whitley. We're going to try to bring you more information on some of these I guess Angola's wardens from the past every now and then, so you can hear that. 

Now, I made mention of telling you a little bit about the golf course at Angola. It may surprise some of you that they actually have one. They do. It was actually built by the prisoners at Angola. It's located on the grounds at Louisiana State Penitentiary, and it's operated by the Louisiana State Penitentiary Employee Recreation Committee. It offers players a challenging round of golf. It's a nine-hole facility. Meaning, most of your golf courses are 18 holes. This is a 9-hole facility, so you would basically play those nine holes twice to get a full round of golf in. It's a really beautiful golf course. The number one tee box is actually elevated 75 yards above the ground. It's set in the Tunica Hills. The entire course, it's a par 72 course. It measures around 6,000 yards in total. There's 37 sand bunkers, and there are some water hazards there as well. It features a restaurant serves po-boys fried seafood, hot dogs, cold drinks, and other assorted snacks. 

Now, the course was designed by the prison dentist, which is a guy by the name of Dr. John Ory. It's O-R-Y, y'all, so we'll call him Dr. John. The course was built with prison labor and funds generated from the Angola Annual Prison Radio. No public funds were spent to build that course. It is open to the public, so you can actually go play that course. The course opened for play in 2004. Now, if you're interested in playing the course, you have to present valid state ID, and play may be suspended anytime due to the institutional needs or at the warden's discretion. So if someone escapes, they're going to say, “Yeah, you got to get off the golf course.” Convicted felons and individuals listed on any inmate visiting list are not allowed access. And of course, you can't bring firearms, drugs, alcohol, or contraband items to that golf course either. But a really beautiful golf course. I'll try to put some pictures of it on the Facebook page and maybe some special pictures on the Patreon page. 

So I'm going to read you another good article here quickly. This was put out by the New York Times in 2004 when that golf course was built. It's pretty interesting because they actually talk with some inmates who help build that course. And it says, Golf Course Shaped By Prisoners' Hands. Golfers who step onto the new 9-hole course here encounter a rarity. The green felt fairways of Bermuda grass were graded and seeded by hand. The sand pits were actually dug by workers using shovels, not heavy equipment. More striking is the view. The first tee, a perch carved from the Tunica Hills near the Mississippi River, and provides a survey of all 18,000 acres of the prison. And that explains the hard labor. Prisoners built the course, which is on penitentiary property and open to the public. Though they cannot play, a few inmates have earned the privilege of tending the greens for 20 cents an hour at what is officially the Louisiana State Penitentiary but better known as Angola, which is 45 miles northwest of Baton Rouge. 

Lester Wright, who is serving a life sentence says, “Watching golfers on the course as he rides his mower is a bittersweet pleasure. 'When I look at them, I look at all the hard work that we done trying to fix this thing for them.” It's like, “Man, we did all this here and look at them dudes out there playing. Sometimes I do want to play.'' The course, called Prison View, was conceived by the prison's warden, Burl Cain, a man who views incarceration with a sense of humor. Visitors to the prison can buy T-shirts that say ''Angola: A Gated Community,'' along with Guts and Glory hot sauce, named for the prison's famous rodeo, at which inmates play chicken with angry bulls. At the golf course, the tees are marked with handcuffs. I do like that, nice little touch. 

Warden Cain brushes off the suggestion that some prisoners might dislike the markers. ''No, they think that's cool,'' he said. ''They wear striped shirts in the rodeo. They like it.'' But Mr. Wright, 49, said he was not amused. ''What are they doing with handcuffs out here?'' he says. ''Everybody knows it's a prison. It really offended me when I first seen it. After that, I just passed by and mowed the grass, it don't matter.'' Well, Mr. Wright, you're in prison, brother. Mr. Wright added, ''They're going to do what they want, we have to accept it, so that's all it is. It's all in trying to stay at peace with them and yourself.'' 

The course was built primarily for the use of prison employees, many of whom live on the grounds in a little settlement called B-Line. The course lies near Camp J, the 'behavior modification unit. Y’all, Camp J was the-- we did a whole episode on Camp J and how horrible-- how bad the reputation for Camp J was. It's no longer open. From the seventh hole, it is possible to wave to inmates on the Camp J basketball court, where they are permitted to spend three hours a week. 

On a sunny Sunday, the course attracted a handful of players, including a pecan sheller, an oil executive, and a telephone network manager, from nearby towns. Players said the charms of the course, its doglegs, short drives, and a lake with an island went beyond novelty. ''I've played a lot of courses, and I've paid more money to play a lot worse,'' said Joseph Lamartiniere, a corrections colonel at the prison, as his 3-year-old son, Peyton, hit a 15-foot drive. The transformation of the property from bull pasture to golf course took two years. Warden Cain said, it was the type of job that gave inmates a sense of accomplishment and taught them useful skills like groundskeeping and horticulture. 

Richard Mikkelson, a 47-year-old prisoner from Alexandria, Louisiana, was on the work crew and he said, it is indeed proud sight to see. ''I don't know how they build these things out here on the streets, but we did it with shovels and rakes and hoes.'' James F. Moore, the Director of Construction Education for the United States Golf Association said, he had a hard time envisioning a course built without modern equipment like mechanized levelers, seeders and powered trenching equipment. ''My guess is it's the only golf course built this way in at least the last 50 years. I'd have to see it to believe it.'' 

Mr. Mikkelson, who like most of the prisoners is serving a life sentence said, if he ever gets out of Angola, which would require an act of clemency, he would know exactly where to go for networking opportunities. ''A golf course is a place to meet people,'' he said. ''I've been told the main two places you go is to a golf course and church. That’s where you can get certain types.” Dr. Ory, who designed the course said, ''We want to go from a fun place to play golf to where people come back and say, that's a first-class deal. The fairways he said are planted with 419 Bermuda, as good as any country club. The whole course was built for $80,000, paid for by the employees' recreation fund and donations. A typical course costs $4 million to $7 million. And course fees are low. A membership is $200 a year, and the greens fee and cart are $20.” 

Dr. Ory said, “The hope is for the course to pay for itself, with some money to buy better equipment. The inmates have also learned a gentleman's sport. The par depends on the hazards and the length of the fairway,” he explained. ''From building the course and learning what each particular thing is as we built it, we knew how to play.” They just couldn't swing a club yet, and that's something we're not going to be allowed to do. Warden Cain draws the line at letting inmates caddy. “We're going to avoid the hint of impropriety,” he said. Some of the inmates who work on the course are known as trustys because of their good behavior records. And though Mr. Wright longs to play on a real course, he says he would not choose prison view. “I would like to play as a free man,” he said. “I would want to learn all I can. But once I get out there free to play like I want to, I'll enjoy it more.” So there you go. Look, I'm going to go play that course sometime, hopefully soon, and I'll give you all a report on my personal experience with it. 

And lastly, for today, I'm going to give you a quick story. Look, we got to have an actual story for you on Bloody Angola every week, right? So I'm going to give you one that I'm almost sure 99% of the people listening have never heard. Billy Blake Johnson was born on December 3rd, 1933, in Texas. He was the son of Emmett and Edna Johnson. And Emmett and Edna, his mom and dad, divorced when Billy was just a young boy. And by 1940, his father remarried and the family moved to what is known as Kern County, California, where Emmett worked as a truck driver. Nothing further is known about Billy growing up. But in 1951, he joined the Marine Corps and was stationed at Camp Pendleton. 

His military career would be short lived, and in January of 1952, Private First-Class Billy Blake Johnson was being held in the Camp Pendleton Brig for robbery. So he's starting some trouble. Then on July 18th of 1952, Johnson was able to open his cell door with the aid of a screwdriver he had acquired, and he then overtook the guard along with his firearm. Now, armed with a weapon, he commandeered a car belonging to Captain George Atkins and made his way off the military base, headed to Los Angeles. So what do you think they do? They put out an APB, an All-Points Bulletin, and eventually two LAPD officers spot a stolen vehicle occupied by Johnson. So he gets ordered out of the car, he comes out, and he's shooting, just like one of these old fashioned shootouts, and he shouts, “This is it.” 

Officers return fired, but he's able to escape injury somehow. He jumps several fences before he was taken into custody. And after his capture in LA, he was returned to that brig at Camp Pendleton and was sentenced to five years for burglary and theft, among other charges. He sits in that cell for several months and likely, what do we always say on this show? You got nothing but time in prison. He's contemplating his next move. And on a Saturday in late June of 1952, he escapes again. This time, he had an accomplice, someone by the name of Bobby Davis who had enlisted in the Marine Corps a year prior. The two make their getaway at 03:30 AM that morning in a green 1952 Chevy convertible with Texas plates. It's reported that the two were armed and known to be dangerous, and no details were really given as to how they managed to escape the brig, but they were apprehended a week later in Arizona. 

Guess what happens? There's another escape, a third escape in subsequent. Capture, and Billy Blake Johnson, eventually he serves his time and he gets paroled. But y’all, that did nothing to rehabilitate him. So in January of 1962, Johnson went to a service station in Texas, in a little suburb kind of south of Fort Worth, Texas, he buys $3.43 of gas, which back in 1962 might have filled up your whole car, and then he pulled a gun on the attendant and he says, “Act right or I'll kill you.” Johnson then takes $100 from a cash register and he forces a woman by the name of Hilleary Beck into the car with him. Beck tries to fight him off, and Johnson, in the vehicle, further threatens to kill her with this firearm. 

After driving about a mile, he then orders her out of the car and into a ditch, and he tells her, “Lie down,” and he drives away. Beck gets out of the ditch. She goes to a nearby home and calls authorities. So law enforcement, they're in hot pursuit. They're looking for him everywhere. They spot Johnson and they start chasing him. And both parties are like firing at each other, sticking guns out the window. Picture it. They're shooting back and forth at each other. Police set up a barricade to catch him. They set up a perimeter and they know he's heading in a certain direction. Johnson approaches Denton, Texas, and a patrolman by the name of A.C. Ballard leveled down on the hood of his truck with a sawed-off shotgun, and he blows out one of the tires of Johnson's getaway vehicle. The car goes out of control, y'all, it rolls over, it lands upright in a ditch. He somehow manages, again not to get hurt. He escapes serious injury in this. 

So he gets out of the car and runs. [chuckles] There's like a major man. This guy is like, impossible to catch. Major manhunt ensues and he eventually gets captured at a ranch in Denton County, Texas. Now, while in custody, he tells the arresting officers he had escaped three times from military prisons and had served time in four civilian prisons. He gets treated at the hospital for some very minor injuries, and then he's taken to jail. He goes to trial for all of this. But they find him to be insane, legally insane by a jury. here's not really, in the research I did, there's not really a whole lot of information as to how they came to that conclusion. So his criminal career doesn't end there, y’all. In 1964, Johnson went to Bonham, what's known as the Bonham, Texas jail for the sole purpose of breaking out an inmate. So it's important to note that a jury actually released-- when you were found to be insane, it's not like nowadays where you still stay in jail or whatever. He actually got released. 

But in 1964, he goes to a Bonham, Texas jail, and his whole point of going there was to break out an inmate by the name of Walter Ray Crews. He has a gun, and he literally breaks into the jail, overtakes a guard, and he forces the jailer to release Crews, and the two men haul ass. The pair makes it some 35 miles southeast to a city called Commerce, Texas, where they steal a car, and they drive 300 miles to Fort Polk, Louisiana. Now, while stopped on the side of the road, a state trooper pulls over to check on them. He sees them, doesn't realize at the time that they're escaped convicts. He just figured they were broke down, he was going to help them. Johnson, what does he do? He robs the trooper, which is a guy by the name of Jerry Raines at gunpoint and handcuffs him to a tree with his own handcuffs. Crews and Johnson then return to the stolen car and speed off. They head north. The trooper is able to eventually free himself with a spare key, and he, of course, radios in. “Hey, I just got handcuffed.” I'm sure that was an embarrassing conversation. But the duo ends up getting caught by an armed roadblock near Leesville, Louisiana. 

So Johnson gets sentenced to 15 years, and this is when he get sent to Angola, the notorious Angola prison. Bloody Angola, if you will. So he goes to Angola, and they're thinking, “Okay, he's not going to escape Angola.” Well, I wouldn't be so sure about that. On February 22nd of 1969, Johnson and two other inmates, armed with knives and a pistol, overpower guards in two separate dormitories. The guards were locked in a closet while the escapees cut the power of the main prison. Kester Lee hall, serving 189 years for murder, was captured just outside the prison. But Johnson, along with Philip Hudgins, had managed to avoid capture, but they didn't make it far. Authorities closed in on the two fugitives who were found in the swamps that surrounded the prison. Billy Blake Johnson, however, had made his last escape. Overtaken by the waters of the backed-up Mississippi, Johnson could not battle his way through the swamp. Hudgins tried to assist him and even carried Johnson for several hundred yards until he realized Billy was no longer breathing. He propped the body up of his fellow inmate against a fence and just waited while guards closed in. 

Exhausted Hudgins surrendered to law enforcement, and believe it or not, he would be released from prison in 1981. In 1983, he took a butcher knife and slashed the third of his wife and stabbed two others incidentally. Billy Blake Johnson was buried in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Ladonia, Texas. Although a cold, calculating, and elusive criminal, his mother still loved him. It's like Woody always says, “There's a mom somewhere and a dad and a sister and stuff that love you no matter what you've done.” His mother still loved him. His headstone was engraved with the simple epithet “Son.” So there you go. That's a story I bet you're not going to hear anywhere else, the story of Billy Blake Johnson. 

Look, I appreciate each and every one of you, Woody as well. We love, y'all. We couldn't do this without our patrons. Thank you so very much. We have a “big” thing coming to you very soon, and that's why Woody's not joining us this week. But he'll be back next week, I promise. I want to bring y'all something a little different. I hope y'all liked it. Just a little bit of everything. Golf courses, Billy Blake Johnson, and even the story of a famous warden at Angola. 

And until next time, I'm Jim Chapman. And for Woody Overton, we are your host of Bloody Angola, a podcast 142 years in the making the complete story of America's bloodiest prison. Peace. 

[Bloody Angola theme]

Woody is stuck in the snow on the way back from Wisconsin, but it did not stop Jim from making sure you got your Bloody Angola fix for this week! He broke a previously unreleased episode from the Patreon vault out of jail! 

In this episode Bloody Angola Podcast covers several stories of serial killers who were released from prison on parole only to commit more murders.

#bloodyangolapodcast #tokillagain #serialkillers

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TRANSCRIPT

BLOODY ANGOLA PODCAST: TO KILL AGAIN

Jim:Hey, everyone, and welcome back to Bloody Angola, a podcast 142 years in the making the complete story of America's bloodiest prison. And I am Jim Chapman. And as you probably noticed, Woody Overton was not helping me with that intro. And I promise y'all, he's going to be back next week. Super-secret mission. 

Today, I thought it would be fun to talk a little bit with y'all about paroled, murderers and serial killers. And this is going to be kind of a companion podcast. We're not going to be talking specifically about Angola. There's just so much content out there, y'all, with all the presence, all these historic presence throughout the nation. And so today, I wanted to bring y’all something a little bit different. So first of all, just to discuss a little bit about parole. 

So parole is when you get released, but you're still in the charge of the prison system. So basically, they're letting you out back into society, but there are certain parameters you have to live up to. A lot of times, these folks that get paroled, they are under, what's called, supervised parole, where they have to report into a parole officer. Many times, you have to wear the little ankle bracelet that is basically like GPS and those sort of things. A lot of times, you can't leave a certain area. They've got to pretty much know where you are at all times, which is a great thing. But a lot of people think, when you get paroled, you're getting released from the system. You're not. 

Basically, they're saying you can serve out the rest of your sentence in society and you don't have to be, in Angola's case, behind the wire. But if you do anything wrong, you have to serve out the remainder of your sentence. And in some cases, a lot more than that, because then you're breaking another law. And that's a whole another case you just caught in many instances. So that's what parole is. 

Now, there's a lot of killers that you wouldn't believe were paroled nationally, and I'm going to give you a few of those today. We'll start with Kenneth Allen McDuff. So who is Kenneth Allen McDuff? Well, he was paroled not, so he could necessarily adjust a life, not to reduce recidivism, which is basically re-offense in all criminal justice systems, whether it's the United States or anywhere else. They track recidivism, which is, you get out of jail and then you continue to commit crime and you end up back in jail. Well, the United States has a high rate of recidivism. Many, many an extremely high percentage of prisoners that get released back into society do recommit, and end up back in prison. There's a lot of reasons for that. 

Sometimes they're just bad people and they're never going to quit doing what they do, and then sometimes they get released and really do try to change their life around. But for whatever reason, they end up recommitting like, maybe they couldn't get a job because they had a felony. So they resort back to the one thing they know. If they were someone that robbed people, they continue to rob because that's the only way they know to make money, and that's not making an excuse. But in some cases, some do try to change. And the way society is set up, in some ways, that's hard to do when you've got felonies on your record and you spend a long time in prison. So I would say the vast majority are just bad people and they just recommit, but not all of them are thrown into that bucket. 

So Kenneth Allen McDuff, well, he was paroled not because of any of those reasons and not because he no longer posed a threat to public society. He was paroled to reduce overcrowding, y’all. Big problem right now. Let's talk about that for a second. Overcrowding. So I would say the vast majority of the people in prison definitely deserve to be there. Do people go to prison that didn't do anything wrong and get wrongfully accused of a crime? Absolutely. It happens. As a matter of fact, I've seen stats as high as 5% to 6%, even higher than that in some cases. But if you find the average on those percentages, I've seen it's around 6% actually didn't commit the crime, they're in jail for a crime they didn't commit. And so it does happen. 

That contributes somewhat to overcrowding. A lot of it is the people that are in prison, there's a lot of people that aren't necessarily drug dealers, but they got caught with drugs, they're in prison. In a lot of cases, prison is not going to help rehabilitate a drug addict. And most drug addicts that have turned the corner and gotten on the good side of life, I guess you could say, they will tell you, prison a lot of times will make it worse. They need other types of help. But the prisons are full of drug addicts. And so that is probably the number one cause of overcrowding. 

Now, from 1966 to 1992, Kenneth McDuff, get this, committed between 9 and 22 murders in Texas. 9 to 22 murders, and they released him free into society on parole. McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara described McDuff as a “cold-blooded psychopathic killer who was more evil than the devil himself. Going as far to say McDuff never should have been released,” and I didn't have to read you that quote to figure that out. 9 to 22 murders, damn right he should have never been released. So he was on death row for actually murdering three teenagers in 1966. This dude was on death row, but his sentence got reduced to life with the possibility of parole in 1972. And that happens in a lot of cases. There's many, many lifers in Angola and in all kinds of prisons throughout the country that actually got their sentences reduced and changed to life in prison. So no different for McDuff. 

In 1972, his sentence was reduced to life. But get this, he was released in 1989 due to prison overcrowding. Absolutely crazy. Now, in 1990, the parole board actually had a chance to send him back to prison after McDuff was arrested for chasing and threatening black teenagers. That was enough. Remember what I told you? They let him out of prison, but he is still under all those prison parameters. Meaning, if he commits any crime, he has to serve out the remainder of his sentence, which in McDuff's case was life. 

So he chased down and he made a bunch of threats to these black teenagers. But neither of his actions nor the racial incentive he expressed at his parole hearing returned him to his prison cell. He just didn't go back to prison for it. I guess they figured it was just threatening. He didn't actually do anything. They regretted it because he killed at least three women between his release on parole and his return to prison finally in 1992. And he actually went to prison at that point for abducting and murdering a convenience-store clerk named Melissa Northrup and an accountant named Colleen Reed. He never expressed any remorse for his crimes. And he was finally executed by lethal injection in 1998. 

So this dude actually got released from prison. Well, first, he got his sentence changed from the death sentence to life in prison, then he gets released, then he kills at least three more people that they know of. He gets convicted of two of those, goes back on death row, and gets executed by lethal injection in 1998. So if you want to learn more about this asshole, you can definitely-- I invite you to go to google and just google Kenneth Allen McDuff. It's a pretty crazy story that one day we're going to bring to you. 

So I'm going to tell you about another one. His name is Loren Herzog, spelled L-O-R-E-N. So it may be Loren, but we're going with Loren, just because I'm not quite sure exactly how it's pronounced. But he was known as the California Speed Freak Killer. His last victim appeared to have been himself. Now, after committing a number of murders with Wesley Shermantine, who was a friend of his since childhood, he was sentenced to 78 years to life for murdering and raping Cyndi Vanderheiden. In 2004, an appeals court found that his confession may have been coerced, and a new trial was ordered for him. 

Now, when offered a plea deal, he agreed to plead guilty to manslaughter in exchange for a 14-year sentence, and he was actually paroled in 2010. Can you imagine? That sentence is 78 years to life. And over what was basically a technicality, his sentence gets reduced to manslaughter and he gets out of prison in 2010. So two years later, the parole agent who was monitoring him using GPS technology, just like I told you about at the beginning, those ankle bracelets and such, found that the tracking bracelet had a low battery. When Herzog failed to answer his telephone, the agent notified police and they found Herzog dead inside the trailer he inhabited on a fenced off property outside of the prison. So police basically investigated his death as a possible suicide. So the motive for a suicide was basically thought to have been his knowledge that Shermantine intended to tell police where the bodies of their victims were located. So he wasn't doing none of this alone. Sacramento bounty hunter, Leonard Padilla, relayed this information to Herzog shortly before Herzog killed himself. 

It's possible, he and Shermantine might have faced charges for additional homicides depending on the number of identities of the body's authorities recovered based on Shermantine's information. So, there's another one for you that was released and continued to murder. Again, you want to check him out, learn more about him? He's definitely our piece of shit number two for today. But you can google Loren, L-O-R-E-N Herzog, H-E-R-Z-O-G, and it'll tell you more information on him. 

So let's talk about Michael Keith Moon. Now, Michael Keith Moon was a career criminal who had numerous, y'all, numerous chances to reform. In 1981, he was convicted of stabbing a woman to death in Reno, Nevada. After his release from prison, in 1991, he was convicted of attempted murder for stabbing a man in a bar in Woodstock, Illinois. He was released again in 2005, and three years later was convicted of a second-degree murder after killing a 24-year-old man in California. So he goes back to prison. And guess what? In 2014, he was again granted parole and began living in a halfway house in downtown San Diego. Now, a detective by the name of Chuck Gaylor believes he committed even more murders between his time in Reno and his latest arrest and says that, “Chuck Gaylor is most likely a serial killer.” I don't even know what to say about that. You've even got detectives telling you this guy is a serial killer, and you're letting him out, just totally blows my mind. 

So let's go on to the next one, and that's Louis van Schoor, and that's spelled S-C-H-O-O-R. Now, in 1992, this serial killer, who was of South African descent, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for committing seven murders and attempting two others. So he was sentenced for those seven murders and the two he attempted. That's 9 total, 20 years in prison. That's all he was sentenced to. I couldn't believe that when I was researching this. Now, in 2004, he got released, and after serving 12 years, walking straight into the arms of his fiancé. So this guy actually was living a happy life after he committed all these murders. It was only 12 years after his conviction in 1992. 

Now, responding to silent alarms and businesses, van Schoor, who was a member of the police canine unit and security guard at the time of the murder, said he shot as many as 100 people between 1986 and 1989. And you just heard me right. I was saving that as a surprise. van Schoor was a cop. van Schoor said he was glad to be back in society and he hoped people would judge him by his future rather than his past crimes. Initially, he had nothing to say to his victims' families, but later conceded he'd appreciate their forgiveness. Absolutely freaking crazy. That's just nuts, y'all.

Now, let's talk about William Huff. So calling himself The Phantom. Serial killer, William Huff murdered seven-year-old Cindy Clelland and six-year-old Jenelle Haines and targeted a third girl before he was arrested. The murders took place in Sierra Vista, Arizona. Now, on April 30th, 1967, Cindy had been collecting bottles in exchange for candy at her neighborhood store. Following the discovery of Cindy's naked body on May 2nd, the police received a handwritten note. The note basically said, “I am The Phantom. You have found my first victim. My next victim lives on Steffan Street. Nine years old,” and in the parentheses he put (Fools!!!) and three explanation points. Now when police provided the targeted girl with 24 hours protection, Huff apparently decided to kill Jennelle instead, which was a military colonel's daughter. She was playing by a pond near the Lakeside Officers Club on June 22nd when Huff abducted her. Later that day, Janelle's body, just like Cindy's, was found naked. Six-year-old girl, y'all. 

Now police had already suspected Huff a neighborhood teenager at the time, and following Jennelle’s murder, the police chief saw Huff leaving the army post at which the Officer's Club was located. A handwriting sample obtained from Huff matched the note from The Phantom. 

Now, upon conviction for the girl's murder, he was sentenced to 15 years for one homicide and 40 for the other. And in 2005, the parole board voted unanimously to grant him parole. In 2006, he began living under house arrest in a halfway house in Tucson, Arizona. Ellen Kirschbaum, who chaired the parole board said she couldn't predict whether Huff might murder someone else. Absolutely fucking bananas, y'all. Crazy. This dude killed a six-year-old girl in addition to two others and was walking free. 

Let me tell you about Vernon Tatum. In 2017, after serving 13 years for raping and murdering several elderly women, serial killer Vernon Tatum was paroled for good behavior while incarcerated. After living in a halfway house downtown, Tatum planned to return to the Kansas City neighborhood in which he committed the crimes. Local police were disturbed at the thought a killer would soon be back among them. “He's one of the most dangerous individuals I've ever dealt with,” police detective Lester Scott said. 13 years for raping and murdering several elderly women considered a serial killer, not considered he was. And he's walking free. 

Let me tell you about Arthur Shawcross. Now, he began his career as a serial killer at the age of 27. In 1972, when he killed a 10-year-old boy, he had lured into the woods on the pretext of going fishing with him. The same year, he sexually assaulted and murdered an eight-year-old girl, who he led to a deserted area and showed her a new bicycle. He was arrested after eyewitnesses identified him as the man they had seen with their children, and he confessed to both murders. Confessed to him. But in a plea deal, he was charged with only one count. It wasn't even a murder, it was a manslaughter, which is a slap on the wrist in comparison. Now, because he was a model prisoner, he was paroled after serving 14 years only of a 25-year sentence. His criminal records were sealed. 

He settled in New York. And in 1988, guess what? No surprise. He starts killing people again. He would get prostitutes, he would kill them by asphyxiation, choke them to death, and then he'd mutilate them. A helicopter pilot happened to spot him near a murder scene, and he was arrested. He admitted to committing 10 murders, y'all. 10 murders. And he was sentenced to 250 years in prison. But I want you to think about this. Had they just kept him in prison the first time, 10 people may have been alive today that are not because he got out. Absolutely crazy. 

Let me tell you about Louise Peete. Yep, that's a female, Louise Peete. And I swear she looks like just your regular, everyday lady. Now, after serving 18 years for the murder of Jacob Charles Denton in 1920, Louise Peete was paroled. She was arrested again in 1944 after the decomposing body of Margaret Logan, who was 60, was found in a grave in the victim's California backyard. Peete admitted to burying her body but refused to say anymore. Now, in a written statement, Peete later claimed that Margaret's husband, Arthur, had shot his wife to death after first attacking Margaret. Peete said she waited for Arthur to retire for the night before burying the dead woman in Logan's backyard, afraid she'd be convicted of the murder and return to prison if the body was discovered. So her story essentially was, “I didn't kill her. Arthur did. But I went ahead and buried the body because I knew y'all would think I killed her because I'd already been in jail for murder.” So she was tried for Margaret's homicide, and Peete was found guilty of murder in the first degree, and at this time, they sentenced her to death. 

Prosecutors proved Arthur couldn't have killed his wife at the time, because he was already dead, having passed away in an insane asylum prior to the discovery of Margaret's body. So they were able to basically date even back then. Way back in 1944, they were able to date that body back to a particular time period, and they were like, “Wait a minute, he was already dead, so he couldn't have killed this lady.” And so Peete gets executed at San Quentin state prison’s gas chamber. They had the gas chamber in 1947. The motives for her crime were monetary, basically. She just wanted money. By shooting her victim, she hoped to gain their property and their estates. And as she was about to be executed, she told the prison's warden, who was Clinton Duffy at San Quentin that, “I've been ready for a long time.” And then she inhaled that gas. I hope she took the deepest breath she ever took in her life and just choked and burned. When you suck in that gas from the gas chamber, it's going to burn your throat, and I hope she suffered. 

So let me tell you about Gerald Gallego and Charlene Williams. Gerald was twice paroled before committing multiple sexual assaults and 10 murders. He was paroled in July 1961 after serving less than a year, y'all, in a boy school for committing lewd and lascivious acts with a six-year-old girl. So he rapes this six year old girl and serves less than a year in a boys school for it. And then in 1963, he gets arrested again and serves two years for armed robbery. Now, after five marriages in which he abused his wives, he meets Charlene Williams at a poker club in Sacramento, California. And together, in 1978, they began abducting girls in California and Nevada to serve as sex slaves. 

The first two victims were 17-year-old Rhonda Scheffler and 16-year-old Kippi Vaught, both of whom he shot dead following an apparent trust with them in a secluded wooded area. In all, by November 1980, the couple had racked up 10 victims, all teenagers, most of which they kept as sex slaves before murdering them. A friend of the last two victims, Craig Miller and his fiancé, Mary Sowers, saw the couple get into Gallego’s vehicle and wrote down its license plate number. At a remote location, Gallego shot Miller killing him before he and Williams drove to another location, where he sexually assaulted and murdered Sowers. 

Now, when Miller and Sowers didn't return home, the witness gave Gallego’s license number to the police. Convicted of the murders of Miller and Sowers, Gallego was sentenced to death in 1984. For testifying against him, Williams received a short 16-year, 8 months sentence and was paroled in 1997. And definitely google these. Not a bad looking couple. Definitely not a couple you'd look at and think they were having sex slaves and killing them and all this sort of stuff. Williams is still around, I mean, running free. So paroled for testifying against her husband or her boyfriend rather. 

Now, let's talk about Richard Marquette. Richard Marquette was a cannibal serial killer who chopped up and froze his victims. He'd save them to eat later. And his fellow inmates believed he'd kill again. But he was found fit for parole after serving only 12 years of his sentence. This is a dude that would kill people, freeze them, freeze their body parts, chop them up, freeze them, and eat them later on. And after 12 years, he was found fit for parole. Now, shortly after his release, as you would assume, he committed more murders. 

His first victim was Joan Caudle. She was 23. He said he met her in a Portland, Oregon bar on June of 1961. He strangled her when they argued after having consensual sex. Chops up her body to make it easier to dispose of her remains. He was arrested on June 30th of that year and got convicted in December of 1961 and sentenced to life in prison. Now paroled after serving 12 years, he killed again, but this time, the murder went undetected. He wasn't as lucky when he murdered and dissected Betty Wilson, however, in Salem, Washington. And guess what? He was sentenced to life in prison yet again. Crazy. Crazy. 

So that's just some of the probably hundreds of people that have been released after being serial killers or murders. They walk amongst you every day in some cases. You just never know who you're dealing with. And I thought that all of you, Patreon supporters, would appreciate hearing about several different parolees that sure as hell don't deserve to be walking amongst the free. I do want to say, and I know I speak for Woody when I say how much we love and appreciate all of you. Next time that we bring you something, I promise you, Woody will be with me. I hope y'all enjoyed my little solo stuff here. I don't do the solo stuff as much as Woody does. Typically, I'm more interview style. So with my podcast, which is Local Leaders: The Podcast, I interview business owners and with Real Life Real Crime Daily. Obviously, it's a three man deal with me, Woody and Mike Agovino. And so I've rather enjoyed talking to y'all. 

I'm not really talking by myself or talking to myself, because I'm talking to y’all, but I'm in here by myself and I've rather enjoyed it. This may be something that I consider doing more often at some point. But much love, I appreciate all of you. Please, please, please, very important before we get out of here. Obviously, if you're a supporter of Bloody Angola. You like the content and you definitely appreciate what we do. I would ask that just two requests. Number one, if you haven't reviewed us yet, I'm sure the majority of you have, please do so. Go to Apple podcast, if that's the app that you would get podcasts. Normally if you weren't listening on Patreon, go there and give us a review. If you're a Spotify person, please do that. Reviews are so important to our rankings. And the higher we rank, the more that they share our podcast with the world. So it's just so important. 

Also, please, if you could share us on Facebook, you can share the link from your Patreon and just say, “Hey, I love supporting Bloody Angola podcast.” If you'd like to join their patron, here's the link. If not, we understand, we totally get it. Times aren't great right now, financially for a lot of people, and we totally get it if someone can't do that. But they could sure join, they could listen on for free with ads included on iTunes and all that sort of stuff. So we're just trying to build this and make it as successful as we possibly can. Until next time, I'm Jim Chapman, your cohost of Bloody Angola, a podcast 142 years in the making a complete story of America's bloodiest prison. Peace. 

Bloody Angola is an Envision Podcast Production in partnership with Workhouse Connect. Music produced and composed by Alfe DeRouen in Studio 433, with vocals by Thomas Cain, created and hosted by Jim Chapman and Woody. 

[Bloody Angola theme]

In this episode of Bloody Angola: A True Crime Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman we bring you inside the hunt for the River Parishes Serial Killer Daniel Blank who terrorized the Parishes of Ascension, St James, and St John Parish in 2007 & 2008. 

#DanielBlank #Serialkiller #louisiana #riverparishesserialkiller #bloodyangolapodcast #truecrime

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TRANSCRIPT

BLOODY ANGOLA PODCAST RIVER PARISHES SERIAL KILLER PART 2

 Jim: Hey everyone, and welcome back to Bloody-

Woody: -Angola. 

Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making. 

Woody: The Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison. 

Jim: And I'm Jim Chapman. 

Woody: And I'm Woody Overton. 

Jim: We're in Part 2- 

Woody: Part 2, baby.

Jim: -of the River Parishes.

Woody: Serial killer.

Jim: Yes. Just real quick, where we left off in Part 1. Of course, Victor Rossi, October 17th of 1996, was murdered. On April 9th of 1997, Lillian Philippe was found murdered. On May 18th of 1997, Barbara Bourgeois was found murdered. On May 9th of 1997, Sam and Luella Arcuri found murdered. May 14th of 1997, Joan Brock found murdered. And July 7th of 1997, the attempted murder of Leonce and Joyce Millet. And on November 14th of 1997, Daniel Blank finally arrested in Onalaska, Texas. So we're going to pick up from that point. They bring him back to Louisiana. 

Woody: This is after he confessed, y’all. 

Jim: And look, these are small town detectives, and they got a serial killer in the back of that vehicle. And one of the comments that the detective made was when they pulled into the parish, you had droves of people on both sides of the road and give you goosebumps and they're cheering. And these detectives, this meant something to this community, what these guys have done. So, they start, obviously you get back, and now you've got this guy off the street and you're starting to piece things together at this point.

Woody: Just because you make an arrest doesn't mean the case is over by a long shot. You're going to continue to work and gain more evidence to get the prosecution ultimately.

Jim: And especially one like this, where there was no physical evidence. I don't know if I'd say he was smart enough, but for whatever reason, he didn't leave behind fingerprints, he didn't leave behind DNA, which was amazing considering the brutality of these killings. 

Woody: I would imagine he was gloved up.

Jim: Yeah. 

Woody: He wasn't a dummy.

Jim: No. 

Woody: Doesn't mean he was formally educated. He was smart. 

Jim: That's right. And so, they do, they start investigating it. And guess what they do?

Woody: Here we go, y'all. Not only was he arrested, but his girlfriend was arrested. And we'll go to an article, it says Destrehan. Y'all, that's another town in St. John, I believe. The article from the AP Wire says, "Investigators have arrested the woman who lived with Daniel Blank in Texas, saying she drove the accused serial killer to the homes of the people he killed and robbed in Louisiana River parishes. Cindy Bellard, 35, was taken into custody late Monday evening at her sister's home in Destrehan. Bellard, who moved with Blank and their children to Onalaska, Texas, in late July knew his intent, authorities said. Sheriff Jeff Wiley--" and I'm going to interrupt real quick. I've worked a lot of cases with Jeff Wiley. I think he's a state senator or something now like that. But he's retired from sheriffing and he's a great guy. But it says, "Sheriff Jeff Wiley said she was booked into the Ascension Parish jail one count of principal to first degree murder, two counts of principal to attempted first degree murder, and principal to aggravated burglary."

"Blank, 35, was booked last week on charges of beaten and stabbing to death six River Parish residents from October 1996 to July 1997. He tried to kill two more people in an attacking Gonzales, authorities said. Authorities said Blank, who robbed to support a gambling addiction, has confessed. It was that gambling habit that eventually cemented the case against Black, Wiley said. In Texas, where Blank was picked up for questioning last Thursday, Polk County Sheriff Billy Ray Nelson Jr, said authorities had been tipped to Blank's lavish spending at Louisiana casinos, including one where Blank was throwing around $100 bills as if he were a wealthy man."

"One of the houses where he killed, he stole $100 bills, Nelson said. Nelson said authorities weren't expecting a confession when they searched his auto repair shop and home last Thursday. But about eight hours into interrogations, Blank began giving details of the crimes, launching into half-hour accounts of each attack, Nelson said. In one incident, he told investigators how he had killed a woman in her backyard and then dragged her into her home, Nelson said. In some cases, Blank told authorities he lurked around the victim's homes for hours before killing them. What he said was just so creepy, Nelson said. Wiley said Blank would hang around the victims’ homes in the dark of late night or early morning, hoping the occupants would eventually leave. Unfortunately, the people didn't leave, Wiley said. Leonce and Joyce Millet, both 66, of Gonzales, survived an attack in their home last July. The victims in the other attacks were Victor Rossi, 41, of St. Amant, Barbara Bourgeois, 58, of Paulina, Lillian Philippe, 71, of Gonzales, Sam Arcuri, 76, and Louella Arcuri, 69, of LaPlace, and Joan Brock, 55, of LaPlace."

"Wiley said Blank often used weapons he found inside his victims’ homes. Wiley said he didn't know if Bellard would be connected to Blank's alleged crimes in other parishes. Efforts to contact other authorities Monday night were not successful. Wiley said Bellard was questioned when Blank was arrested in Onalaska. Bellard told investigators that she and the children were returning to Louisiana to stay with her sister and brother-in-law in Destrehan. Investigators always had a strong suspicion that Bellard had helped Blank, Wiley said, adding that it was impossible for her to have lived with Blank for several years without knowing of his crimes. In some cases, Blank stole victims' cars to transport stolen safes, which he took to his home in Paulina to break open, Wiley said. He said two of the safes have been recovered, one in St. John and one in Ascension. She's living with a man, spending a significant amount of money with very little income, Wiley said. He's gambling, buying a house, tools, setting up a business. Someone living with him had to wonder where all that money was coming from."

Jim: Right.

Woody: Great article. 

Jim: And I'll tell you, that to them was also a piece of a puzzle because remember, no physical evidence. So, if you're thinking like I'm thinking, and I'm sure Woody's thinking, you can look at this girlfriend two ways. You can look at her as a suspect or you can look at her as a witness. And they had more value in her as a witness. They were concerned. They were concerned because although they had just tons of circumstantial evidence and people do get found guilty strictly on circumstantial in some cases, but it's a roll of the dice. So, what do they do? They go to her, and they say, “Look, we'll go ahead and we'll drop these charges against you. We'll drop them all. But you got to agree to testify against--” 

Woody: You got to give up the juice. And certainly, she had to know. 

Jim: Absolutely. And so, what does she do? She says, “Hell yeah.” 

Woody: Because, y’all, look, principle two, it means you're just as guilty. And she's looking at every charge that he's looking at and give her the out. But I'm sure it was the prosecutors that are like, “Hey--" First of all, they have to agree to drop charges if she testifies. But they needed her to testify. 

Jim: That's right. They needed it desperately in this case. So, she agrees. She says, “I will testify.” And they say, “You testify, we'll drop the charges and it'll be all over with.” Whether you agree with that or not, this is a case where I see that they needed that person. So, we're going to fast forward a little bit and we're going to bring you to December 12th of 1998. And this is in the middle of the trial. And I found this interesting because this centers around the lie detector test. And so, I'm going to read you this article.

"FBI Agent Testifies Suspect Blank Failed Lie Detector Test. An FBI agent testified in court Wednesday that accused multiple murderer, Daniel Blank, failed a lie detector test on the day he was arrested in Texas. Near the end of a day-long hearing on a motion to suppress the video and audio tape confessions of Blank, Assistant District Attorney Charles "Chuck" Long asked FBI Agent David Sparks of Houston, Texas why he questioned Blank after administering the polygraph test to him in Onalaska, Texas, on November of 1997."

Sparks said he wanted to find out why Blank "had problems" with the test. "Did you find out?" Long asked. "No, he didn’t tell me why he failed the test," Sparks replied. Defense Attorney Glenn Cortello immediately objected, arguing the results of polygraph examinations are not admissible in court. Long countered that Cortello and his co-counsel, Andy Van Dyke, contended in their motion to suppress evidence that police officers lied to Blank about the results of the test in order to get him to confess. Therefore, Long said he had the right to show Blank failed the test and there was no reason for detectives to lie to him about the results."

"23rd Judicial District Judge John L. Peytavin did not immediately rule on the issue. Ascension Parish Sheriff Detective Mike Toney and St. John the Baptist sheriff’s Detective Todd Hymel testified at length Wednesday about the 12 hours they questioned Blank about six slayings, and two attempted murders. In Ascension, Blank is charged with murdering Victor Rossi, 41, of St. Amant and Lillian Philippe, 71, of Gonzales, and attempting to murder Leonce and Joyce Millet, both 66 at the time they were assaulted in their home on the outskirts of Gonzales. In St. John Parish, he is charged with the killings in LaPlace of Joan Brock, 58, and Sam Arcuri, 76, and his wife, Louella, who was 69. 

Woody: Y'all, they're trying the cases in Ascension Parish first, even though there's six victims, because they were in different parishes, that's a different jurisdiction, they have to try them separately. 

Jim: Yeah, he's got to answer for all those crimes separately. And then so the very next day, something happens. I guess Daniel Blank was getting a little bit nervous. The prosecution is putting on a heck of a case. 

Woody: Mm-hmm. And this was published on December 11th in 1998. It says, “Suspect in murders attempts to escape by John McMillan of the River Parishes Bureau. Mild-mannered accused multiple murderer, Daniel Blank, Thursday broke out a window in a second floor restroom of Ascension Parish courthouse in Donaldsonville and leaped to the ground below, where he was a free man for less than a minute."

Jim: Now, y'all, take that in. You just had the River Parishes serial killer break out a window and escape.

Woody: Right.

Jim: So, what are you going to tell you how the hell that happens? 

Woody: "Within 30 to 45 seconds, he was apprehended and back in custody, Ascension Sheriff Jeff Wiley said, departmentally, we've responded in a quick fashion, but it shouldn't have happened. There was a security breach here to an extent. Blank, who usually registers no emotion in his court appearances and is described by his attorneys as very quiet, was being brought into the courthouse for a hearing when the escape attempt occurred. The hearing was on a motion to prevent the use of a videotape confessions he made to six River Parish slayings and two attempted murders. Wiley said four correctional officers brought the small, slightly built defendant into the courthouse from the Ascension Parish prison."

It's funny, I'm going to interrupt so y'all, understand this. The Ascension Parish prison is actually outside of Donaldsonville. Ascension's Parish is actually split. The Mississippi River splits it right in half. It has a Sunshine Bridge is what they call it, that goes over to where that-- and I've been in that prison many, many times. 

"Handcuffs, leg shackles, and a bulletproof vest were removed from Blank in an anteroom between the two courtrooms on the second floor of the old courthouse building to make him presentable for court, Wiley said. After those items were removed, he told officers he had to defecate bad, Wiley said. Two of them walked him back to an area that's used as a juror room or judge's chambers that has a bathroom. They made a decision to let him take care of his business, Wiley said. The officers partially closed the bathroom door and Blank sat down on a toilet in a stall. In rapid fashion, he leaps up and slams the bathroom door shut and locks it and grabs an old antebellum window shutter and breaks the glass and leaps out, Wiley said. 

Jim: All right, I'm going to stop you real quick. You're an officer and this dude's taking a shit, the door slams and locks. What's going through your mind?

Woody: Oh, fuck, I'm about to lose my job. 

[laughter] 

Woody: Let me tell you what. I had so many bad guys, especially during the interrogations, etc., a lot of times, they get nervous and had to take a shit right before they give me a confession. And you better believe every one of them, I stood in there with a stall open and I listened to them shit, and I watched some shit because I wasn't taking my eyes off of him. I mean, this dude killed six people, man, and attempted to kill two more, right? [crosstalk] 

Jim: He just shut and locked the door on you. 

Woody: He slammed, that's the “oh, shit” moment. 

Jim: Unshackled.

Woody: Unshackled. Yeah. You could poop with the shackles on, but they just fucked up on that one, no doubt about it. He breaks the glass, y'all, and he jumps out. And the sheriff said Blank landed on the roof of a one-story building adjacent to the courthouse and then jumped to the ground. Sheriff's deputies outside the courthouse spotted him and chased him down.

Jim: I could imagine, seeing this dude jump on the ground and they're like, “Ah, that's a serial killer.” Oh, my God. 

Woody: “Ah, that's a serial killer.” "He didn't get far, Wiley said. Blank was then put in the prison van and taken back to jail, Wiley said. The sheriff then called District Judge John L. Peytavin, who was conducting the hearing, and the judge asked that Blank be brought back to court to complete the proceedings. The judge’s order was carried out and the hearing, with Blank present, was conducted. The judge said he would study the motion to suppress Blank’s confessions before issuing a ruling." Y’all, this isn't a trial. This is one of the many motions to suppress and all kinds of stuff that the defense tries to do. It's a free shot for the defense to find out what the prosecution has, but our article continues. 

"Later, Blank was examined at Prevost Hospital in Donaldsonville where it was discovered he had a broken heel bone, the sheriff said. Blank was being treated for his injury at a state hospital that he declined to name. "I don’t want to blame it, the escape, on an antiquated courthouse, but we’ve always been at a disadvantage in that old courthouse," Wiley said. "It has no bars on the windows. The reality is, we have no inmate bathrooms, no inmate-holding facility, but the primary cause was our inattention." "You don’t partially close the door on a murder suspect,” the sheriff said. "We had sufficient personnel. "Our options were to tell him "You can’t use the bathroom," but we’re all sensitive to his constitutional rights and they made the call to let him. They should have reshackled him or stayed on each side of him while he used the toilet," Wiley said." The sheriff said he met with the warden of the parish prison and the supervisor of the detail guarding Blank and, "I’m looking at some administrative changes."

[laughter] 

Somebody’s ass getting fired. "Nobody was intentionally derelict, but I’ve got to make sure the people involved in guarding Blank are more attentive. The security detail will not be involved with such a defendant in the future," Wiley said. "I hate this for the community and for the victims’ survivors," the sheriff said. "The last thing the public should have to worry about is this guy escaping. They should be able to rest comfortably knowing that my department is on top of it. What happened leaves a little bit to be desired. It shouldn’t have happened," Wiley said. Blank’s next court appearance is scheduled Wednesday when Judge Peytavin will hear arguments regarding evidence that can be presented during the sentencing phase of the trial should he be convicted."

Jim: Now two things, y’all, it's obviously not funny. Thank God he was caught. I'm pretty sure somebody probably got shitcanned over that deal. [crosstalk] Could you imagine being the one to have to call the sheriff? 

Woody: Oh, my God. 

Jim: I mean, I bet they were all like, “I ain't calling.” 

Woody: I mean, we had it happen-- [crosstalk]  

Jim: And that's what my second part of this was going to be.

Woody: Gerald Bordelon and John Priest escape, the two worst we had in Livingston Parish Jail at the time. And they left them out on a walkway, like for their outside time, the walkway just has that chain link fence. And they had a maintenance cart they left on the hallway and the maintenance cart had a pair of pliers. So, when the guys in the control room aren't paying attention and there's nobody watching them from other side, they got the pliers and snipped the damn fence, and ran and jumped over and got out. 

Jim: And, y'all, one of these individual's on death row right now. 

Woody: Well, one of them is dead on death row. He's the last person executed in South Louisiana. John Priest lured homosexual men into things and robbed them but the last one he robbed-- he just got out of jail that day. He robbed him and then pulled all his teeth and then set him on fire so his body couldn't be identified. 

Jim: Wow. 

Woody: Yeah. And he's a bad dude. That dude's evil. He's doing multiple life sentences, but--

Jim: He's in Bloody Angola. 

Woody: He's in Bloody Angola, sure is. We might have to do a story one day. 

Jim: Yeah.

Woody: Because he was a bad-- He's a young kid too. Just fucking evil as fuck. So, yeah, pretty sure you want to have your hands on this cat at all time. 

Jim: Oh yeah. Whoever that was didn't last long. I'm sure now in any trial the defense is going to-- you might as well expect it, they're going to do profiles, or rather they're going to get with psychiatrists. And these psychiatrists [crosstalk] yes, do these evaluations. And Daniel Blank was no different. And during the trial, as is standard with pretty much all your violent murder cases, he undergoes this evaluation with a psychiatrist and was diagnosed with what's known as schizoaffective paranoia disorder. 

Woody: That’s bullshit.

Jim: [laughs] Now, if you're wondering what that is, it's a mental health disorder that is marked by a combination of schizophrenia symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions, and mood disorder symptoms such as depression or mania. There are two types of schizoaffective disorder, both of which include symptoms of schizophrenia. There are bipolar type, which includes episodes of mania and sometimes major depression or depressive type, which includes only major depressive episodes. And it affects people differently. According to psychiatrists, it was also discovered that he had a learning disability that hampered his verbal ability as well as his understanding of abstract concepts, which is a fancy kind of like psychobabble jargon, basically saying he didn't know how to deal with his emotions like a normal person. Well-

Woody: Whatever. 

Jim: -cry me a fucking river. I don't give a shit. You killed six people. 

Woody: Every death penalty case we do, they put on these so-called experts and they come up with the same shit every time. What they're trying to do is ultimately, if he's found guilty, they're going to say, “Hey, look, here's a mitigating circumstance why he shouldn't be put to death because he doesn't think like the rest of us.” And the death penalty phase, series 1 through 10, they did the same thing. They brought in two different neuropsychologists and then a psychiatrist and they said the same shit and whatever.

Jim: Well, here's the way, if I were a prosecutor, kind of poke bullshit in this whole thought process is in regard to his cognitive ability. I would say he probably had some upper-level cognitive skills because that's-- cognitive ability, y’all, is the ability to problem solve basically. This guy was a master mechanic. 

Woody: Yeah. 

Jim: That's all about problem solving. 

Woody: Not only that, he didn't leave any trace of himself at the crime scenes. That shows planning and that he was smart, like I said earlier.

Jim: That's right. And he wasn't book smart, as a matter of fact, he only made it to the eighth grade. His reading was on a third-grade level, they say, but his IQ was an 85, which is on the lower side of normal. And IQ test, you know.

Woody: Yeah, I'm sure that if I'm facing a death penalty, I can play dumb on an IQ test too. 

Jim: So, they go through the trial, y’all, and eventually they come back with a verdict. What we're going to read you now is the verdict for the Joan Brock case. Well, he was sentenced to death this. So, Woody?

Woody: Article is on April 11th of 2000. Says, "The jury took less than 45 minutes Monday to sentence Daniel Blank to death for the slaying of LaPlace housewife, Joan Brock, on May 14th, 1997. Saturday, it took the same jury seven hours to find Blank guilty of the same murder. Wearing the same wrinkled, blue work shirt, tan pants and tennis shoes that he wore throughout the six-day trial, Blank showed no emotion as both decisions were read to him."

"On the other hand, during the reading of the death penalty decision, several of the jurors were weeping. “I feel better now,” said Douglas Brock, widower of Joan Brock, as he walked out of the St. John the Baptist Parish courthouse in Edgard. “I really do feel better.” Brock’s murder is one of the six attributed to Blank in a 10-month killing spree in 1996 and 1997. He allegedly broke into people’s houses to steal money to feed a video poker gambling habit. During the burglaries, six people died. Blank has already been convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of Lillian Philippe, 71, of Gonzales. It took 40th Judicial District Judge, Sterling Snowdy, and attorneys 26 days to pick an impartial jury in Avoyelles Parish." Y’all, they had to move it because of the publicity of trial. Avoyelles way up river.

"Snowdy has ordered the jury selection in Marksville because he wanted to get a jury that was not tainted by the publicity surrounding all the homicides. The prosecution, led by St. John Parish Assistant District Attorney George Ann Graugnard, presented the jury with more than 25 pieces of evidence and 13 witnesses to prove the state’s case against Blank. The centerpiece of the prosecution’s attack was a four-hour videotape of Blank’s confession. Contained in the tape, a sometimes-sobbing, sometimes-cool Blank told detectives Todd Hymel of the St. John Sheriff’s Office and Mike Toney of the Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Office how he climbed over the fence of the Brock residence in the Riverlands subdivision and hid for several hours in the backyard waiting for the Brocks to leave that morning. "

"When he thought the house was empty, Blank then tried several doors to gain entry into the house. Finding the back door unlocked, he entered and went straight to the bedroom where he knew the Brocks kept a safe. As he was dragging the safe out of the house, he heard a sound, walked outside and surprised Joan Brock in the backyard. She screamed and in response, Blank stabbed her four times with a butcher knife he found in her kitchen. Blank then tried to drag Brock’s body into the house, but he couldn’t manage it. He then rolled the safe out to his car in the garage, put the safe in the car, found the car keys in the kitchen and fled. Blank took over $30,000 and jewelry from the safe."

“She was a nice woman,” said a sobbing Blank in the videotape. “I had nothing against her. She was a sweet woman.” Blank, who was looking for money to feed his gambling habit, had worked for Douglas Brock as a mechanic several years before the murder. He felt that Brock had double-crossed him out of backpay, and he knew that there was money in the house. Blank’s defense attorney, Glen Cortello tried to persuade the jury that Blank could not have lifted the 260-pound safe by himself. However, in a dramatic demonstration, Detective Hymel, dressed in a white jumpsuit lifted the safe easily and placed it on a small cart."

Jim: Smart.

Woody: Right. That counteracts that. Later, in her closing statements, Graugnard said that Blank could also have easily levered the safe into the car by placing it against the back seat and lifting it up.

Jim: I don't mean to interrupt you, but this just occurred to me. This is someone who is used to lifting heavy things, engines and things like that. I'm not saying he picked up engines by himself, but he's used to lifting deadweight. 

Woody: Yeah, and also, he went there to get that son of a bitch and he's going to get it out one way or another. And you'd be surprised what you can do after you just murdered somebody. The defense’s only witness was FBI polygraph expert, David Sparks, who interviewed Blank before he made his confession to Hymel and Toney. Cortello argued that Sparks had coached Blank in the details of the murder prior to the videotaped confession. Sparks admitted to telling Blank the time and date of the murder, and a description of the Brock house. Sparks added he told Blank where the body was discovered and the position of the body. He also told Blank what had been stolen from the house and that the safe had not been recovered.

But on cross-examination, Graugnard showed that Sparks had not told Blank other important details about the case, such as the amount of money and the jewelry in the safe, where the car keys were, or how weeds and cigarette ashes were found in Brock’s car after it was recovered. Douglas Brock had testified that he had just cleaned the car before the murder and that no one in his family smoked. During his taped confession, Blank gave specific instructions to the detectives where to find the safe he had dumped into the bayou about a mile from Sorrento. He also drew a detailed map of the Brock house with descriptions of his actions. In the backyard, near the house, he wrote, “Here is where I killed her with a large knife.” 

In closing arguments, Graugnard told the jury that there was specific intent when Blank killed Brock. “When he heard her and saw her shadow, why didn’t he just leave through the front door?” Graungnard asked the jury. “No, there was specific intent. He was not going to leave that house without the money. He went out back and surprised Joan Brock. He hacked her four times with a 20-inch weapon.” Cortello’s closing centered on the confession, insisting that the confession had been coerced from Blank, and that Hymel had “hypnotized” Blank into confessing. “There is no scientific evidence whatsoever to connect my client to the crime except for the statement,” said Cortello. On rebuttal, Graugnard told the jury, “Not to be fooled by the smoke. Blank made his confession voluntarily without any pressure from detectives.”

During the penalty phase of the trial, several psychiatrists were brought in to testify that Blank does have a mild learning disability and brain dysfunction, but neither of the doctors said that these two factors would impair Blank from committing the crime, or from knowing the difference between right and wrong. They said that there was no evidence of any psychosis. During the penalty phase after conviction, the Brock family testified that the loss of Joan Brock had a devastating effect on their family. The jury was also told at that point about the other five homicides attributed to Blank, which shocked most of the jury since Snowdy had ordered that no mention of the other crimes could be mentioned during the evidentiary phase of the trial.

Blank still faces trial for the first-degree murders of Victor Rossi of St. Amant, Barbara Bourgeois of Paulina; and Sam and Louella Arcuri of LaPlace. After sentence was passed, Joan Brock’s daughters were asked if the sentence of death had helped their state of mind. Stephanie Brock Sanchez said, “We feel a little better about things. But it will never be the same,” added Stacey Brock Sardenga. “We don’t have a mother anymore.” 

Jim: Wow.

Woody: That's powerful. And again, y’all, what happened, like the psychiatrist and the other crimes cannot be admitted as evidence of this dude being a badass during the guilt phase of the trial. And once just the facts on that murder after that, when you go into the death penalty phase, that's when the guns come out. You can get to any prior criminal history, acts and statements and the facts showing that, “Hey, this dude gets out, they're going to do it again.”

Jim: That’s right. And so, he did get sentenced to death. And eventually, just to fast forward there, he was convicted and sentenced to death in that murder of Joan Brock, Lillian Philippe, he was also sentenced to death by lethal injection for the Arcuris. He took a plea on those and pled guilty to two counts of first-degree murder and was sentenced to two irrevocable life sentences. So, when all the dust settled there, he was convicted of everything he did, including two death sentences. But there was a problem. Anytime you're dealing with the judicial system and especially when you get sentenced to the death penalty, you can believe there's going to be 20 years of appeals, and relooking at evidence and fighting it.

Woody: One of the reasons he took a plea on the other cases is because he figures it's easier to fight two death penalty charges than it is to fight six. And he was able to concentrate on those. 

Jim: So, he gets sentenced to Bloody Angola. He's serving his time. 

Woody: He's on death row. 

Jim: He's on death row. He's doing his appeals, as is sadly standard these days. And on February 17th of 2016, he was granted a stay of execution. And I'll just read you the quick article on that.

A stay of execution has been granted for convicted serial killer, Daniel Blank, by the Louisiana Supreme Court on Wednesday. Convicted serial killer, Daniel Blank, 53 as of that time, was scheduled to be executed on March 14th. However, officials with the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections stated they do not have the drugs necessary to carry out the execution. A stay of execution is court ordered to temporarily suspend the execution of a court judgment or other court order. And it goes into all of the people that he killed, but they were having a problem with the drugs that they still supposedly have a problem with, and so--

Woody: Won't be a problem anymore. Jeff Landry just got elected governor and he's very pro-death penalty.

Jim: That's right. 

Woody: He's about to end all that. 

Jim: So, he's still appealing, and he got that stay of execution. And one of the things that he tries to work on these appeals is they were basically trying to say he was misled into why they wanted to meet in the first place, the police. Remember in the prior episode we told you that they went, meaning the detectives, went to Texas to formally interview him, I guess you could say, and they released some of that transcript. And so, I'll read you a little bit of that because it's interesting and we'll get Woody's thoughts on it.

The detective says, “Do you think we traveled this distance to speak to you about casino winnings, do-do you think legitimately that's why we're here?" Daniel Blank says, “Well basically you wanted to know where I got all my money from and that's why I gave him the papers,” meaning the papers documenting money won at the casino. The detective then says, “Well, we want both, both of us took a good number of notes and we've been speaking to you for about an hour and a half now.” And Daniel Blank says, “Uh-huh.” And the detective says, “Every single question that we asked you, we knew the answer to. And we do that for one reason, to see if you're going to lie to us.” Sound accurate, Woody Overton?

Woody: Absolutely.

Jim: So, sounds like this detective knew what he was doing. Daniel Blank says, “Right.” And the detective continues, "There is a few points that you did and there is a few things that you did withhold from us. We're not going to ask you a question that we don't know the answer to already.” Daniel Blank says, “Yeah.” And the detective says, “We've been doing this for far too long and we're pretty good at what we do.” And Daniel says, “Right.” And the detective says, “We're not going to come here half stepping and I'm not going to travel five hours and come speak to you without having all my ducks in a row.” The detective then says, “Okay, you have absolutely no idea why we're here to speak to you, is that what you're telling us?” And Daniel says, “Well, you want to know where I get my money from.” And the detective says, “Have you ever been questioned or spoken to by any other sheriff's office in the past for any crimes that have taken place?” And Daniel says, “Oh, I was called in about that deal about Rossi.” And the detective says, “Rossi homicide?” And he says, “Yeah.” 

That's just kind of an example of how he was playing dumb. He knew, he knew exactly why they were there. He's the guy that killed these people, but he's totally playing stupid. But that's also a great example of detective work that they were letting him know we already know the answers to the questions--

Woody: They're establishing psychological control over him and preparing to cut off any denials, etc. And that's one of the things you do. You got to immediately cut off his denials. Now you give him enough rope to hang themselves and say whatever, but then they were like, “Hmm, you weren't there. Bull shit.”

Jim: So then, they continue on. And then it's the FBI agent. And if you'll remember in the last episode, he not only interrogated Daniel Blank, but he also did the polygraph. So, the FBI agent is talking to him, and he says, “You bet it's okay. But something occurred, and you decided you wanted more in your life. You thought you could take it the easy way. You thought you could get some money from somebody.” And Daniel Blank says, “No.” And then, the FBI agent says, “And then, something happened.” And Daniel says, “Un-un.” And then, the FBI agent says, “And when you went in there--” and he's talking about Joan Brock's residence, “when you went in there-- oh, don't shake your head. I know you don't deny it. Okay?” 

Woody: He's cutting off the denials. 

Jim: Yeah. “So, the investigation has been going on for six months, son. Okay? This didn't happen yesterday. We didn't just come down here in the middle of nowhere. We want to know what's going on. We already know what's going on. What we're trying to figure out is why. Because why this occurred is important.” “I don't know." Daniel Blank says. And then he says, “I want you to tell me, Daniel. Don't sit there and shake your head now. Come on. Let's be honest with each other, okay? Let's be honest with each other. It's time to have a meeting of the minds, okay? It's time for you to sit down and accept what you've done. Accept what you've done and let it go, okay?” And Daniel Blank says, “How can I accept something I ain't done?” And he says, “Yeah, yeah, but you have. You did, okay? And when you say you can't accept something you hadn't done, that's good, okay? Because that means in reality, you're going to say, ‘I can't accept I didn't do it because I did do it.’ That's what you're trying to tell me in your own streetwise way, that's what you're trying to tell me. Something happened. Something occurred in your life 16 months, 18 months ago, something made you snap all the way to here. I don't think it was drugs. I think it was something you said, I have to take care of my family, and I have to take care of my family now, and the time has come for me to take care of my family. You decided that you would take the easy way out. You didn't plan on hurting anybody, did you?” 

Woody: Right. And giving chances. 

Jim: So, what do you think about that?

Woody: Genius. Exactly what I said that you got to cut off any denials. You're establishing rapport. You're not totally going aboard his ass yet because you don't want to scare him off. Look, a good homicide interrogation doesn't even start until after five hours. That's when you start to get the juice, you start to break people down. I mean, people don't realize how long it takes them. One of the things I would have said was at a certain point, if you stick in and you get them to change the story, blah, blah, blah, and you stick in, I'd be like, “You know what, homie? The next time I ask you a question, if you feel like you have to lie to me, then don't say a fucking word. Because then you're going to insult my intelligence, and then I'm going to have to insult you.” 

Jim: Yeah. 

Woody: And as you're giving that thing, “Let's stay on the same page. I can help you, but don't keep fucking with me.” 

Jim: Right. Exactly. And another thing came out in these appeals, and that was-- obviously in the appeal, one of the things that the police are trying to say is, “We knew he did it because he knew details that we never released to the public. Only the killer would have known about that. And when we interrogated him, he brought them up.” So, Woody's going to read, y'all, a part of the interrogation where he's talking about Ms. Philippe's death and exactly what took place in that death that I thought you may find interesting. 

Woody: Right. So, Daniel Blank says, “Then, I went back in and turned the light back on and started looking some more, and I didn't find anything, so I gave up on it. I turned the light off. And when I come out, that's when I saw something swinging at me.” And the detective says, “You saw something swinging at you?” And Blank says, “Well, I saw a shadow of something. The light was off. The only light on was, I think, the bathroom light. And when I saw something coming at me with the shadow of the bathroom light and just put my arm up and then I grabbed it and pushed her.” And Detective says, “When you say you saw something swinging at you, was it a person?” Blank, “Yeah, it was the woman swinging something at me. I don't know if it was a lamp. I didn't see it. I just grabbed it. And it could have been a lamp, it could have been a trophy. It kind of felt more like a trophy. I don't know, it could have been one of them little skimpy lamps. I don't know. Well, that's when I pushed her. And then she comes at me with I don't know if it was a knife or one of them letter openers or something. I don't remember what it was. I didn't see it.” Detective says, “She had it in her hand?” Blank says, “Yeah, that's when I hit her with the thing I had in my hand, and then I grabbed it and I cut her with the knife. I don't remember where I cut her or how I did it, it just happened so fast. I just freaked out then and I left after that.”

Detective, “All right, so you're saying while you was in the closet, you heard some noise and you turned the light out in the closet?” Blank says, “Right.” Detective says, “And then, you wait a little while and you turn the light back on?” Blank says, “No, I turned the light off when I heard a noise and then I kind of opened the closet door and peeked out, and I didn't see anything or didn't hear anything. And I waited a couple of seconds and then I closed the door back and turned the light back on. And then, when I was ready to get out after I had looked around and they had all kinds of stuff in there, I kind of emptied the drawers out and stuff like that and didn't find anything. And I just decided to leave.” Detective says, “Okay.”

And Blank says, “And then when I come out, that's when I turned the light off and opened the door and come out, that's when she was standing there and she had something in her hand and swung it at me.” And the detective says, “And you took it away from her?” Blank says, “I put my hand up like that and it hit me on arm and then I grabbed it and pushed her back onto the bed. And then she grabbed something off of the coffee table, and it could have been a knife or could have been one of them letter overs. I don't remember.” Detective, “Okay, so when she went to grab this, you had this trophy?” Blank says, “She come up.” The detective says, “Or lamp in your hand?” And Blank says, “Yeah, she come up, and all I seen was like a shadow because there was no light. And the light was where I shined in front of the bathroom and the bathroom door wasn't all the way open, it was kind of cracked. And well, then she come back at me with the knife and I tried to grab it, but I couldn't see her arm to grab it. And I just kind of ducked to the side and I hit her with the thing that I had in my hand.” 

Detective says, “What part of the body did you hit?” He says, “I think it hit her in the head. I ain't sure. I think that's where I hit her.” The detective says, “And what does she do?” Blank says, “Well, after that, I pushed her and then I grabbed her hand with a knife, and I know I cut her. I don't know where.” But detective says, “Was she standing up when you cut her or—” then Blank interrupts and says, “No, she was laying on the-- I think when I pushed her, she was laying across the bed or at the edge of bed. And after that, I did that and then I left.” And detective says, “But you hit her with the knife too then?” Blank says, “Yeah.” And detective says, “Okay. You left.” Blank says, “I grabbed her arm or hand or something and went back with it. And then, I took the knife and I ain't positive, but I think I hit her twice with it. I ain't sure. I don't remember. It just happened so fast, and I was just scared and I just took out and left.” 

Jim: Now, you're going to know all those details, and you didn't do it. 

Woody: That tells me this guy's smart. He's actually replaying it in his mind. It's not like he's reading the script. He's like, “Oh, yeah, that's right, because the bathroom light was on." It wasn't this light. It was the bathroom light. "And then I saw something coming at me and it tried to freak me out and I grabbed it, and I don't know if it was a lamp or it was a trophy, maybe,” but he's not totally clear on everything. But he knows enough, like I said, “So, she was standing when you stabbed her?” And he's like, “No, she was laying on the bed.” Why would you say that? 

Jim: Right. 

Woody: Why would you make that up? 

Jim: The detective questioning him, he already knows where she was stabbed and all these things. I would imagine what you're doing at this point is trying to build a case. [crosstalk] You're proving that he knew.

Woody: Confirm the evidence that you have. 

Jim: Yeah. So, good job by them. One other thing that came up on the appeal, and a good thing to ask you, Woody, is the polygraph itself. And Daniel Blank tried to say that he didn't know he could get out of a polygraph.

Woody: [crosstalk] You have polygraph rights, they have to read it to you before every exam.

Jim: There you go. And here was just a short conversation that took place between him and the detectives when they asked him to submit to a polygraph. Daniel Blank, “What choice do I have?” Detective, “Well, it's your choice.” And then the other detective says, “It's your choice.” And Daniel Blank says, “If I refuse it, then what?” And the detective says, “That's your prerogative. I mean, this is something that we ask you before, if you're responsible for committing to these homicides, and you stated no.” And Daniel Blank says, “I mean, if I refuse it, then what are y'all going to do to me?” And the detective says, “Well, I got to be honest with you, if you're looking from an investigative standpoint, it doesn't look too good. But that's only my opinion. I mean, that's just my opinion.” Daniel Blank says, “Well, what I'm saying is if I refuse to take the polygraph, what are you going to do? You're going to arrest me?” And the detective says, “You're not under arrest.” You have that conversation, it's recorded. That proves that they're telling you they're not threatening to arrest you.

Woody: They never threatened. 

Jim: We're just saying it don't look good if you refuse. 

Woody: [crosstalk] it didn't, they weren't lying about that. Let me tell you something. Getting people passed, giving permission for a polygraph is probably the hardest thing today, especially the guilty people. Now, there's two kinds of people that take the test. The ones who take it because they know they can pass it and the ones who take it like Daniel Blank, because they know their ass is in a crack and they're hoping by some miracle that they'll show a no deception indicated.

Jim: That's right. Long story short, he exhausts his appeals and now he's in a position where he is just awaiting his death-

Woody: Oh, it's coming.

Jim: -in Bloody-

Woody: -Angola. And he's on the row. And guess what? He was one of the ones that did this recent clemency push or whatever-- push for clemency hearings. But time is up. The new sheriff's in town per se with Jeff Landry coming in because he's the one that's been fighting the governor about, and the governor basically in the end came out and said he didn't believe in executions and all that.

But I'm going to give a shoutout to investigators. Sheriff Jeff Wiley, Ascension Parish. Look, great guy. I actually did my internship for my polygraph license. They had a certified polygraph examiner by this time, Greg Landry. And Jeff Wiley had to prove it, I had to go over there every week and stuff and work with one of his detectives who was a polygraph guy. Look, Ascension Parish sheriff’s house, one of the best equipment wise and training wise and everything else. And Mike Toney has been there forever. He's got to be retired now, but I knew him and worked cases with him. But he was the lead investigator on the case for Ascension Parish. 

And then, Willy Martin who is the sheriff of St. James Parish, great guy, shoutout. And Sid Berthelot was the first respondent officer of St. James Parish, shoutout to him. And Todd Hymel was the lead investigator for St. John Parish, shoutout. I mean not that often they get to work these. And CJ Destor was the investigator for St. John Parish who assisted and Dowell Brenn, the investigator for Gonzales police. I don't believe he's there any longer. And Dan Funk, who was the FBI special agent. These guys caught probably one of the most prolific serial killers you never heard about.

Jim: Absolutely. So, shoutout to just amazing detective work by a lot of those guys and something very admirable. If you know any of those guys, and they're still around and would like to do an interview with us, we'd love to have them on, sit down and talk to them.

Woody: I think Sheriff Wiley is a senator now-- a senator or congressman or something. Not meant congressman, but I saw him at the Chamber of Commerce when I did the Chamber of Commerce. 

Jim: Oh, did you? 

Woody: He was with Jason [unintelligible 00:54:09]. 

Jim: Okay. Well, it’d be great if we get him on.

Woody: And Jason said, “You remember Jeff Wiley?” I said, “Sheriff, yeah, I remember.” I told him about the polygraph thing, he laughed and he was [unintelligible [00:55:34] case and all the big cases [crosstalk] but he's since retired and moved on. 

Jim: We want to remember the victims of these cases. And I'm sure there's a lot of family out there that are listening to this right now. Matter of fact, I know one in particular that her cousin was involved in this. So, shoutout to you. And Victor Rossi, Barbara Bourgeois, Lillian Philippe, Sam Arcuri, Louella Arcuri, Joan Brock, all murdered, but you're in our thoughts and prayers and your families. 

Woody: It's a ripple of fagging time, someone's murdered, people just hear the headlines of the murder victims, but every one of them have families. 

Jim: Yeah. And Leonce and Joyce Millet, who were not killed, they were survivors. And I'm sure they have family still out there. 

Woody: Yeah. And Patreon members, thank you again for your support. Y'all, go to patreon.com and type in Bloody Angola. We've got a bunch of different levels, a bunch of different ways that things that you can get for showing us support the Patreon. If you can't be a Patreon member, we get it, we love and appreciate all you all. Please go leave us reviews and like and share and help us continue to grow. Hey, and we are for, 2023, Bloody Angola won the best history podcast in the world. 

Jim: In the world. 

Woody: Because of y'all. You rock.

Jim: Because of y'all. That's right. And we appreciate that so much. So until next time, I'm Jim Chapman. 

Woody: I'm Woody Overton.

Jim: Your host of Bloody-

Woody: -Angola.

Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making. 

Woody: The Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison.

Woody and Jim: Peace.

In this episode of Bloody Angola: A True Crime Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman we bring you inside the hunt for the River Parishes Serial Killer Daniel Blank who terrorized the Parishes of Ascension, St James, and St John Parish in 2007 & 2008.

#DanielBlank #Serialkiller #louisiana #riverparishesserialkiller #bloodyangolapodcast #truecrime

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In this episode of Bloody Angola: A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman we take you inside the Angola Prison Rodeo and supply you with the history and facts behind the oldest prison rodeo in the country.

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When they needed a confession from the real “Dead Man Walking” …They Called “Duck”.

Check out this once in a lifetime in studio interview with Donald “Duck” Sharp who performed the interrogation and gained the confessions from Robert Willie and Joe Vaccaro sending Willie to the death chamber.

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In this part 2 of Bloody Angola: A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman we continue the story of Angola Inmate Charlie Frazier.

Charlie was one of the worst criminals in U.S. History and ran with the likes of Bonnie and Clyde. He rose to notoriety during the 20's and 30's during the bootlegging period in American History.

An escape artist, murderer and the very reason the Red Cell Block inside of Louisiana State Penitentiary was built, this is an episode you have to hear.

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In this episode of Bloody Angola: A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman the story of Eldridge Robertson, more known as the notorious outlaw Charlie Frazier is told.

Charlie was one of the worst criminals in U.S. History and ran with the likes of Bonnie and Clyde. He rose to notoriety during the 20's and 30's during the bootlegging period in American History.

An escape artist, murderer and the very reason the Red Cell Block inside of Louisiana State Penitentiary was built, this is an episode you have to hear.

#Louisianastatepenitentiary #angolaprison #charliefrazier #eldridgerobertson #redhatcellblock #angolaprison #podcast #bloodyangola

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In this episode of Bloody Angola:A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman, We drop a classic episode from Woody Overton's Real Life Real Crime original series entitled S.W.I.M. as we prepare for the Season 5 premier of Bloody Angola!

#BloodyAngola #Podcast #truecrime #SWIM #RealLifeRealCrime

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In this episode of Bloody Angola: A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman, they wrap up season 4 of the podcast and give you an amazing sneak peek into season 5!

#thewrap #truecrime #bloodyangolapodcast #podcast

BLOODY ANGOLA PODCAST: THE WRAP FULL TRANSCRIPT 

Jim: Hey everyone and welcome back to another edition of Bloody- 

Woody: Angola.

Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making.

Woody: The Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison.

Jim: And I'm Jim Chapman.

Woody: And I'm Woody Overton.

Jim: And Woody Overton, we've been doing 18 episodes. This is the 19th episode of Season 4.

Woody: Wow. Sounds like it's time for a wrap [crosstalk] right? Jim: It must be.

Woody: That is a lot.

Jim: That is a lot. And, y'all, we have so much fun doing this. We just go and go and go, and before you know it, we've got four seasons and one. But we love it that way. And so, today we thought it was fun to not only kind of wrap up the season and discuss our thoughts on the Episodes that we did drop, but give you a sneak peek into what, Woody Overton, I think is going to be our best season ever.

Woody: It's absolutely going to be the best, because we got the best stuff coming up. Jim: Oh, yes.

Woody: And you did the best research and we got guests and everything else.

Jim: Yeah. We're raising the bar to say the least for Season 5. But let's talk about Season 4, which, y'all, our most successful season to date. We had so many different subjects that we covered and when we envisioned this podcast, that was one of the things that we envisioned was being very broad about how we covered Angola.

Woody: Right. We told you every story would be different. We've had some that were uplifting, we had some that were mentally disturbing about crime and we had just everything. We're going to talk about some, but it's all varied and all true.

Jim: Oh, yeah. And we started off Season 4 with The Rise & Fall of C-Murder.

Woody: That's right. Great one. We got a lot of response from that.

Jim: Really kicked off the season.

Woody: Really, really excellent. Loved it. I didn't really understand that he was such a legend in Louisiana.

Jim: Yeah, he really was. And what a story. A lot of what we covered surrounded the fact that his case, there was never a whole lot of, say, proof. There was a lot of circumstantial

stuff. And we covered some of the holes in that case and also covered some of the things that pointed towards C-Murder being involved. But we left it up to the listener to kind of judge for themselves what they thought.

Woody: Right. We brought to you a lot of facts on it, researched and watched documentaries and everything else. And then, you got it from our perspective, and you the story and me the detective on it. So very interesting. If y'all hadn't heard it, you need to go listen to it.

Jim: That's right. And then went straight from there into When Evil Escapes, which was the story of Casey White and Vicky White.

Woody: Yes. That's crazy. And, y'all, it ties back into Bloody Angola because that's unfortunately those relationships develop. That's a very real deal. And here you have this career lady. I mean, her whole life's been about this and then she falls under the spell of this monstrous-

Jim: Monster, yeah.

Woody: -big dude. And the story that unfolds is just so crazy and how they end up.

Jim: The ending on that one was fire. And we want to remind everyone you can go back and listen. If you hear us mention an episode that you haven't listened to yet, you can go back through and you'll find it. Just scroll down through Season 4. In Episode 3, we started our Death Sentence series which covered the death row exonerations with DNA and things like that taking place in Angola specifically.

Woody: Yeah. And those cases were phenomenal. And I know a lot of people are against the death penalty and always say, "Well--" You come home and find your kid raped and mutilated, etc. But this shows the other side of it and their valid argument that, "Hey, you know what? Sometimes they get it wrong." So, we gave you the unbiased truth on these people that got out. And what actually ultimately happened to them. Go back and listen to it because you'll find a common thread on every one of them that got released. Didn’t do so well.

Jim: That's right. And then we felt it only right to cover those that were executed, I guess you could say, for the right reasons. There was preponderance of proof and that was with our Death Chamber Part 1 and just covered those guys that walked down and sat in Gruesome Gertie.

Woody: Right. And not we only told about their crimes, we told about some of the [unintelligible 00:06:28] stuff, but then last meals, last words. And again, I think you find in most of those that some of the last words are almost the same and I don't want to ruin it for you, so go listen to it. But I've always been super fascinated by the last meals and last words.

Jim: Yeah.

Woody: And some great, great two-part series, wasn't it?

Jim: Yeah. Well, yeah, two parts.

Woody: Because there's that much information and that much fire in it.

Jim: After that, we kind of got back to telling you the stories of some people that-- this guy in particular is still sitting in Angola and that is Principal to Murder, Justin Granier who committed some crimes in Gonzales, Louisiana.

Woody: That's right, yeah. Very, very interesting to say the least.

Jim: I found that as well because Justin is one that gained popularity on TikTok and some other places because he was on a show that featured Louisiana State Penitentiary and his work through several programs that they offer and does appear to be someone that is very resentful of his crime and all those sorts of things. But we're not going to ruin it for you. Go listen to it. Season 4, Episode 6, we covered The Escape From Angola in 1953. That was Ricardo Escobar who's--

Woody: That’s right.

Jim: --a little home invasion.

Woody: He did. And my grandfather actually ruled in this case. My namesake, actually, or I guess I'm his namesake and my son has the same name, but it's different time in what happened in this case. I think the first time ever any kind of verdict had come down like that in the state of Louisiana for an escapee.

Jim: Yeah, it's a good one. Check it out. Season 4, Episode 7, we finally did it. We brought you becoming the warden. Burl Cain Part 1.

Woody: Yes. [crosstalk] -legend- Jim: Wow, that was good.

Woody: -and such, an early influence on me in my professional career when I worked for him before he became the Warden of Angola. He was the warden of Dixon Correctional Institute. Y'all, this story is amazing.

Jim: It really is. And continues to this day. Woody: And we actually did several episodes.

Jim: We sure did. As a matter of fact, Season 4, Episode 8 and 9 are the second and third parts of that series.

Woody: Yeah. It covers everything from him coming up as the warden in Angola, to how he turned Angola around. Even to Hurricane Katrina coverage, and the bus station and all. Go listen to it. I get goosebumps. That dude just is amazing.

Jim: Oh, yeah.

Woody: Sorry, Warden Cain, I said dude. Jim: [laughs]

Woody: That gentleman is amazing.

Jim: He really is. And if somebody's listening that knows him, we'd love to talk to him. We can do whatever, we can go up there, we can record him remotely, whatever, but I do know that he has paid some attention to our page and we'd love to sit down and talk to such a

legend. Season 4, Episode 10, we went back to the death chamber. Had a lot of people wanting us to follow up on that with more execution stories. And we brought you Death Chamber Part 2. And then Episode 11, we wrapped that series up with a Part 3. We actually covered all of them from 1980 on.

Woody: That's right. And then all the way up to Gerald Bordelon.

Jim: Yes.

Woody: Which was the last one put to death and he's right here out of the Livingston Parish.

Jim: That's right.

Woody: Very, very interesting. And you get to see the true nightmare of evil these people are.

Jim: Absolutely. And then, Season 4, Episode 12, we went ahead and did a part 2 to death sentence and talked about more exonerations that have happened due to DNA or other technicalities. It doesn't necessarily mean-- when someone's exonerated, it doesn't necessarily mean they didn't do it. It just means there was-- unless it's a DNA situation, it just typically means that there was a technicality that was discovered later on that may have changed that sentence from death to life in prison.

Woody: Right. They may have commuted it or what have you, but it's very interesting on each individual case, no two are the same.

Jim: Then, we went and brought you to Season 4, Episode 13, and we started The Angolite Files.

Woody: Yeah, that was fascinating. Jim: Those are fun, man.

Woody: Where we go back, y'all, to the oldest editions that Jim found and the wording they use in. We read the actual articles and most of them are just really, really short, but it's like they didn't have any entertainment. They didn't have TV or radio station back then, the Angola's radio station. But the wordings are just crazy. And the things they talk about-- I know people, that's one of our most popular series, so y'all got to check it out.

Jim: A little plug on Real Life Real Crime here, but it's funny that Woody, okay, so he just wrapped a really, really good series that you got to go here when we were, I guess you can say marketing this, one of the things that I put out there was that this was your seat inside a courtroom during an actual death penalty trial. And Woody really brings you inside of that as he goes over these transcripts that were very important and needed to be included. But you do something unique, which is-- and I end up doing the same thing from time to time, which is your voice almost changes and you go into this role and it's great because--

Woody: Because you're in a character.

Jim: Oh, yeah. He gets into that character and he's like, "Let me ask you something." Love it, man. So, go listen to that on Real Life Real Crime for sure if you have the opportunity. In Season 4, Episode 14, we brought you the Elite Chase Team.

Woody: Ooh, what a great story.

Jim: Ah, that was a good one.

Woody: The best of the best at what they do, and not only for bloody Angola, they're so

famous, they get calls for assistance everywhere.

Jim: Absolutely.

Woody: If you going to run, that's one group of men that you don't want coming after you.

Jim: Yo, you don't.

Woody: And they've got it down to the science.

Jim: They really do. So, go listen to that. Learn all about this Chase Team that is probably one of the best, if not the best in the nation.

Woody: I'd put them up against anybody.

Jim: Season 4, Episode 15, we had so much response on Becoming The Warden that we dropped an episode called Catch Your House, and it was Woody and Unspeakable's Kelly Jennings joining him as a guest on that show. And they discussed their relationship with Burl Cain, having both worked for him.

Woody: Right. Very, very interesting. You get to hear from an old correctional officer's point of view and then a classification officer's point of view. And, of course, two totally different jobs. And KJ has awesome stories too. It's a great episode.

Jim: Yeah. And then, we just continued on, and something happened in Louisiana that was generating a lot of talk in the news. And because we have a lot of ambiguity with this show, we bring you current stuff too, if it's making these kind of headlines. And we felt like this was something important. And the response we got from people that listened after the fact let us know that it was important. And that was The Louisiana Clemency Debacle Part 1.

Woody: And that's actually a worldwide watch situation now because it's the first time it's ever been done in the history of certainly the state of Louisiana, but in the history of the United States and probably the history of the world. And then, you have both sides. Certainly, the people that wanted these things to go through and then I just don't understand it still.

Jim: You and me and million other listeners, apparently. We actually, y'all, got some very special messages from families of people who are actually facing this, and they wanted to just thank us for shedding light on that. Of course, no thanks needed. That was our honor to do and all those sorts of things. But it really hit home to both of us the importance of what we're doing as it relates to situations like that.

Woody: And we ended up telling, y'all, where they were from, what their crimes are, and it's just-- you got to listen to it.

Jim: Yeah. And then, we continued on with Season 4, Episode 17. That was part two of the Clemency Debacle. And then after that, we even dropped a bonus episode called-- just for patrons, called The First 20 that covered the first 20 of these clemency hearings, the first 20 inmates that are coming up for these hearings.

Woody: What it covered, y'all, everybody got the base list of the crimes and where they're from, etc. For the patrons, and thank you, patrons, the show wouldn't run without you, and

Apple subscribers now, we really delved into their crimes. We told exactly what happened and who was murdered and why was aggravating circumstances and the whole nine yards.

Jim: Yeah.

Woody: I mean, you can't get any deeper than what we gave them.

Jim: That's right. And so, that episode just was absolute fire. And then, Season 4, Episode 18, we went back to The Angolite, and we did 1954 Through The Inmates Eyes and covered several Angolites in and around the year 1954. And one thing that's really great about those Angolites is it really does give you the view from that convict's standpoint. [crosstalk]

Woody: Right. Again, the language they use, of course, most of those terms wouldn't be not only politically correct today, but just flat out strange to hear some of them. And we didn't read the whole magazine, y'all. We just picked out certain little articles throughout. Everything from dude who stole and got busted stealing peanut butter, which they put it in their all own words to such and such. And they worded a different way, but basically-

Jim: Fights.

Woody: -who got stabbed. And such stories today, spung a leak, or however they say, but you got to go listen to it. If you love Bloody Angola, and you love the history of the show, I mean, these articles and the wording and all the history, just the day-to-day life on the plantation back then is crazy.

Jim: It really is. And the great thing was, back in those days, they didn't censor things that got out of Angola like they do now. Those Angolites, I mean, they really talked about some stuff that would make you raise an eyebrow that no way it would get out now.

Woody: Right.

Jim: But back then--

Woody: And back then, really, though, it was really put on for the convicts and then it became nationally known and everything else and people would get subscription. Hell, I had a subscription to it in the early 90s. But back then, it was more like their newspaper.

Jim: Yeah, that's right. And so that was the season that our most fire season so far as Woody would say. And so, when we're looking back at this, we're like, "Man, we just set a real high bar for Season 5," but we're up to the challenge.

Woody: That's right.

Jim: We're up to the challenge. [crosstalk] We're going to tell you more. That's right. Woody: We'll take it to the next level maybe.

Jim: The next level. That's what we do. And so, we're going to give y'all a look right now into Season 5 and some things that are definitely going to take place. And look, anytime you start off a season, you look for that one story, that one character that really grabs an audience because you're constantly gaining listeners. So, that's kind of your goal, is I want to put something out there first that people can really get attracted to and we found that.

Woody: We definitely did.

Jim: Charlie Frazier--

Woody: Probably the most infamous convict ever. Well, I can't say that. Jim: I would say in the South for sure.

Woody: Certainly, the Brent Miller killings and stuff like that--[crosstalk] Jim: Yeah.

Woody: But this guy overall, what he did, how he lived his life. And what he did to eventually end up in Angola and all the things that happened, holy smokes. Y'all, we're going way back in history here. It's not a stretch to say that-- our episode in whatever season, the Red Hat Cell Block, it's not a stretch to say they built that cell block for Charlie Frazier. He was a bad ass. He could escape from anywhere. But we're going to tell you everything about him.

Jim: And he did.

Woody: And Jim Chapman has outpunted his coverage this time. Jim: Oh, my God, ever, ever.

Woody: Wait till you see in Patreon, you'll get to see more than anybody else because all the documents and news stories and photographs and it's going to blow your mind. And as any proper great story that I've learned over the years doing on Real Life Real Crime, it's going to have to be a multi-part series. And you're going to want it to be a multi-part series. The only thing you're going to hate is when that episode ends because you're like, "Argh," till the next one.

Jim: There's no doubt about it.

Woody: And the patrons, of course, will get it commercial free and early releases.

Jim: That's right. Look, with this particular guy, ever since we first started this, Season 1, I have been digging, digging, digging. It is very, very hard to get information on this particular guy, Charlie Frazier, for a multitude of reasons. One, back then, they just didn't keep records like they do now.

Woody: No social media.

Jim: Yeah, there's things that happen every time things get lost. Woody: There's no cable news, no TV channels or whatever.

Jim: No doubt. This guy, I'm telling y'all, I'll make a promise to you. In my opinion, this will be the definitive history of Charlie Frazier. No doubt about it. I have over 100 pages' worth of information. Now, we're going to freeball this thing. Freeball, that’s kind of weird-- but we're going to freeball it. We might not wear no underwear in the studio today. [chuckles] But we're going definitely talk off the cuff about this guy.

But Patreon members, I want to say this just for you people. Look, everybody that gets this show outside of a Patreon or outside of an Apple Podcast and we're going to talk about that in just a minute. Anybody that gets information outside of that is getting it for free. And we love that. Look, everybody cannot be a subscriber. So, what we ask for those people to do is if you want to pay us back for the hours and hours we spend doing this stuff, all you have to

do is share the podcast. And that is all we would ever ask for those that just are not in a position where they can support any other way. We appreciate that, we love it, we get it, and so those people, we thank as well.

But our Patreon members, they have a financial investment in our success and that's huge. We love, love all of you, whether you do that or not. But for those folks, we give them something extra for that.

Woody: We give them a lot extra- Jim: Yes.

Woody: -Patreon members for Bloody Angola. Unless we are doing a little TikTok right now because--

Jim: We don't do enough of that, right? [crosstalk]

Woody: For the BA, y'all, on TikTok, we're discussing the ending of this season and the

beginning of the next and the fire stories. And we love y'all.

Jim: Yes. That's right. We actually just dropped it, so check out that TikTok, by the way, Real Life Real Crime on TikTok. And you'll see all kinds of great stuff. But getting back to that, this particular Charlie Frazier episode, y'all, I have newspaper articles, clippings. I have actual records from where Charlie Frazier checked into hotels and signed his name. I have actual pictures of the places where people were killed. All of that, we're going to put just for patron members.

Woody: We really think it's going to be such a success-- somebody's going to want to do a documentary on, and you've already done all the work.

Jim: Yeah. If you're not a member yet, join in the next couple of weeks. We're also going to talk about a little guy by the name of Huddie Ledbetter who is otherwise known as Lead Belly. Look, for those of y'all that aren't familiar, he is probably the most popular or one of the most popular convicts ever in Bloody Angola. He was a blues musician that actually got released from prison-

Woody: Because he was a blues musician.

Woody: -because he was-- some people say he's the best blues musician ever. So, we're going to be covering the story. His story is absolutely unbelievable. Phenomenal story. We're going to be doing that this season. How about-- y'all ready for this? Look, we've been working on getting someone on the show that would-- I've never seen an interview that this guy has done.

Woody: Me either.

Jim: But he has done something that is worldwide famous, and that is he was the detective

that actually caught Robert Lee Willie and Joe Vaccaro.

Woody: Not only caught them, he's the one that actually got confessions out of. FBI and everybody else also was there, and they flew Mr. Sharp in. They flew him in and he got the confessions.

Jim: So, this season, Detective Donald Sharp, for those of y'all, Robert Lee Willie and Joe Vaccaro, well, let me tell you this. Sean Penn played the character in Dead Man Walking that these guys were based after.

Woody: I think he won an Academy Award for it.

Jim: I believe he did as well. This exclusive interview with Detective Donald Sharp coming at

you this season, get ready for it.

Woody: And we would want to thank him ahead of time for coming in and doing this. [crosstalk]

Jim: Yeah, he don't have to do it. I want to thank his daughter who reached out to me and kind of got me in contact with Detective Sharp.

Woody: Thank you.

Jim: Yeah, thank you very much. And a fan of the show, and listens to the show, shoutout to

her.

Woody: Right. That’s amazing.

Jim: Also, how about there's something in Angola that we've been requested since Season 1 to talk about, and that is the Rodeo.

Woody: Rodeo. And by the time we get to this story, the Rodeo happens four weekends, every weekend in October, every year, and then I think one weekend in April. But anyway, it'll be that time by the time this story comes out. It's just a whole different world.

Jim: Yeah. We're going to bring it to you.

Woody: We're going to bring it to you and it's so much that goes on and all that.

Jim: So, we're going to be bringing you the Angola Rodeo. And how about something that I get a lot of requests for and that-- Actually, a lot of people are shocked, they know that at some point through listening to our show that women were imprisoned at Angola.

Woody: My grandmother was actually a correctional officer there for the women part of the prison. When my mama was a baby girl, they lived on the B-Line.

Jim: There you go, and I haven't even talked to Woody about this yet, but I actually have been doing an enormous amount of research on women in Angola specifically. I have a heck of a show that we're going to be bringing your way specifically about the women.

Woody: Yeah.

Jim: So, you're going to love that.

Woody: If the master historian researcher says he's got it, then-- [crosstalk]

Jim: I got it. I got the juice. [laughs]

Woody: He loves to give me the juice for the fourth time, and I'm like, "Oh, wow."

Jim: Yeah, man. When I found the juice on Charlie Frazier, it was 11 o’clock at night, I'm texting Woody.

Jim: I was like, "Yes, yes."

Woody: "You're not going to believe what I got my hands on."

Jim: When we finally do get to take the tour of Angola, we're going to be able maybe teach them something.

Woody: Oh, yeah. In addition to that, we're going to bring you a couple of single cases that have really made a lot of headlines in Angola. One of them is just a horrible individual. We're going to talk about, not only his time before he was incarcerated in Angola and what he did, but we're going to tell you about what he did when he got there, which includes escape attempts. And it's a guy by the name of Brandon Scott Lavergne. We're going to be bringing you that finally after a lot of research. And we're going to bring you another one that I have my eye on, but we'll leave that one a surprise. We'll let you wait. Now, so that's some upcoming stuff that we have.

And we also want to tell you about some new features that we have on Bloody Angola that we've been constantly working towards. When you're running these podcasts and you're doing these things, it's a constant work because you have to stay up with technology. And one of the things that I felt like we, and Woody also felt like we had a gap in, was our Apple Podcast listeners that we have a Patreon and let me tell y'all, the Patreon is where it's at, as far as detailed bonus content. There's no limitations to Patreon. You can have several different tiers and all that, but some people just don't do it. They're just not fans of it, maybe of that website or whatever. We want to make sure we didn't leave them out. So, we partnered with Apple Podcast to where you can get bonus episodes and early releases right from Apple Podcast. You don't have to sign up for another source. I think they just bill your Apple account like they do the App Store and stuff.

Jim: The other thing about it is, Jim, is they get to try it.

Woody: Yes, it's a seven-day free trial.

Jim: Free trial, we're offering a free trial for seven days.

Woody: So, go in and listen to content. If you don't like it, great. But I can promise you, you're going to love it.

Jim: Yeah, you're going to love it.

Woody: Like you said, it's different from Patreon and I get that. But some people just want to

be able to go and punch a button and listen.

Jim: Absolutely. And hey, look, were honored to have Apple Podcast approve us for that. That's an approval process. It's not automatic like some things are, so it spoke highly of our show that they would approve us for that, wanted us on board and pushing us and all those sorts of things. Also, another reminder on that front, two quick things. Bloody Angola, follow the Facebook page because we post all kinds of fun stuff on there. Sometimes, it's just updates. Sometimes, it's just what we're doing.

Woody: Jim always comes up with the coolest artwork for each episode. [chuckles] [crosstalk]

Jim: I love it. I'm so proud of my artwork. That is another thing I text Woody at 11 o’clock, "Check this out."

Woody: "Woody, look at this," and I am like waiting outside of my box [unintelligible 00:32:21].

Jim: [laughs] Yeah, no doubt about it. So, check that out. And we also have a website where you can purchase Bloody Angola swag. Look, we just added a couple of things. Another thing that our highest tier Patreon members get, they get a quarterly gift. We don't want to send the same t-shirt 10 ten times or a different t-shirt every time. So, every time we send that quarterly gift, it's something different. So, those of you out there that I know are listening right now that got one of those, maybe post a picture of you holding it, maybe a selfie, and send it to me and maybe I'll send you something extra and put it on the page.

Woody: Not only is it Bloody Angola related, this latest round, we even signed it. Jim: Oh, yeah, that's right.

Woody: Jim and I both signed them.

Jim: That’s right. And we'll be offering those also for purchase, I just got to get those uploaded to the website and you can buy. We have a few of those left and you can be styling in some Blood Angola swag. But don't forget about the website and the fact you can listen to all the episodes directly from it if you chose to. It has a swag store. We also do some blogging on there. So, I'm sure I'm going to be doing a lot of blogging coming up with these crazy episodes. But you can check those blogs out and those are great things to share on Facebook pages and stuff for people that may be interested.

Woody, our growth, which is what you look for is nothing too short of staggering.

Woody: Y'all validate us. And it's amazing. I want to say this, I think it's September 30th?

Jim: Yeah, for the Podcast Awards? Yeah, September 30th.

Woody: I want to remind you all, y'all voted and made us a Top 10 finalists for the History category-

Jim: Huge honor.

Woody: -in all podcasts in the world, in the History category. And it's a huge honor. Hey, just to make the finals is fire, and the Top 10 in the World in History? We're already winners and I think we got a real legit shot because of you fans.

Jim: Yeah. I do too. September 30th, another thing with the Facebook, we're going to post the link where you can go watch it live. They have a little award ceremony online. You can click on that and you can actually watch the whole Podcast Awards online. And they'll announce the winners and play little videos, acceptance videos.

Woody: I just want to thank y'all again for getting us there, just under a year old.

Jim: And we love it because with this award ceremony in particular, the fans vote on it. It's

not a panel of people that don't know us.

Woody: It's people's choice. Y'all did it. The top 10 belongs to y'all, not Jim and I. And if we win it, that'd be another blessing. And the award belongs to y'all.

Jim: That's right. Just a last little thing today. This will be a shorter episode than normal because it's a wrap-up show. But we want to let you know that next week, we're going to do a little episode swap, and we're going to have everything. We're going to be prepping for Season 5, but we're going to put a fire episode of Real Life Real Crime on the feed here with Bloody Angola.

Woody: Absolutely. It's going to be love, and I love it. We hadn't done one of those in a long time. We're also going to put a Bloody Angola episode on Real Life Real Crime Original.

Jim: That's right. Because everybody that listens to one, then listen to the other, our numbers will be exactly the same. [laughs] So hopefully, someone will hear that maybe they'll introduce other people to the family.

Woody: And y’all, this is a process, and certainly it is a business. So many podcasts come and go, but we have grown and grown and grown, and we've made it. And yes, Patreons, thank you so much, now our Apple subscribers. And thank you to our advertisers.

Jim: Oh, yeah. And I'm glad you mentioned that. HelloFresh, which is advertising on this episode.

Woody: Look, I'm a foodie, and I'm not just giving a senseless plug. They've been sponsoring me through Real Life Real Crime since like 2019. And the food is phenomenal.

Jim: It is.

Woody: I guess I get stuck in my old Cajun cooking ways or whatever. They send me this box of stuff and I'm like, "Oh," but all the sauces and the fresh meats and everything are in there, and I've never been disappointed. Sometimes, I tell my wife, like, "I'll reorder that right now." And it's a great deal.

Jim: It really is. And in the show notes of this episode, you can get that, and I believe it's 50BLOODYANGOLA.

Woody: That's the code.

Jim: And you get all kinds of perks. It's like 50% off 15 meals or something like that. Woody: It's way cheaper than going out to eat or having something delivered.

Jim: Especially with that code but make sure you use that code, y'all, and we'll link it. We're going to talk about it in the description of this podcast. Just scroll down and you'll get all the information you need on that deal. And it helps support the show. It helps keep your grocery bill down.

Woody: And it helps filling your stomach with some great food.

Jim: That’s right.

Woody: You'll be looking like a crackhead like me for that box to be delivered. Jim: [laughs] That's it. And it makes you look like a heck of a cook.

Woody: Oh, yeah. If you want to impress somebody, oh, yeah, it's--

Jim: Yeah. So, check them out, HelloFresh. We're very thankful for them. And look, on another note on that, and the last thing we'll bring up on sponsors, I've had a few local folks to Louisiana ask about sponsoring Bloody Angola. If you want information on that, just shoot me an email, jim@localleadersthepodcast.com or bloodyangola@gmail.com. I check the first one quicker than the second one. So, that one I check every five minutes, so the Local Leaders is the best one to use. But I can give you some information on how you can be a local sponsor for the show.

Woody: Yeah. And a lot of different options on that. And we have a huge listener base, especially here in Louisiana.

Jim: Absolutely. And we give you guys a special deal because you're local folks and we want to help you out. So, until next time, I'm Jim Chapman.

Woody: And I'm Woody Overton. I'm blessed and love all y'all. Jim: Yes, your hosts of Bloody-

Woody: -Angola.

Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making.

Woody: The Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison. Jim and Woody: Peace.

[Bloody Angola theme]

[Transcript provided by SpeechDocs Podcast Transcription]

In this episode of Bloody Angola: A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman you are brought back to the 50's as Woody and Jim cover some of the more infamous stories regarding Louisiana State Penitentiary as told through the pages of the Angolite Prison Newspaper.

#TheAngolite #1954throughtheinmateseyes #bloodyangolapodcast #convict

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1954 THROUGH AN INMATES EYES: Bloody Angola Podcast Transcript

Jim:Hey everyone and welcome back to Bloody-

Woody:-Angola.

Jim:A podcast 142 years in the making.

Woody:The Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison.

Jim:And I'm Jim Chapman. 

Woody:And I'm Woody Overton.

Jim:And we got some Angolites.

Woody:Right? I love these stories, man. True, true history from the past. Before we get started, we want to say our thoughts and prayers are with all our people in Florida and Georgia that are getting slammed right now, or got slammed yesterday and came ashore as a Category 3.

Jim:And continue to get slammed. 

Woody:And it's just bad. And they said they haven't seen a storm like that in 125 years. So, just prayers for them. I guess you call it Idalia, I-D-A-L-I-A. It's just bad, prayer for them. We know what they're going through.

Jim:Yeah, we've been through a few of those ourselves. So, our hearts and prayers and thoughts are with those folks and the road to recovery. You will recover. It'll seem like you won't, but you'll come back. Look, we've done a lot of historical podcasts with relation to the Angolite, the prison weekly paper that Angola has put out for so many years. This is an award-winning paper all over the world.

Woody:And actually turned into a magazine because I had a subscription to it back in the 90s. 

Jim:Absolutely. Some of the stories from back in the day, y'all, you just won't believe until we read them. We've had a lot of people ask for us to do another one. Got a lot of messages. So, we're bringing you another one today because we got our hands on a lot of them from the 50s and 60s. So, we kind of cherry pick what we feel like are the best stories out of those magazines, and we go over those with y'all. And I'll start it off. And this is an Angolite from April 21st, 1956. 

Woody:Wow.

Jim:Yeah. That was a heck of a time in America, and even in Angola, as you're about to hear. 

Woody:Definitely Bloody Angola, man. 

Jim:Yes, for sure. And as a matter of fact, we're going to start off with a bloody story at Bloody Angola, and it was a headline. It said, "Two Dead, One Hurt. Tragedy trip hammered a triple blow at Angola last weekend, leaving two inmates dead and another maimed for life." It says one of the two dead suffered fatal injuries in an accident. The second died of a heart attack. Maimed with his right hand amputated at the wrist was a third.

Woody:Wow. 

Jim:The dead Charles D. Clarkson, 24, of Caddo Parish. He had fallen under the wheels of a tractor last Friday. A broken rib punctured his lung. He died enroute to Charity Hospital, New Orleans. Lawrence Virgil Turley, 55, a carpenter, died Sunday afternoon at the General Hospital of a heart attack. Injured only a half hour after he had been assigned to work on the Mammoth Press at the Tag plant, Venice Landry, 20, had his right hand mangled under the giant bolster ram. 

Woody:Wow. 

Jim:Which is the thing, y'all, that stamps it. 

Woody:Slams.

Jim:Yeah, slams that steel and stamps those plates. His hand was amputated at General Hospital Saturday. Pretty, pretty wild stuff going on at Angola. And look, these days, they don't give you those reports. Typically, you really got to dig for them.

Woody:The General Hospital really wasn't a hospital. That's when the nurse, the angel-- they call her angel, was there, there was no doctor and all that. It's crazy, right? 

Jim:That's right. 

Woody:And the language they use in these, y'all, is really comical. 

Jim:And you've got to remember, this was a different time. So, you'll hear things like colored and whites. 

Woody:It's their words, not ours. 

Jim:That's right. 

Woody:All right, so the next one says, "Two Fail in Brief Freedom. Wallace McDonald and Norman Stroupe are in a tight, locked cells today following a brief bid for liberty Tuesday night. Security officials said the two took off from the transportation department in Downtown Angola-" That's funny. "In Downtown Angola Tuesday about noon. They were recaptured within a six-hour period by local authorities, both formerly bedded down at Camp H2," the report said. 

Jim:[laughs] 

Woody:Kind of brief on that. 

Jim:Yeah. Basically, they turned a jet-- and that's what I really like about these, is they do tell you about the escapes and stuff. I mean, they don't hold back.

Woody:Downtown Angola.

Jim:Yeah. [chuckles] Well, how about this one? "Cleaver in an attack tried," says, "John Newton, a new prison kitchen worker, was jailed Monday on a charge of felonious assault with a meat cleaver." Yes, sir. "Newton is said to have sliced Albert Johnson upside his head following an argument. Johnson was hospitalized with lacerations." 

Woody:Jeez Louise.

Jim:Yeah. So, Mr. Johnson got a--

Woody:Meat cleaver to the head. 

Jim:You don't attack people with meat cleavers.

Woody:Bloody Angola for sure. 

Jim:That's right. 

Woody:So crazy. And then this next one, y'all says, "Heavy equipment acts to rush free houses. Using earth from the miles long embankment of the old Louisiana and Arkansas right of way, the LSP Heavy Equipment department-" That's funny. "Under Superintendent Dennis Johnson was last week engaged in an all-out operation to fill a five-acre plot of ground for the construction of 21 new free personnel houses. The plot is located on the B-Line at the foot of the old receiving station hill. It is to be filled to a depth of 36 inches. Johnson says he expects his department will wind up with the earth fill operation within two weeks. Construction houses will then start, he said." It's funny. They're talking about building part of the B-Line, another 21 houses added.

Jim:Yeah. So, this is back, y'all, for those that may just be joining us, the B-Line is where all the free people live. 

Woody:Inside the wire. 

Jim:Inside the wire. And this was during the construction of that way back in 1956.

Woody:And my mama lived there during that time.

Jim:And we'll go on to another page of this one. And there's an article, it says, "More crippled birds. A second group of crippled pelicans, each with the wings broke by hail in the recent storm, were sighted last Sunday by deck passengers on the Angola ferry. The birds have roosted on the log a few feet from the shore and near the middle of the ferry landing. Observers said the wings will heal in time and that it is no rescue operation."

Woody:That's crazy. 

Jim:And the reason we included that one is, it's interesting that they try to keep you up to date with what's going on the outside. And the only way they know that is to look out those bars in that wire and actually see it. A little story on pelicans. Who knew hail could injure their wings? 

Woody:The news of the day, right? 

Jim:Yeah. 

Woody:All right. This one says, "O, let us spray. An old-fashioned mattress spraying bee was held at Camp E last Monday, under the eagle eye of the unit captain, A. Couvillon. The action was aimed at eliminating any wandering insects who had hoped to make the unit their dwelling place this summer." 

[laughter] 

Woody:It's spraying for bedbugs, basically.

Jim:Yeah.

Woody:That’s funny.

Jim:And something that you had to do up in Angola for sure. 

Woody:It had to be really bad for them to do it for the convicts. 

Jim:That's right. And then, we'll continue on. And there's one that says, "Falls upstairs, breaks his jaw." 

Woody:Uh-oh.

Jim:That's right. "Joseph Tornabene, Camp H-1 juvenile, fell upstairs one day last week and broke his jaw in three places."

Woody:I bet that didn't happen. 

Jim:[laughs] "The adolescent was returning to his bunk after a shower, according to the story told to the hospital. He was taken to Charity Hospital in New Orleans for treatment." So, they're basically trying to say-- 

Woody:They beat his ass.

Jim:[laughs] Broke his jaw--[crosstalk]  

Woody:"You better tell them you fell up the stairs, boy."

Jim:Yeah, that's it. 

Woody:That's funny. 

Jim:Broke his jaw in three places from a slip. That was one that I really thought painted a picture of the times in prison. 

Woody:Funny. I think that's when they had the convict guards too. All right, so here we go. The title of this is "Pocketed Razor Draws Jail Time." Says, "He told arresting officers he was just going to shave, but they didn't believe him. He is James B. Shivers of the STU, and he was caught with a straight razor. The board assessed a term on bread and duck because they said only blades for a razor are lawful."

Jim:[laughs] [crosstalk] Jesus Christ. And when they caught him, he said, "Well, I was just using it to shave." 

Woody:"Yeah, I was just using it to shave." 

Jim:"What's wrong with that?" All right, how about this one? "Fresh fish leave sheltered cloister as labor beckons. 34 fish, until recently swimming unfettered in the administration unit tank-" And, y'all, when they refer to fish, they're talking about new prisoners. "-At the General Hospital have been screened, tested, probed, and activated by members of the classifications board at a recent session. Purpose of the session was to ascertain whether the fish can earn his bed and board. A few whose records indicated they were unlikely to run were made trustys on the spot. Others who must wait and further test went on jobs under the gun. [crosstalk] 18 of the fish are today assigned to the Angola Cane Corn and Cotton Company as field laborers."

[laughter] 

Jim:"In the number were those who will live at Camp A, H and H-2. Culinary work attracted three men, a clerkship and garage work for a third and a welding for a fourth." So, they were classifying them into jobs. And of all those people, 34 fish, only three were made trustys. So, that tells you most of them, they were like, "Eh, you're going to run--[crosstalk]"  

Woody:Those three had probably been there before, and then the ones under the gun, that's the shittiest job in the world. Can you imagine, like this summer, when it's 105 and then 116 with a heat index out there all day long, swinging a hoe? That’s crazy.

Jim:Yeah, that’s insane.

Woody:But they did something to get there.

Jim:That's right. 

Woody:This one says, "Brown bags chops. John Hunt told the man he was hungry, and he had purloined the poke chops-", and they spell it P-O-K-E, y'all, "-for a midnight snack. The man sighed and put his pencil in notebook and told John, 'Put them back.' But on going through the gate again, the same suspicious bulge was evident." 

Jim:[laughs] 

Woody:Right. "Searched for chops, were confiscated, as was also Hunt's trusty pass from Pine Ford dormitory, his mail is now being sent to the local jail."

Jim:Which means lockdown, basically. 

Woody:That's funny. 

Jim:They locked his ass down. 

Woody:Extra poke chops out the kitchen.

Jim:Poke chops. 

Woody:Poke chops. 

Jim:Yeah. So that was from that one, and we're going to do another one here from August 11, 1956. And there's a headline on there. It says, "Angola's Informal Hot Seat. Someone at Angola that I'm not going to name, that I neither know nor care was almost burned to a cinder one day last week."

Woody:Uh-oh.

Jim:Oh, this guy must have been mad at him. "It seems that this 'worker' presumably was doing a little digging under the steel plate that separates the medium from the trusty compounds, which is located beneath the walkway directly below the snitch box at the medium security gate." So, this dude was digging a hole--[crosstalk] 

Woody:He wanted to get out. 

Jim:"He quit in a hurry-" it gets better, "-when a bolt of sizzling lightning momentarily blinded him and luckily did not fry his hide. His shovel had cut through one of nine cables, each of which was live with 2300 volts of crackling death."

Woody:What? 

Jim:Yes, sir. "The soil around the cable was burned to charcoal, and if the lucky bum had come into contact with that current in that cable, they'd have been buried right there where they found him."

Woody:Wow. 

Jim:"Take this information for what it's worth and continue grave digging. The Angolite or dig your own grave, literally, with the assurance that the Angolite will make your name famous throughout the state. It's up to you."

Woody:That’s funny. 

Jim:[laughs] That guy was [unintelligible [00:15:55] trying to escape. 

Woody:[crosstalk] -dig out and dug into the cable lines. [crosstalk] -signs you see, "Don't dig here." They didn't have those back then. Crazy. All right, here we go, Bloody Angola. So, this one's called "Dumbbell Opens Passoit's Scalp." 

Jim:Uh-oh. [laughs] 

Woody:"Veral Passoit, was removed from the cell block to the hospital, August 8th, with a head wound. Veral, who was removed from the cell block area, August 8th, with a head wound, which he claimed to have suffered when a weight he was lifting fell on his noggin. Hospital records show that he is getting along very nicely despite the 15 or 18 sutures required to close the clean tight wound."

Jim:Somebody hit him with a dumbbell. [laughs] 

Woody:Hit him with a knife. Dumbbell wouldn't leave a clean, open wound, it'd be smashed. 

Jim:Yeah. 

Woody:But they weren't going to rat on each other.

Jim:Mm-hmm. 

Woody:[crosstalk] -take your lick.

Jim:And y'all imagine this, now this is the 50s. These guys, there is no TV and all that. I mean, this is the only entertainment you get, and the only way you can keep up with what's going on in prison as an inmate. 

Woody:It was a huge prison, right? 

Jim:Yes. So, we'll move on. This is February 21st, 1959 edition. And the headline says, "New Prices at the Camp Store." And I really enjoyed this one because I'm going to give you actual prices, but it says, "Mr. James Thornton, Chief Administrative Officer, announced new price levels for many items at the camp store this week. And we have printed the price list on page 6." So, when you go to page six, I just highlighted some of these, and I'm going to read off to you that I found interesting. So, back in 1959, if you needed some Alka Seltzer, it was going to cost you 28 cents. 

Woody:Really? 

Jim:28 cents. Cheez-It's, 10 cents. 

Woody:I can't believe they still had Cheez-It back then. 

Jim:Yeah. No, it surprised me. Cigarettes. You want some king size cigarettes? It's going to cost you 30 cents. 

Woody:What? 

Jim:So, if you want some kings and then some regulars, 29 cents. 

Woody:Yeah, but that was their currency back then. That's what they paid each other with. 

Jim:That's right. Community coffee, 40 cents. 

Woody:Community coffee, way back then. 

Jim:Way back then, and it was instant. Noxzema, 19 cents. 

Woody:I was using Noxzema in prison. 

Jim:[laughs] That's a great-- Look, they got nail clippers for 20 cents. 

Woody:Keep yourself properly clean. 

Jim:That's it. Potato chips, 5 cents. 

Woody:Really? 

Jim:Yeah. Shampoo, White Rain brand. Who knew that was around then? 41 cents. Rolling tobacco, 12 cents. 

Woody:Wow. That's a big deal in prison too, when I used to be there and they still had cigarettes, you could tell who was a really poor convict because they had the Bugler in the can or that blue can. The Bugler was a yellow, red, white, blue, and the other one was just a light blue can. But they were the ones that couldn't afford the Camels or the Marlboros or whatever and had to roll their own cigarettes. And the ones who couldn't afford any of those, when the other ones would throw their butts out, they'd go pick up the butts and smoke the butts. 

Jim:Oh, come on. Ugh. Toothpaste, everybody's got to have toothpaste. Well, it cost you 12 cents for Colgate. 

Woody:Wow. It's cheap.

Jim:Yeah. Vicks salve, 35 cents. And they had Vaseline hair oil back then. That was 14 cents. So, I'm going to take this and I'm going to post it on the Patreon.

Woody:Yeah, because there's a lot of stuff. 

Jim:Yeah, it's a lot of stuff, but pretty cool to go through. They got pork skins on here. They got all kinds of stuff. Liver pills. 

Woody:Liver pills. [chuckles] 

Jim:What they call hives, which are like crackers back then. So, we'll post that on there so you patron members can look through it and really have some fun.

Woody:Yeah, that's funny. 

Jim:Checking that out. And we'll go to September 10th, 1955. Woody is going to start us off on that one. 

Woody:All right. So, September 1955. "Airport here averages plane per day. Attendance at the Angola airport were a shade busy last week. Logged in and out were three planes." They were real busy, huh? "Monday, the Paul A. Lambert Cessna arrived and departed. Tuesday the Jas F. O'Neill craft. And Wednesday, a Red two plane bearing number N970246." 

Jim:Oh, my God, they even knew the tag number.

Woody:[chuckles] I know my mom when she was on the parole board, they used to fly them around the state because more cost efficient and quicker to get them there and stuff. But I can't believe they had it back in the 50s.

Jim:Yeah, planes have been around a while. They were flying them in World War II and all.

Woody:Yeah, but not passenger planes. 

Jim:Yeah.

Woody:I mean some, but I guess it was probably military surplus. 

Jim:Yeah. "One on the lam still running," it says. "Police in four states--" and I'm going to look up this case, y'all, because I was like, wow, this would be a good one to cover. "Police in four states are today looking for Ray Coughron, 28, a 15-year termer, formerly domiciled at Camp H-2. Donning a correctional officer's uniform, Coughron quietly slipped out of the yard gate last Sunday. Bloodhounds failed to pick up his trail." 

Woody:He must have somebody waiting on him. 

Jim:Well, they have to have checked out [crosstalk] never heard of that.

Woody:I mean, he had a CO uniform and then he got out. And if the Angola Chase team couldn't get on him? He's gone. 

Jim:Yeah. And he did. 

Woody:If I was going to run, you--[crosstalk] 

Jim:He got correctional officer's uniform. Must have worked in a laundry or something. 

Woody:If I was going to run or you were going to run, you'd have somebody waiting on you, right? 

Jim:Yeah. 

Woody:I wouldn't be running those hills or trying to swim the river. 

Jim:And I guarantee, y'all, one difference because I've read a lot of these Angolites between then and now is they don't post escapes in the Angolite anymore. They don't want any other prisoners reading that.

Woody:It's kind of like the mass shootings nowadays. We don't say the shooter's name. Like the one that just did it in Dollar Store, he copied the one in the same city five years before and mentioned it in his manifesto. 

Jim:That's right. 

Woody:But anyway. All right, so let's go to September 10th, 1955. That's 73 years ago, y'all, next week or the week after, says, "New laundry washes for all. For the first time in the history of the Louisiana State Penitentiary, a centrally located laundry is now handling washing and ironing for the entire institution."

Jim:Oh.

Woody:Right. "Today, wheels are rolling at the new prison and a crew of 15 men is daily turning out clean sheets, towels, pants, shirts, and personal linen of male inmates at all camps. The work formally had been done in part at the women's unit. The other part at individual camps. Set up in preparation for the time when all male inmates are housed at the new prison. The laundry, under the managership of Captain Bill Kerr, is currently turning out 1100 pounds of dry wash hourly. With the mangle of four ironing sheets, the plant will later on press pants and shirts. 'Ten pressing units have been ordered and are to be installed,' Captain Kerr said. A schedule has been worked out to handle washing five days per week. Saturday is general cleanup day for the plant. The plant at the woman's camp now handles only free personnel laundry." 

[laughter] 

Woody:They want to mix them up. That's your job. Another one building, they didn't have AC and they turned out 1100 pounds. 

Jim:Oh, yeah. 

Woody:It's crazy. 

Jim:And it's interesting that back then, 1955 is when they started just finally having this main laundry facility for the--[crosstalk] 

Woody:One thing they don't mention in there is underwear. So, when you get in, they give you prison-issued underwear. But when you do send your stuff into the laundry, most inmates keep their underwear and have their bitch wash them. That's why I say you'll be tossing salads and washing dirty drawers. They'll actually rent out their bitch to wash people's dirty underwear in their sinks. And they hand scrub them with soap and wash them and they hang them and make them fresh for whomever for like a couple of cigarettes. 

Jim:Wow. There you go, straight from the wolf, right there. "Prison guard post reaching skyward," this one says. "Those new two-story steel skeletons you see poking skyward with the yellow-painted girders are indications it won't be long. They're the structural steel columns for the new guard towers at the new prison. Each will be complete with glassed-in cupola and searchlight." 

Woody:And they're still there today. 

Jim:And they're still there today. Yeah. They made them to last back in those days, but built those new guard towers way back then. 

Woody:Yeah. The funny thing about those is when you go up in them, the outside doors lock, but they're manned 24/7, never take off. I've worked them before. You go in, they actually sit on the outside of the fence. So, inmates can't get to that door. So, you have to go to the door and holler up at the guard, the CO, and they lower you a key down and you unlock it and it's on a string. They pull it back up and you go in and you lock it from the inside. And it's got a spiral staircase. You come through, like a trap door, and it's a round room. That's where your rifle and your shotgun is and your lights and stuff like that. 

Jim:Yeah.

Woody:It's pretty cool. 

Jim:Awesome. 

Woody:And then a telephone. That's the only other thing you have. You might have a radio, but pretty interesting. All right, so let's go to, again, on September 10th, 1955, says, "Free Ferry soon to open at St. Francisville. According to the Plainsman of Zachary-" That's the plainsman. It is the Zachary newspaper. "According to the Plainsman of Zachary, named The Feliciana, the vessel costs $200,000 and it may take a load off the Angola ferry. Visitors may enter via the front gate." 

Jim:Interesting. 

Woody:I have to ask my mom about that one because it didn't run for long.

Jim:Yeah. 

Woody:Now, they have the ferry that still to this day that runs across into-- I think it might be [unintelligible 00:28:20]. It runs across the river and a lot of free people live over there. Or they'll drive into that ferry and the ferry drives them across and they come in. But this one would-- imagine how many COs lived in St. Francisville, which is back then, you had to take that long ass, hour-long road out, then get to St. Francisville another 10 or 15 minutes, I guess, they just ran them right up the river about a 15-minute ride. 

Jim:Yeah. Back then you had to have a ferry to go across that. 

Woody:Yeah. There's no bridges. You're right. 

Jim:Continuing on. This one is hilarious, y'all. It says, "Voodoo-Hoodoo. You've seen those copper wire amulets and necklaces of beans and so on. Voodoo stuff, maybe. Anyway, Edward Harris of Camp A walked up to the man last week and said people were after him. He didn't elaborate whether he had been hexed or just plain conjured. They locked him up lightly in the sneezer until the bug doctor examines his head." 

[laughter] 

Woody:We'll call it [unintelligible 00:29:33] of a mental case. The man said, "They're after him, so lock him up." 

Jim:The funny thing is with that particular deal is this guy's exposing him to the whole prison. 

Woody:Yeah. 

Jim:So, these guys, look, they gossip worse than anybody you've ever seen, and they're all nosy. 

Woody:They've got nothing else to do. 

Jim:That's right. 

Woody:Basically, he went to the man and ratted himself out. Crazy. Put him in the sneezer.

Jim:Sneezer. 

Woody:"Ex-guard hurt in camp fracas. Frank Peoples, who until last Saturday was a guard was busted back to trusty-ship that day." So, that means he was an inmate guard. 

Jim:Yeah. 

Woody:"The following morning, he was rushed to the General Hospital suffering with a knotted head."

[laughter] 

Woody:"He's resting well on the colored ward today." Think about this, the prison guards and we talked about that was a way for them to save money and everything back then, but at nighttime, they might have had one CO per camp, in nighttime, they just locked them in. And the prison guards in there were like gods. And you can get one taken out, he got demoted, and he got his ass beat that night. 

Jim:[laughs] Love that. And we got a couple on this page, and they're short, so I'm going to read a couple. I'll let Woody read a couple. The first says, "Bathing to be enforced." Yes. "Beware your long-eared scouts and men of wrath who nothing fear except a bath. White dormitory at the new prison were all set to give one of their number a dunking last week on account that he hadn't put the showers to use since he entered the joint, which is a violations of the rules, besides." [chuckles] So that was a little short one. 

Woody:Even most of the convicts don't like a stinky ass. 

Jim:That's right. 

Woody:You get some people in there, not only have they not ever followed the rules in civilization, but they don't have any personal hygiene. So, I think what they're probably saying is the inmates drug them in there [crosstalk] ass down. 

Jim:That's exactly what they did. Gave him a GI shower. [laughs] 

Woody:[crosstalk] -stinky motherfucker.

Jim:They basically forced his ass take a bath. He must have been stinking. Imagine you're working out in those fields all day. Oh, my God.

Woody:Nasty. No deodorant and everything else. 

Jim:You would think you'd want to take one. But anyhoo, "Localite knifed in camp affray. Henry Davis at Camp F underwent a ham stitching at the emergency ward of the General Hospital one day last week. Henny ran afoul of a knife in the hands of an unidentified assailant." 

Woody:[crosstalk] -he's unidentified. 

Jim:[laughs] 

Woody:He ran afoul of him. 

Jim:Yeah. 

Woody:That's crazy. 

Jim:Yeah. I love the way they wrote back then. 

Woody:I love it. 

Jim:It's a totally different dialect. 

Woody:Nobody was ratting anybody out. They just did. 

Jim:Yeah. Unidentified, I'm sure. 

Woody:And again, this is still September 10th, 1955, and says, "Cuts out early, ends in jail. He was trying to get to camp early for dinner, Calvin Mitchell, a camp aid trusty, told officials last week. Cutting grass with a crew, Mitchell was missed at a field count. A chase ensued and the lad was found wondering. They put him in the hole, pending DB action." The disciplinary board, y'all. Crazy.

Jim:Yeah. Basically, he tried to say, "I was just hungry, going early to eat." 

Woody:[crosstalk] -get that meal. 

Jim:[laughs] Wandering.

Woody:The next one. "Pipe used in knotting spree. When Warren Guidry of Camp of F uses a pipe, he uses a big one. One and a half inches. One day last week, he wielded it with painful and telling effect upon the noggin of Manson Powell, authorities said. Guidry is awaiting the outcome of a trial. Powell is awaiting the taking off of bandages." 

[laughter] 

Woody:That's funniest shit.

Jim:That's crazy.

Woody:It's like every day, this one's getting knifed, this one's getting hit.

Jim:I'm telling you--  

Woody:In the noggin. 

Jim:Yes, the noggin. And look, we're going to go way back to 1954, November 27th. And the headline on this one really struck my interest. It says, "34 shot in rabies try-out." 

Woody:What? 

Jim:Yeah. Now, y'all got to remember there was a time there was no rabies shot. You got rabies, you just went nuts or whatever. And a lot of times when they would get these shots, they would try them out on like inmates.

Woody:New medical procedures. 

Jim:Yeah. They would be the guinea pig. 

Woody:Drug companies come in and basically pay the prison to get their test subjects. 

Jim:Yeah. So, it says, "34 Angola inmates, six of them women, are today nursing slightly sore arms in what is said to have been the first guinea pig effort ever made here in the interest of medical science. The 34 last Saturday and Sunday were given the first of a series of inoculations aimed at testing a new type of vaccine for the treatment of rabies. All were volunteers," the prison management said.

Woody:Yeah, bet.

Jim:[laughs] They might have paid them something, I don’t know. 

Woody:[crosstalk] -cigarette. 

Jim:Yeah. "Under the auspice of the School of Medicine at Tulane University at New Orleans, the inoculations were given by Dr. DP. Conwell, a Tulane medical staffer." There you are, at the start of the rabies vaccine in history. And who knew Angola played such a big part in that?

Woody:Well, I had actually heard something before about them trying new procedures on convicts, because who were going to complain? And they gave them a couple of smokes. They were like, "Whatever." 

Jim:That's it. 

Woody:[crosstalk] "-anyway. Give me the shot." That's crazy. That shit wouldn't fly nowadays. 

Jim:No. 

Woody:All right, so let's take you to the next one we're going to do. And it says, "Count soars, official--" And that's spelled count soars, S-O-A-R-S, "Official sore," S-O-R-E, "Fresh fish may find no room." And then, y'all, we're talking about fresh inmates. "Today's inmate population swelled to a total of 2810, brought consternation to camp officials and worried frowns to the management last week. For the headcount is the highest here since the end of World War II, an authoritative source said. Already overcrowded at most units, Angola camp chiefs have been hard put to find sleeping room for their new borders. The count is suspected to hit 3000 by mid-year of 1955."

Jim:Dang.

Woody:That's crazy. 

Jim:Yeah.

Woody:It's double that now. 

Jim:And they've added on--

Woody:They've got a bunch of other prisons now too. They didn't have DCI and Winn and all those other prisons back then.

Jim:Yeah. And so, we're still in 1954. And it says, "Here's that stuff again. Like the old saying about the character who, every time he opened his mouth, put his foot in it, last week, The Angolite carried a story about a patch of that nauseous stuff, okra, [laughs] situated just outside the fence of the woman's camp. And proving that the dames don't look into other people's backyards, as soon as she had read the account, buxom Alice said-," buxom Alice, they called her buxom Alice. "Buxom Alice said, 'Where's the okra? Why, I just love okra.' Yesterday at all units the food service department ordered for supper, you guessed it, boiled okra." Yuck. 

[laughter] 

Woody:That's funny. 

Jim:They didn't like that boiled okra.

Woody:They're feeding them-- [crosstalk] 

Jim:I kind of like okra myself. 

Woody:[crosstalk] -especially my [unintelligible 00:38:15]-- Didn't cost them a whole lot to feed them. 

Jim:Buxom Alice, she liked her some okra. 

Woody:Right. Buxom Alice. That's funny. Well, y'all, I'm going to read you these next two. "Four men fail to rise, shine. Captain says your neck is mine. Four localites who bed down at Camp A were collared by police at that unit one day last week and charged with failing to rise and shine in the morning, as is customary in places like this. The four, Claudius Wall, Victor Stewart, Howard D. Keyes, and Robert Lewis, were escorted to the camp lockup to weigh the action of the disciplinary board. Because the quartet was asleep when they should have been awake, the camp count was snafued. Nothing will irritate a prison management as much as a fouled-up count of heads, it was said." 

[laughter]

Woody:You messed up the count, you were going in a hole. That still happens today. And these dudes just didn't want to get up. That's funny. All right. 

Jim:Love it. 

Woody:Let me read this one. "Loader whops, hurts worker. Sammy Robinson of Camp F was hospitalized Monday for injuries when he met up with a cane sling while working on a loader near the unit. Robinson is said to have been whopped about the head by the loader slings, which broke loose." 

Jim:Oh, my God. 

Woody:"He's on the colored ward." Wow. So, I guess one of the things flew off the machine or somebody probably hit him in the head with one of those [unintelligible 00:40:02]. That's crazy. 

Jim:Yeah. They're not going to rat each other up. 

Woody:Yeah. 

Jim:All right, we'll go to 1955, June 18th, and this headline says "STU-", and I'm not sure what STU stands for. 

Woody:It's going to be a Special Lockdown Unit. 

Jim:There you go. "STU men stage short-lived buck. Residents of the STU, disgruntled over the quality and distribution of the food and a few other items, refused to enter their mess hall Wednesday evening, declaring a camp wide buck."

Woody:Uh-oh. That's right. "When the people came, however, the usual conversation settled everything." [laughs]

Woody:They're like, "I'm about to shoot your ass." 

Jim:The usual conversation. I love it. 

Woody:That's funny. So, bucking up, y'all, and I've been a part of a couple of them, but they were like, "Fuck it, we're not doing it, and we're going to protest." And Warden Burl Cain, we talked about this on an episode, came in. He said, "Give the first one--" They weren't going to work in a crawfish plant. "Give the first one a direct verbal order, and as soon as they say no, arrest them." You still get arrested. So, bucking up. And the usual conversation was had, probably the same thing, like back then, "We're going to shoot you if you don’t go to work." 

June 18th, 1955. "A little girl wants her dog. Tuffy, where are you? A farm-wide search has failed to produce any sign of Tuffy, the six-year-old Boston terrier who was owned by plumber foreman, Harry Dwyer, who'd made his home at Camp E and claimed the yard there as his personal domain. Dwyer says he is sure Tuffy is not dead. His body would have been found by this time, he reasoned. Meanwhile, Tuffy's little mistress, eight-year-old Nickie Dwyer, sent the following message to the Angolite. 'My dog's name was Tuffy. He was eight years old at the time he disappeared. He was a faithful dog and I loved him so. I was raised with Tuffy. He was smarter than most dogs. I do have three other dogs, but they will never mean as much to me as Tuffy. Please bring him back to me, Nickie Dwyer.'" 

[laughter] 

Woody:I wonder if my momma knew her.

Jim:That's crazy. So, this was apparently a plumber foreman. He had a dog that hung out at the camps.

Woody:And they were all inside--[crosstalk] 

Jim:Daughter sent a plea to the Angolite. 

Woody:Let me do another real quick, says, "Stray dog round-up now in operation. In accordance with an order from the management, all stray dogs on the farm are being rounded up for disposal each evening. The drive will be in effect through July 4th." So, they were looking for--[crosstalk] 

Jim:Oh, my God.

Woody:Stray dogs, they were killing their ass. 

Jim:Yeah. For disposal. 

Woody:Right. 

Jim:That's crazy.

Woody:What if they cooked them? 

Jim:1955, y'all. All right, "What's in a name?" This was a good one. "James Williams, who boards at Camp I and has a Yankee accent, which he acquired in Madison County, Wisconsin, wishes the management would learn that he is not James A. Williams. It's a little confusing at first, but not so very difficult once you get the hang of it from Williams. 'Their James A. Williams lives at Camp A,' he explained earnestly, as our eyes began to get glassy. 'Like last October. I almost went to the Red Hats,' he continued. 'Or November, when they called me to the visiting room and walked me into a family of total strangers,' he continued. 'It's getting so I never know who I am, much less where I am.' Williams said it happened again last week. He came within a split second of appearing before the parole board with a lawyer and four relatives, but not his relatives. 'I keep wondering what's going to happen when this other boy's time is up,' he sighed, shaking his head dolefully. It is an interesting thought at that." 

Woody:What was his name? 

Jim:James A. Williams. But they had two James A. Williams. 

Woody:They probably had five of them. He's from Wisconsin. Boy, you know he was doing a hard time [crosstalk] Wisconsin the other day, it was 50 degrees in the morning. I got in Louisiana, it was 100 degrees. 

Jim:Come on. Jesus. Well, James A. Williams, hopefully they released the guy-- 

Woody:[crosstalk] -Madison County where the guy was from. 

Jim:Wow. 

Woody:All right. "Busy tag plant takes short order," from June 18th, 1955. "An order for 40 large game preserve signs, each with replicas of the bobwhite quail in the corners, was turned out on time by the tag plant last week. They are on 24-hour duty producing a million new auto licensed tags for 56." 

Jim:Unbelievable. 

Woody:"Plus hundreds of steel bunks for the new prison. Sheet metal gutters and what have you." 

[laughter] 

Woody:Most of these, y'all, are just like a little bitty short articles. All right, the next one says, "Knife victim has loss of memory." I can imagine. "Hyde Walker of Camp F was hospitalized Tuesday with superficial knife wounds on his left arm and shoulder. Stricken with a lapse of memory, says he was unable to recall how he got hurt. Security officials suggested that he might have got careless while shaving."

[laughter] 

Jim:That is great.

Woody:They weren't even worried about him. 

Jim:And they might have been the ones that hurt him. He might have got lax while shaving. Yeah, that's crazy. Here's one I found interesting. It says, "Dental clinic cracks own record. The biggest week in the history of the dental department went on record during the seven days from June 5th through the 11th of 1955, according to their bookkeeping department. The figures show a total of 115 patients were handled. Seven plates were complete and fitted, and 12 others were put into process. There were 51 extractions, 34 marked miscellaneous, and a variety of other entries." So basically, they're pulling teeth left and right. That one week, they pulled 51 teeth. I thought that was interesting. 

Woody:[crosstalk] -too many feelings when they could just rip them out. 

Jim:Yeah. And I'll give you this one. It says, "Two use razorblade, put cells in stitches. Two unidentified colored women from Camp D were treated for minor lacerations at the emergency ward last Tuesday. Weapons used is said to have been a razorblade. Following treatment for both, they were released and returned to camp." So, they tried to commit suicide. Two women.

Woody:I wonder if they got in a fight with each other. Maybe they did. Two unidentified women from Camp D were treated for minor-- They might have gotten in a knife fight with each other. 

Jim:Maybe.

Woody:Maybe it was suicide. I don't know. All right, September 18th, 1954, y'all. "Uniforms for free personnel soon. For the first time in the history of Louisiana State Penitentiary, correctional officers will be garbed in uniforms." Wow, this is interesting. "'Hats, coats, trousers, and shirts are on order and will be issued,' Secretary Chief W. H. Maynard said Wednesday. The uniforms will be of a forest green hue with beige-colored shirts, the official said. There will be no badges, however, nor any marks of rank worn. A shoulder patch will designate the wearer as an LSP officer."

Jim:How about that?

Woody:1954 is when they had got the first uniforms. That's crazy.

Jim:That's crazy. It had been around since 1901 as a state prison, and it took till 1954 to get-- so they just wore whatever they wanted, I guess. Button up shirts or something.

Woody:Blue jeans and something. Real quick, at the top of this page, it says, "Dixie's only prison weekly, The Angolite." And it gives Volume 2, number 41. Angola, Louisiana. September 18th, 1954, 10 pages. But then, it had this box that says "Warning!!!! Laggards are warned. Monday, September 20th is the deadline for filing your petition for the October Pardon Board. Don't get stuck out."

[laughter] 

Jim:Even in Angola, inside of Angola, you have thieves that steal from other inmates. "Dees, the barber shop got looted. The barber is offering a reward." In this article, it says, "Yes, sir. It never rains, but when it rains, it pours. Seems a fella has to get down in bed sick to find out who his friends are. Monday, Dees, the rotund Camp E ex-barber, woke up one day at the General Hospital where he is suffering from a diabetic onset, to find out that his shop at Camp E had been burglarized. Missing, he said, is $300 worth of barber tools and unfurnished leather goods. Dees has posted a $25 reward for the arrest and conviction of the miscreant. Or, he'll pay it for the return of the goods, no questions asked."

Woody:$25 back then, shit, you can always buy a car for it. 

Jim:Yeah. And he was basically saying, "Look, if you took it, if you just give it back to me, I'll give you $25, or I'll pay someone $25 to find out who it was."

Woody:That’s pretty much their craft. And each camp would have one. That's an esteemed position, most of them-- 

Jim:And $300 worth back then? Inside prison, that's a million dollars.

Woody:Yeah. September 18th, 1954. "Free inmate menus now the same. For what is believed to be the first time on Angola, menus for free personnel and inmates were identical last week, with the exception of breakfast. The innovation is by order of food services manager, J. H. Bonnette. A huge saving is expected to result from the consolidation, the food department said. Breakfast in the inmate dining rooms are planned, but for free personnel consists of short orders only." 

[laughter] 

Woody:I guess if you're free personnel, you can order your eggs over easy or whatever, and the rest of them are just getting shit on a shingle. That is funny.

Jim:Yeah. So, you actually have a choice if you're free personnel. If you're not free personnel, you get what they throw on that plate. I'm going to read a couple of these, and I'll let Woody read the last one we're going to do for you today. And this was a correction from Old Wooden Ear. And he says-- Old Wooden Ear. He says, "Irate Camp Fers have asked for a correction. Seems one Freddie Armstrong, whom The Angolite said last week had been stabbed in a humbug, was not from Camp F, but from Camp A. The Angolite is happy to make this correction and with the hope that if any others get stabbed at Camp F, they won't bleed." 

Woody:That's funny. 

Jim:Even The Angolite had to issue retractions. And then, this one says, "Escapee, guards play hide and seek. Guard lines were still out yesterday for Ulice Baker, 28, a colored Camp C trusty who was found to be missing last Saturday. Baker, serving a seven-year sentence, is thought to still be hiding somewhere on the farm." How about that? Look, they were escaping left and right back in them days.

Woody:The way it was they're still trying to, but they got a whole lot more security stuff in place, razor wire and all that and the wolfdogs. All right, this one says, big headlines, "Frazier is oldest! A glance at the records settled the question once and for all who's the convict with the longest time in point of service on Angola. Records showed Charlie Frazier--" We need to talk about him. 

Jim:Yeah. 

Woody:"Records show Charlie Frazier Camp H-2 hospital steward was received in September of 1933 with one sentence of 18 years, one of 28 years, and a life term, all stacked on top of the other. Charlie is registered number 23409, is the oldest on the books. His discharge date, however, is still 20 years away. The book says December 3rd, 1974." Now, look in the DOC, you're known by your inmate numbers. Now, they're alone. Fucking that means he was the 23409th inmate when he came in, ever to go to the gates of Angola. After the Civil War when they started.

Jim:And probably one of the most notorious-- really, in American history, there's a whole big, long story for Charlie Frazier, and we will tell his story one day. He's a tough one to research because this was so long ago, but I'm going to come up with some stuff for him. Just two quick short ones, and then we got to wrap it up for today. This one says, "Toe whacked off. Andrew Peters, a resident of the STU, lost the third toe on his right foot via surgery last week. The operation was performed at the Angola General Hospital." So, something happened, he had to whack his toe off. 

Woody:He had diabetes or something. 

Jim:And then, the one below it says, "Three and a hassle. Three juveniles at H-1 were sporting an assortment of moused eyes, puffed lips, and other sores today as the result of a free-for-all hassle last Tuesday. The trio, all of whom were unidentified, were given first aid, a piece of steak for their eyes and sent home--" 

Woody:And they run a piece of steak with a baloney. 

Jim:[laughs] Yeah, there was no steak, I can promise you.

Woody:We need to look in that too, because they're housing the juveniles there now and they're so fucking pissed off about it. But [crosstalk] back then they had women and juveniles too. 

Woody:Yeah, they sure did. And so, we'll be bringing you stuff on that. Appreciate all you patrons out there that follow. Look, we dropped a bonus episode Monday just for patrons, where we covered the first 20 death row inmates that are requesting clemency and got those hearings. We went into an in-depth breakdown of each of those, dropped that on Monday. So, if you're not a patron, join Patreon, you can get that. Another quick announcement, Apple Podcast. For those that don't do Patreon for whatever reason, we're now on Apple Podcast as a subscription option as well. You just go to your Apple Podcast app, and you'll see it. I'm going to label all those. It'll say Apple Podcast Bonus Episode.

Woody:Yeah. Also, what happens on Apple Podcast, anytime you go to the Apple Podcast player, and you type in "Bloody Angola," it'll pull it up and it'll give you, like, I think it's free trial for whatever, for seven days. It'll list episodes and everything else. Pretty cool deal, I think. 

Jim:If you're not and you want to try it, there's a free trial going on. 

Woody:Some people [crosstalk] either they don't know what Patreon is or they don't want to use it. I have that on the regular Real Life Real Crime. 

Jim:Well, some people want-- and they want to listen to their podcast through one particular app and not have to go different places. So, Apple Podcast enables that. 

Woody:So, if you like it and you want to try it and then get your free seven-day trial and go listen to some bonus episodes because we got a ton of them. 

Jim:We got a ton. 

Woody:And thank y'all and we love you so much. We appreciate each and every one of you. 

Jim:Yeah. And until next time, I'm Jim Chapman. 

Woody:And I'm Woody Overton.

Jim:Your host of Bloody-

Woody:-Angola. 

Jim:A podcast 142 years in the making. 

Woody:The Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison.

Jim and Woody:Peace. 

[Bloody Angola theme]

Woody and Jim continue with part 2 of The Louisiana Clemency Debacle. In this episode they give a short breakdown of the crimes of all 56 Death Row inmates requesting clemency.

#Louisiana #clemency #TrueCrime #BloodyAngola #LouisianaStatePenitentiary #pardon #johnbelledwards #JeffLandry #AngolaPrison  #deathrow  #Convict

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56 Louisiana Death Row inmates (nearly all of them with all but 1 currently housed at Angola) in a coordinated effort of historic proportion submitted Clemency request in mid-June of this year.

Of course, Woody and Jim were paying attention, but...what appeared at first glance to be just another crazy story from Bloody Angola has turned into quite the s*&t show that you are going to want to hear.

We have every detail from the original request to what happens next in over 40 hours of research. You may be shocked at the risk involved in this monumental move that you may have only had one eye on.

#Louisiana #clemency #TrueCrime #BloodyAngola #LouisianaStatePenitentiary #pardon #johnbelledwards #JeffLandry #AngolaPrison #deathrow #Convict

Our Sponsors for this episode have a great deal for you!

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HelloFresh delivers step-by-step recipes and fresh, pre-portioned ingredients right to your door. First, you set your meal plan preferences with options for carnivores, vegetarians, calorie-counters, and more. You'll choose from 30+ delicious weekly recipes carefully put together by the amazing chefs!

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*Patreon Bonus Episode Sneak Peek*

In this Patreon Jailbreak special release bonus episode of Bloody Angola, Kelly Jennings of Unspeakable: A True Crime Podcast by Kelly Jennings, joins Woody Overton and Jim Chapman as Woody and Kelly discuss 1st hand experiences of working for Burl Cain.

#Catchyourhouse #BurlCain #TrueCrime #BloodyAngola #LouisianaStatePenitentiary #Patreon #Jailbreak #LSP #AngolaPrison #ChaseTeam #PrisonEscape #Louisiana #Convict #Escapee #SRT #Swatteam

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HelloFresh delivers step-by-step recipes and fresh, pre-portioned ingredients right to your door. First, you set your meal plan preferences with options for carnivores, vegetarians, calorie-counters, and more. You'll choose from 30+ delicious weekly recipes carefully put together by the amazing chefs!

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www.Hellofresh.com/BloodyAngola50

In this episode of Bloody Angola: A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman, the guys tell you the facts of the LSP at Angola elite Chase Team from the qualifications to actual escapes not only involving their "home" prison but all over the country!

#LSP #LouisianaStatePenitentiary #AngolaPrison #ChaseTeam #PrisonEscape #Louisiana #Convict #Escapee #SRT #Swatteam

Our Sponsors for this episode have a great deal for you!

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HelloFresh delivers step-by-step recipes and fresh, pre-portioned ingredients right to your door. First, you set your meal plan preferences with options for carnivores, vegetarians, calorie-counters, and more. You'll choose from 30+ delicious weekly recipes carefully put together by the amazing chefs!

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The Angolite is the inmate-edited and published magazine of Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, The Angolite has been published since 1953 and there were even a few issues before that! 

Jim Chapman has managed to get his hands on some of the very first issues of The Angolite ever published and the content there in is something Woody Overton and Jim Chapman could not wait to share on this episode of Bloody Angola.

#Theangolite #podcasts #bloodyangola #convict #prison

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In this episode of Bloody Angola, Woody Overton and Jim Chapman tell additional stories in continuing with the stories you will have to hear to believe regarding inmate of Louisiana State Penitentiary who were sentenced to DEATH ROW getting exonerated after DNA evidence or other substantiating evidence cleared them of their crime and saved them from getting the needle.

#DeathSentence #DNA #InnocenceProject #BloodyAngola #Podcast

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In this episode of Bloody Angola:A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman, We wrap up the Death chamber covering the stories of those inmates eventually executed at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, from the crimes to their final walk.

#Louisianastateprison #AngolaPrison #BloodyAngola #TrueCrime #Podcast #WoodyOverton #Podcasts #Deathchamberpart3 #deathchamber #Execution #Convict

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DEATH CHAMBER PART 3 FULL TRANSCRIPT

Jim: Hey, everyone. And welcome back to Bloody-

Woody: -Angola.

Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making.

Woody: The Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison.

Jim: And I'm Jim Chapman.

Woody: And I'm Woody Overton. I got something to say before we get started.

Jim: Yes.

Woody: We are nominated under the People's Choice Podcast Awards for 2023 under the History section.

Jim: Love it.

Woody: We're nominated as one of the best in the world. We need y'all to, please, go and vote. It's podcastawards.com. And they'll have you enter in your email and a password, and that's to stop people from cheating the bots. But you can enter as many times as you want to from different emails, and then they'll send you a confirmation email. But right underneath that, when you fill it in, they ask you, "Would you be a final judge?" So, what happens is this process, when it closes at the end of this month, they're going to take the top 10 in each category that make the finals and then like 20,000 of the people that vote it, they're going to randomly select them to be final judges. And so, if you would check that you'll be a final judge. You don't have to judge in every category, and you don't have to vote in every category, but you do that and you go under it.

And I've been nominated and Kelly Jennings has been nominated for Unspeakable, our Dear Friend for the Adam Curry's People's Choice Podcast Year Award. I've been nominated for best male host in the world for Real Life Real Crime. Both Kelly and I have been nominated under Best True Crime. Real Life Real Crime and Real Life Real Crime Daily, and original Real Life Real Crime nominated under drama and storytelling. And you can also fill out the most influential podcaster, you could do that also. Oh, and Bloody Angola is nominated under the-- we found out last night that Bloody Angola is also nominated under the The Adam Curry's People's Choice, which is the biggest one, y'all, of the year award. So, thank you so much and we love y'all. Voting is going to close in the next--

Jim: 31st.

Woody: Yeah, 31st. Huge honor for Bloody. Bloody deserves it. And it's a history podcast

basically. I mean, we're telling you the history of America's bloodiest prison. Jim: That's right.

Woody: And so, thank you so much. It's such an honor and I know it's a pain in the ass to take the time to go do that, but it really validates what we're doing and gives us a shot in the arm and-

Jim: Helps us to bring you more.

Woody: -help us to keep going and bring more content to you. And speaking of that, our Patreon members, thank you so much. We appreciate you. You rock. Couldn't do the show without you. And, y'all, look, how old are we now?

Jim: You know, Woody, that's a good question.

Woody: It seems like it's been forever but in a good way.

Jim: Yeah. I think we're coming up on our year.

Woody: Yeah, it's got to be close to the year. I mean, like real close. Jim: I have to look that up next episode, I'll tell y'all.

Woody: Very sweet to be nominated for both at The Adam Curry's People's Choice Award and then under the History section. It's just a real, real testament to what we're doing and that y'all love the show. So, thank you so much.

Jim: 100%, and History, both Woody and I are big history buffs and so that's a cool category for us to be nominated in. It's different. Both of us have been nominated for other podcasts that we did in the past. But this is kind of a cool one because we both just love history, and we know all y'all do too.

Woody: This is our first one that we've done it together. Jim: Yeah.

Woody: So, it means a lot to me too.

Jim: Absolutely. Me as well. And so, we're going to get into-- we brought you a couple of episodes with Death Chamber talking about these guys telling a little bit about their crimes and their executions and all that. And this is a continuance of that. This will be the final Death Chamber that we cover. I want to say this before we start for our patron members, we're going to do a bonus episode with the true final Death Chamber, which is the last few that we're not going to cover right now here. But after we're done with this, keep in mind, we've pretty much covered all the people since 1980 that have been executed via Gruesome Gertie or lethal injection at Angola.

So, we're going to go ahead and start it up and we're going to tell you first about Alvin Moore. He was executed by electrocution in 1987. I'm going to tell you a little bit about his case. And it starts with Aron Wilson. So, Aron Wilson and his wife Jo Ann and their four-month-old daughter, Regina, lived in Bossier City, Louisiana. Alvin Moore was a former neighbor and coworker of Aron's at the Veterans Administration Hospital there. On July 9th of 1980, Moore picked up Arthur Lee Stewart, Jr, and Dennis Sloan in his automobile. So, they're riding around, and at some point, Moore goes to the Wilsons' house, and he decides he wants to get some money. They apparently supposedly owed him some money. So according to Sloan, who was with him, Moore knocked on the door and Jo Ann Wilson answered it. She and Moore talked briefly, and Moore entered the house. Five minutes later, Sloan followed Moore to the door of the house. The door was slightly ajar, and Sloan saw Moore and Jo Ann making sex, as he would call it, on the floor of the living room.

Woody: Really?

Jim: Sloan returned to Moore's automobile, and he was going to tell Stewart about it, what was going on, of course. "Man, they're in there doing it on the floor." Stewart and Sloan then

entered the house. Moore and a crying Ms. Wilson had gone into the bedroom. She's crying. Yeah. Where baby Regina was also crying. Moore was going crazy, ransacking the house. Jo Ann Wilson was described as panicky and scared. She also appeared to be frightened of Moore. So, Sloan, in testimony, said that Jo Ann Wilson said, "Take whatever you want. Just get out of my house." Sloan also testified that Ms. Wilson asked Moore not to hurt her or her child. After being threatened, Ms. Wilson gave Moore a box of Kennedy half dollars. Sloan took a white bucket with $18.80 in pennies. And Stewart took some stereo components. This is back in the days when they had the--

Woody: Yeah, when [crosstalk] had the Hi-Fi.

Jim: Exactly. Sloan and Stewart left the house and heard Jo Ann Wilson screaming behind them. Moore runs out of the house five minutes later, he's carrying a knife in his hand. Stewart testified that this was the same knife that Moore had on the backseat of his car when the group drove up to the house. Moore told Stewart and Sloan, "I'm fixing to trip y'all out. I stabbed that bitch nine times." The three then drove to Church's Fried Chicken and McDonald's. Jo Ann Wilson--

Woody: Paid in pennies, probably.

Jim: Yeah. Jo Ann Wilson managed to call 911. The call was received by the Bossier City Police Department. A unit got dispatched and a patrolman arrives at the house two minutes later. He knocked on the front door, but Jo Ann Wilson said she was unable to open it. He kicked the door in and found blood, of course, all over the living room. Officer Fields found Ms. Wilson lying in the bedroom and both rooms were in disarray. The victim was nude from the waist down, was bleeding from her vagina, chest and arms. She was having difficulty breathing and told Officer Fields she was dying. He asked her who stabbed her, and she responded, Alvin. Fields asked her that was the patrolman if she knew Alvin. And she replied he was a black guy that used to live down the street. It was obvious to Fields that Ms. Wilson was dying and she died about ten minutes later. So, they go, they arrest Moore at 01:00 AM the next morning. Of course, they find those stereo components we told you about, the white bucket and pennies were found in the trunk of his car.

So, they had all the evidence there. He goes through trials, he's found guilty, and he was executed in 1987. Moore made no final statement to the public. His attorney said his last words were to him, in which he said, "They can kill my body, but they can't kill my soul."

Woody: You better hope your soul was right.

Jim: Yeah, your soul might be headed somewhere you don't want to be. Woody: You were playing God when you killed your victim.

Jim: That's right.

Woody: You raped her and stabbed her and all that. It's crazy. These stories, y'all, are disturbing. But you know what? These are death penalty cases. And there's a reason we have the death penalty. Some people don't deserve to breathe.

I'm going to tell you about Benjamin Berry. On January 30th, 1978, Benjamin Berry and David Pennington drove from Baton Rouge to Metairie, which is about a 40, 45-minute drive, Metairie being on the outskirts in New Orleans, y'all, with the intention of robbing the Metairie Bank and Trust Company. Berry entered the bank and drew a 9mm automatic pistol, and there was an exchange of gunfire between Berry and Cochran. Now, Cochran was a

Jefferson Parish deputy sheriff working as a guard in the bank. Y'all, that's a common thing. They work extra duty is what it's called, their side jobs.

When they started shooting, Berry fired three shots, and Cochran fired one shot. Cochran's shot struck Berry in the lower left chest. Then, two of Berry's shots struck Cochran in the shoulder and the neck, causing Cochran to die. Berry and Pennington fled the scene and hauled ass back to Baton Rouge, where they were both arrested. Now, Berry was indicted for first degree murder. So goes through, and naturally, he gets found guilty. I don't know what type of surveillance cameras they had in '78, January 30--

Jim: Probably not too great.

Woody: But you got a lot of eyewitnesses, and I'm sure they did whatever, because death penalty cases, they have to have a lot of shit. But he was indicted for murder, found guilty, and Benjamin Berry was executed on June 7th, 1987. So, what, nine years after. And Berry was convicted in the fatal shooting of Robert Cochran, JPSO deputy I told y'all about. And guess what, Jim? He made no final statement, but I'm going to read y'all an article from the New York Times, dated June 8th, 1987. It says, "A high school dropout condemned for murder in a guard and a bank robbery was put to death early today in Louisiana's electric chair."

Jim: Oh, Gruesome Gertie.

Woody: Gruesome Gertie. "'Benjamin Berry, 31 years old, was executed shortly after midnight,' said C. Paul Phelps, Secretary of Department of Corrections in Baton Rouge. He was the 76th prisoner executed in the United States and the 8th in Louisiana since the United States Supreme Court allowed states to restore the death penalty in 1976. Mr. Berry's appeals ran out late Friday when the Supreme Court refused to stop the execution." And old buddy of mine and dear friend of my dad, good, bad, and different, and my mom served on the parole board underneath him, Governor Edwin W. Edwards refused to pardon him and he wouldn't step in. Apparently, Mr. Berry had already accepted that his sentence would not be stayed. And on Thursday, he asked the warden of state prison in Angola to move him off the death row to the isolation cell down the hall from the electric chair so he could be alone."

"Mr. Berry was convicted in 1978 of killing Robert Cochran, a bank guard in a bank robbery in Metairie on January 30th, 1978. This was his 8th execution date. The others had been canceled by appeals. He spent Saturday visiting members of his family. The prison warden, Hilton Butler, said about 30 people held a candlelight vigil in front of the governor's mansion in Baton Rouge to protest the execution, and roughly a dozen people gathered for similar protests in New Orleans. Several death penalty supporters gathered outside the prison's front gate. They wore shirts lettered with the message "Justice for All, Even the Victims." The execution was the first of five scheduled in Louisiana and the next two weeks, and the first in the state since January 4th, 1985."

Jim: Wow.

Woody: Governor Edwards didn't play. He's like, "You want a what? Ride the lightning,

bitch."

Jim: And I heard you say Hilton Butler--[crosstalk]

Woody: We talked about Ms. Ann before and everything, and my mama knows them all. Well, they grew up in St. Francisville wherever they live-- I think they still live there-- When I was in school, they were still living there.

Jim: I believe they still do. As a matter of fact, the son of Hilton Butler is a listener of Bloody Angola.

Woody: Shoutout.

Jim: Who was also lifelong Angola employed correctional officer and has reached out to us

a few times, mainly fact checking. [laughter]

Woody: That's cool because the history doesn't mean-- everything that comes out of books isn't always right. It's definitely not as valid as the people who lived it.

Jim: That's right. We'd love to have him on the show, I know you're listening.

Woody: Absolutely. Shoutout to you. Hey, shoutout to all you correctional officers at Bloody

Angola in the past, current, and the wardens and everybody else.

Jim: Yeah. A lot of them listen to us and they do reach out and let us know.

The next guy we're going to tell you about is David Dene Martin. And he was a killer of four, minimum here. He killed these four people in Terrebonne Parish.

Woody: Terrebonne down south.

Jim: Down south. And he was executed by electrocution in 1985 as well. So, a lot of 85s in

there. And we're going to give you the facts of the case.

In 1977, David Martin's wife, Gloria, began to work in a restaurant lounge owned by Bobby Todd, who was a victim. The next day, she had sexual relations with Todd. That's not good. The following day, she informed her husband of this fact. She refused Martin's request that she quit working for Todd. So basically, she goes home, says, "I'm sleeping with my boss." And he says, "Well, you got to quit." And she says, "Nah. I'm not going to quit."

Woody: Keep my benefits.

Jim: Yeah. That night, Martin goes and he steals a friend's Colt Python .357 Mag.

Woody: That's a bad pistol. Yeah, second largest-- It used to be the second largest caliber in the world.

Jim: So to make matters worse, the firearm was loaded with hollow point bullets, and Martin later purchased an additional box of shells for it. On August 13--

Woody: Shit, it's a revolver, how many bullets do you need? Jim: Yeah. Mike said he's going to kill him good.

Woody: Kill him good.

Jim: That’s what Mike would say. On August 13th, Martin visited his next-door neighbor, Raymond Rushing, and Martin told Rushing he was going to shoot Todd. He explained that he was jealous of his wife's relationship with Todd. On August 14th of that year, Martin told another friend, Chester Golden, that his wife was working at the restaurant and would not quit. He indicated that he had a bone to pick with Todd and had waited for the last two nights

outside Todd's restaurant for an opportunity to get Todd. So, he's telling everybody about this. Martin showed Golden the stolen pistol. He told Golden that because he stole the gun from a felon, its theft would not be reported.

Woody: True.

Jim: Golden told Martin that he looked pretty drug out and had lost weight. Martin replied that he had been up for two nights and had not been eating. That evening, according to accounts he later gave, Martin drove to the vicinity of the trailer in which Todd lived. He parked down the road from the trailer so he could approach it in the guise of a hitchhiker on foot. So, he's pretending like he's hitchhiking. He entered the trailer, and he confronted Todd who offered him a roll of bills. "Here, let me give you some money."

Woody: [crosstalk] -makes up for banging your wife?

Jim: Yeah. Martin, he ignored that. He basically said, "I just want you to know my name."

Then, he shoots Todd twice in the chest.

Woody: Wow.

Jim: He proceeded to shoot three other people in the trailer. Woody: Wow.

Jim: Todd's bodyguard, he had a bodyguard, and two nude females. Woody: What?

Jim: They must have been doing something in there. [crosstalk] Come in, yeah. So, Martin inflicted multiple bullet wounds on each of those four. One of the women was first wounded in the abdomen. She told Martin she was in pain, begging him to finish her. He shot her in the head and killed her.

Woody: Wow.

Jim: Martin then took the roll of money to make it look like a robbery and left. Around 08:00 PM, he returns to Golden's home. He was excited. He asked Golden, he says, "Take a ride with me." During the ride, he tells Golden, "I killed four people at the restaurant." Martin said he had not touched anything, and although the authorities might suspect him, they had no proof that he committed those, although the fact that he told 1500 people. Martin confessed to four more people that night. He had told one of them, Pamela Wilson, that he had thrown the gun in the bayou. Martin was arrested a short time later. The sheriff who made the arrest told reporters that Martin appeared strung out on dope at the time, probably was. Martin's brother retained a Texas attorney with 10 years' criminal experience and some experience with capital cases. The attorney associated a Louisiana lawyer with limited criminal experience and no experience in capital offenses.

Woody: Most of the times, big shot attorneys come out of state, because they're not licensed to practice under Napoleonic code of law, they have to get local representation, and then they can take over the case and act under that guy's license.

Jim: Yeah. There you go. And that is definitely what happened here. And using the words, "Walk me or fry me," Martin told counsel in the first meeting to either seek a full acquittal or the death penalty. So, how do you like that? "Walk me or fry me." He didn't want to spend time in jail, in other words.

Woody: I got kind of respect for that, actually.

Jim: So, they decided to fry him. And David Martin was executed on January 4th, 1985. He was convicted, obviously, of all four of those murders. That's quadruple murder, y'all. All of them, of course, being shot to death. And that mobile home, in case you're curious, that was near a town called Homa, which is way down south.

Woody: [crosstalk] -down south actually, I drive through it every couple of weeks to go fishing.

Jim: Yeah. And he was for sure a drug addict, that came out during his trial. He made no final statement during his execution but a pardon board clemency hearing the afternoon before his death, Martin said, "To take someone's life is out of character for me. It's not David Martin. I am devastated of what I'm done, but I can't remember it. My life has been dedicated to saving lives, helping people, not destroying people. I know I wouldn't willingly take another person's life. Something bad went down, but it's not me. It wasn't right. I don't know. That's all." That's what he said.

Woody: Hey, idiot, you didn't just take one, you took four. That's a really, really interesting point. One of the mitigating circumstances in any death penalty case in the series I'm starting next week, I'm not going to give the name up yet. It's death penalty cases. And I don't get this, and I don’t understand and maybe they changed the law or something, but if you're high and you commit a death penalty infraction, if you will, then they can use that in a death penalty phase to get you off. I don't get that. I believe you chose to get fucking high, and whatever you did after that, you're still responsible for it.

Jim: Yeah. And another thing with that case is, and I notice this with a lot of cases, when you have a crime of passion of some sort, and even though this wasn't against-- was because of his wife, it wasn't against his wife. But it seems like these killings are more overboard. They're overkill, if you will.

Woody: He can't say he didn't plan it out because he bought bullets and he stole the gun. He told everybody.

Jim: Told everybody.

Woody: And I don't care how high you were, you weren't high for that long. But certainly raises some questions when-- not victim shaming or blaming, but homie had two bodyguards-- and two bodyguards?

Jim: Well, he had a bodyguard, two new females with him.

Woody: It must have been a titty bar or some-- I don't know. Shame that happened. He

didn't give any final last words, just to the pardon board.

Jim: Yeah, just to the pardon board. Nothing at the actual execution itself.

Woody: Yeah, well, very interesting. I did not know about the case. I may have to look into it some more one day. I have some good friends down there. And anytime you have something, especially from-- and Homa is not that small now, but an older crime like this, scenario like that, you can go to that town and find somebody that's of that age range and they'd be like, "Holy shit, I can tell you everything."

Jim: Oh, yeah. [crosstalk]

Woody: All right, let me take it to the next one. Ernest Knighton. Ernest Knighton, y'all, he was from Bossier Parish-- or the crime occurred in Bossier Parish, and Jim talked on the first one at Bossier Parish and Shreveport, they're just right across the river from each other, y'all. Literally, the river separates the two. And it's in the far northwestern corner of the state of Louisiana. Literally, when you leave Shreveport, I think it's like 15, 20 miles to the Texas line. But let me tell you about Ernest Knighton. And the facts are taken from the testimony of Mrs. Shell, who was the victim's wife, and are as follows.

Mr. and Mrs. Shell were working at the Fina Station on Benton and Shed Road in Bossier City between 8:00 and 8:30 PM. The defendant and another man, Anthony White, entered the station. White asked for a package of cigarettes and gave Mrs. Shell a dollar bill. This tells you how long ago, y'all, this was-- it was murder, it was on March 17th, 1981, I was 11. I don’t know if I was smoking yet, but I was probably getting really close. Dollar a pack, saying about right on the price. Anyway, he gave Mrs. Shell the dollar bill. When she returned his change, so they were even cheaper than a dollar, he walked around the service counter and told her, "This is a stick-up." Holding a gun, the defendant also went behind the counter and asked Mr. Shell where the money was kept. Ms. Shell, who had been talking on the telephone, went into the small room in the back of the station to retrieve the money and gave it to the defendant who had followed him into the room. Mrs. Shell heard a shot, Mr. Shell was wounded.

From her location, Mrs. Shell could not actually see her husband but said that he offered no resistance and said nothing to provoke defendant into shooting him. The defendant then ran out and told White to bring Mrs. Shell along with him. Anthony White grabbed Mrs. Shell who broke loose at the doorway, and retreated back inside the station and locked the door which then separated her from the two thieves. Mr. Shell died as a result of shock from blood loss from a single gunshot wound through the arm, abdomen, and chest. That's a hell of a shot.

Jim: Yeah.

Woody: Arm, abdomen, and chest. Maybe he was standing above him-- Jim: Somebody's-- like the John F. Kennedy [crosstalk] went into-- Woody: The magic bullet.

Jim: The governor--

Woody: He had to be above him or something, maybe he's getting out of the safe. That's the only way you can get that angle. That's crazy. Additional testimony by Wanda Smith, a woman who had driven with defendant, Anthony White and another man, Wayne Harris, to the Fina station, revealed that the defendant and White ran from the service station, jumped into the car, and had Wanda Smith drive to a motel and get a room. There, an argument over the money began. And waving the gun he used to shoot Mr. Shell, Earnest Knighton stated in Wanda's presence that, "The man's hand looked like it was fixing to move, so I had to shoot him." Y'all, that all comes from the trial, and naturally, he was found guilty.

Ernest Earnest Knighton, Jr. was executed on October 30th, 1984. Knighton was convicted of the shooting of death of Ralph Shell, a Bossier City service station proprietor, during an attempted robbery on March 17th, 1981. I want you to notice how fast these executions were. This is three years. And the longest one we did today was nine years. Now, they don't execute them anymore. We've covered the people have been on death row 28 years plus years like that. Fuck that, they just need to kill them.

So, they get Knighton into Gruesome Gertie, strap him down, and we told y'all about the tie-down teams and all that, and basically drug them in, strapped them down and they say, "Hey, dude--" they didn’t say dude, they read the death warrant.

Jim: No, they might have. [chuckles]

Woody: Yeah, right. They read the death warrant. "You've been sentenced to death by the State of Louisiana, da, da, da. Do you have any final words?" And this is what he said. He said, "I am sorry. More sorry than I can say Mr. Shell is dead and that I am responsible. I feel sorry for Mrs. Shell and all of Mr. Shell's family and friends. I feel sorry for my mother, my family, and everyone else who will grieve for me. I have asked God to forgive me. I have to say that what you are doing is wrong. If I thought my death would bring back Mr. Shell or save someone else from a murder, I would volunteer. But I know it won't work. You don't teach respect for life by killing. I urge you not to kill anyone else. I ask God to forgive you for killing me. And I now ask God in the name of Jesus to receive my spirit."

Jim: He had me on the first part, lost me on the second. Woody: I know, right?

Jim: I'm glad he took responsibility and admitted.

Woody: And when he started in on the "I forgive you for killing me," they're doing their job, dude. They didn't make you go into that bank and rob them and all that. I don't know, but at least he tried to say something. But let's talk about the death penalty for a minute. When I was in college and studying criminal justice, they talked about criminal deterrence. How do you stop crime? The ultimate one being the death penalty. But the studies have proven, for a crime deterrent to be effective, it has to be swift and certain. Meaning that if you leave here today and you go and Lori Johnson, best banging chick in the world, Hancock Whitney, right down the street, that's where I do all my shit. But if you go in that bank and you kill someone, you're on camera, you're going to get convicted, etc. But nowadays, you're going to go sit for 28 years and appeals on death row and all that, it's not effective as a deterrent.

Now, let's take it we don't live in this world, let's put you in Woody's world. If you walked in the bank and you did it, and they caught your ass and they put you to the nearest tree and strung you the fuck up, that's going to stop the normal person. A lock keeps an honest man honest. That would certainly deter people more than what you do now because even like the Manson murderers, dude got out of prison yesterday, or the chick got out of prison yesterday. But it has to be swift and certain. The problem with our justice system is it is nothing if not slow.

Jim: Yeah. The wheels of justice turn slow, as they say, and I agree 100%. And they have a lot of technology now that they didn't have then. Look, we have another series that we do every now and then that talks about exonerations, and certainly those happen. Certainly, you never want to think about people being sentenced to death that did not commit a crime, but it's happened.

Woody: I'm sure it's happened. Well, they probably committed some crime. It's not that one.

Jim: Right. So, it certainly does happen. But the good thing about technology these days is it's almost impossible to get away with something very long like it used to be. And I think about serial killers in particular because DNA has come so far. You almost can't breathe on somebody without being able to figure out who it was.

Woody: And when I started, we couldn't even get DNA done, but I'll take it a step further and it trips me out, because I think about it every day, everywhere I go, because of what you told me. And that is that you're on camera up to--

Jim: It's like 46 times per day on average.

Woody: On average. So, everywhere you go, you're on camera. But now, that's 46 average. If you go somewhere and you're showing your ass, look how many videos are going viral. Everybody wants to shoot a video and post shit. Not only advances in technology and DNA and forensics, and the familial DNA, and just everything. The computers they use to reenact crime scenes, and trace the bullets and everything else, all this technology as it gets better, but you also have all these cameras and people are more aware. And you have social media now which, shit, you didn't have back in 80s. The internet wasn't invented.

Jim: Yeah. When you're looking for a suspect, the sheriff's office can just post that on social media and automatically thousands and thousands of people see it. Back in the day, when Woody was doing cases, you had to go door to door sometimes.

Woody: You had to go to door every time, and you waited and you had to haul ass. I can tell you so many cases that I had to haul ass to Channel 2, Channel 33, and Channel 9 to get them the press release before they went on air at 6 o'clock or 10 o'clock, or whatever, just before Fox was even in Baton Rouge. That was it. That’s all you had. And you only have a small percentage of the population that watches the fucking news, the local news.

Jim: Yeah. Great point.

Woody: And I agree with you, certainly we don't want anybody to be wrongfully executed. And we've talked about and given shoutouts on the stories that people who have been exonerated. But as the technology advances, as the DNA advances, so do the crimes, and the defenses for the crimes, meaning that there's no more respect for life. Everybody just thinks you pull the trigger and there's no consequence. They have never worked a homicide scene. They've never had to sit with a crying family and all that. But more importantly, the defense, because all these trials and all these cases have come in years before, these lawyers are learning about it in law school. And if you choose to do the criminal path, you're going to know about it. And all these cases have been cited. So, you have volumes and volumes and volumes of more information, just like the DNA is so far advanced now and all these other crime fighting techniques, the defense has so many more techniques to use against prosecution. And that's why we got people, like one guy who's the second longest living on death row, and damn it, I can't remember his name, he and his lover murdered that little boy and raped him right here-- [crosstalk]

Jim: Yeah. You did a--

Woody: -on the river. And I did a story on that, but he's been on death row like 29 years now. The other dude, his accomplice was on death row, fuck, he died of natural causes. This dude's like 80 years old now, something like that. So, it is what it is. And we want to bring y'all this series. And Jim's got one more, and then the [unintelligible 00:38:50] series will be locked up for patron members.

Jim: Patron members. So, we're going to tell you about Elmo Sonnier. Woody: [crosstalk]

Jim: Yeah. And many of you, it may click, and we'll tell you after we do this particular segment and why it did click for you. And Elmo Sonnier was executed in 1984 by electrocution, Gruesome Gertie. Give you the facts of the case.

On the evening of November 4, 1977, David LeBlanc, who was 16, and Loretta, and Bourque, who was 18, attended a high school football game. Later that evening, the couple, they go park in a remote area in St. Martin Parish. Look, back in those days, that was parking. You take your girlfriend, and you go somewhere and you make out a little bit.

Woody: [crosstalk] LSU lakes and call it the submarine races.

Jim: [laughs]

Woody: "What are you doing here, son?" "Watching submarine races."

Jim: Watching submarine races, yeah. So, they go parking, I guess you could say. That area of St. Martin Parish, it was kind of like a lover's lane. That's kind of where everybody-- it was pretty little lake and the girls would feel romantic. I think it was romantic or whatnot. Later that night, approximately 01:00 AM, Elmo Patrick and Eddie James Sonnier were rabbit hunting together, and they come across a couple's car. Rabbit hunting at night, huh, Woody?

Woody: Yeah, right. That’s not legal.

Jim: Yeah. [laughs] Using a badge one of the brothers had obtained while working as a security guard and both armed with .22 caliber rifles, the two approach and enter LeBlanc's car. The victims were informed they were trespassing and that they would have to be brought to the landowner to determine if that landowner wanted to press charges. This is young kids. So, they believe that. They also confiscate each teen's driver's license to kind of further their act of, "We are the cops." Ms. Bourque and Mr. LeBlanc were then handcuffed and placed in the back seat of their own car.

Woody: And they brought handcuffs too.

Jim: Brought handcuffed, which tells you, [crosstalk] this wasn't their first rodeo. Leaving their own car behind, the Sonnier brothers take the teens' car and they basically drive the couple 21 miles to a remote oilfield located in Iberia Parish. And Iberia Parish, this is oilfield country. Everybody just about in Iberia Parish works in the oilfields.

Woody: Except for Tabasco.

Jim: Yeah, except for Tabasco. That's right. The other famous Iberia employer. Now, this is an area that was well known to the defendants. Once at the oilfield, both victims were removed from the car. David LeBlanc was taken into the woods, and they handcuffed him to a tree. Loretta Bourque was taken a short distance away, and she was raped by Elmo Sonnier. She then reluctantly agreed to have intercourse with Eddie Sonnier on the condition that they will release her and Mr. LeBlanc afterwards. Upon completion of the rapes, Patrick Sonnier removed the handcuffs and brought them back to the road where they were parked. At that point, Patrick Sonnier told his brother, he starts freaking out, and he says, "I'm going to be sent back to Angola," that’s the exact quote, he had done some time in Angola, should the victims notify police. So, David LeBlanc, Loretta Bourque, were then forced to lie side by side, face down, and each were shot three times at close range in the back of the head. So, execution style, pretty much.

The Sonniers then drove LeBlanc's vehicle back to the original site where the couple was first accosted in order to pick up their own vehicle. Remember, they left that at the scene.

They get there and the car has a flat tire. The brothers use a jack from the LeBlanc's vehicle, and this is important. They use that jack to apply a spare tire. And that jack was later seized by police from the trunk of Sonnier's car. So, there's your evidence. These two rocket scientists use a jack.

Woody: And then, put it in the--[crosstalk]

Jim: In their own car, yeah. Dumbass. The brothers then destroyed the victim's driver's license. And the following day, the rifles, they dispose of those, they actually buried them in remote areas. Investigations also revealed that between $30 and $40 were stolen from the victims prior to the arrest. They noticed this money missing, and of course, they tied that back to them. The Sonniers were arrested on December 5th 1977, following a tip from a local man who reported seeing the blue Dodge Dart parked in a remote area during the early morning hours of November 5th. They were advised of their rights, taken to the sheriff's office in New Iberia. And there, Patrick Sonnier, he starts singing like a canary, signs, verbal and written confessions, and was transferred to the parish prison. While en route, he starts making other statements to the officer. So, he's singing. The following day, he even agrees to let him videotape a confession. And all three statements indicated that Patrick had participated in the abduction and had personally shot them.

The police, after the basic directions from Patrick Sonnier, recovered the two rifles that he buried. Ballistic test indicated that the bullets taken from the victim's head and brass casings were from that actual rifle. So, they've got everything they need. The defendant and his brother, they get indicted on two accounts of first-degree murder. And in 1978, they basically go to court. Of course, they plead not guilty because they have nothing to lose, but they do get convicted, and they get executed. I'm going to read you just a Times-Picayune, which Times-Picayune is the--

Woody: Major newspaper from New Orleans. Jim: Right. Huge, huge newspaper there. Woody: New Orleans and Mississippi area.

Jim: And in 1984, they got executed. Sonnier gets executed for that double murder. And this is Elmo Sonnier. He was convicted of the slayings of Loretta Bourque and her fiancé, David LeBlanc. He was the third person executed in Louisiana in four months at that time. Robert Wayne Williams was executed December 14th for killing a Baton Rouge supermarket guard. And he was the first person executed since 1961. So, there was a big delay between '61 and--

Woody: Yeah, they put the moratorium on it.

Jim: Yeah. So basically, when they got out of that moratorium, they started executing

everybody. We got some people waiting in line. Woody: Tired of feeding you.

Jim: That's right. And at that time, Woody and listeners, Ross Maggio was the warden at Angola. And he said that Sonnier spent his last day with Sister Helen Prejean, a New Orleans nun who served as a spiritual advisor and a female friend who was a lawyer but not involved in his case. The condemned man ate a steak dinner and was kept up to date as the five courts turned down his 11th hour pleas of stay. So, when you get executed, you basically, that last 24 hours of spent by your attorneys trying to get everyone to stay your execution. So, he didn't have any of that and they went on with it.

As he was led to the execution chamber, he looked at LeBlancs, and Mr. LeBlanc, the father basically of LeBlanc that was shot and killed. He says, "I can understand the way you feel. I have no hatred in my heart as I leave this world and I ask God to forgive what I have done." He then asked LeBlanc for forgiveness. Immediately after, Godfrey Bourque, the father of the other victim, who also witnessed, said, "He didn't ask me," which is-- he obviously and rightfully felt offended for that.

Both fathers sat expressionless with their arms crossed as the execution was carried out. They declined to talk to reporters afterwards. Sonnier last words were addressed to Prejean. He said, "I love you," and she replies, "I love you too." Sonnier, wearing blue jeans and a blue shirt, was then strapped to the death chair. Witnesses said he appeared to be smiling. At 12:07, his body was jolted with 2000 volts-

Woody: Light it up.

Jim: -of electricity, followed by 500 volts for 10 seconds. The 2000 volts was for 20. The sequence was repeated, and there was no movement after the second jolt. So, as Woody has told us in the past on this show, they don't just lift that lever and jolt you one time. They leave it up, pull it down, leave it up, pull it down.

Woody: And 20 seconds is a long time.

Jim: It's a long time, man. But his victims didn't even get that last 20 seconds. Sick.

Woody: Can you imagine laying side by side and you pretty much know they're going to kill you, but then you hear three shots from one rifle and whoever the boy or the girl got shot first, what was the other one thinking? I mean, you know you're dead.

Jim: Yeah. You went to your death scared to death. And that's just horrible. And so, you may have obviously, recognized Helen Prejean if you've listened to our show. These brothers, the Sonnier brothers, as well as Robert Wayne Williams, that was the character for Dead Man Walking, basically, where they based that character was really off of two separate people. In the opening scenes of Dead Man Walking, that's where it shows that lover's lane murder that we just told you about. And so, it was a real deal, Sister Helen Prejean, real person, she's still alive to this day. And regardless of where you sit on the death penalty, her heart's in the right place. I don't fault her. We may not see eye to eye on certain things, but I think she's a wonderful human being and still alive to this day.

Woody: Yeah, she is. We'd love to have you on the show.

Jim: Yeah. If you happen to be listening, Sister Prejean, we'd love to have you on and share

your views.

Woody: If one of y'all listeners know her, yeah, that would be a great show.

Jim: Yeah, it really would. So, if you know her out there and get word to her that we love-- we come to her if she needs us to, no problem. And so, that is a wrap on that series. For you patron members, just a few that we're going to do just for you guys. The final, I think it's four or five that we have left to feature on that series just for you guys. And we saved some good ones for you patron members.

Woody: And if you want to become a patron, go to Patreon and type in Bloody Angola. Jim: Yup.

Woody: Right.

Jim: That's all you got to do, it'll pull it up. We have several different tiers, of course. I know a lot of y'all like those transcriptions. We do transcribe all those episodes just for patron members. And we put them in PDF format so you can download those. You can actually print them out and you can read them like a book. Some people like to read.

Woody: Yeah, I still like to read too. I think that's a pretty genius idea.

Jim: Absolutely. And don't forget, as we mentioned at the beginning, vote, vote, vote.

Woody: Hey, mom. I know you're listening to this because you love Bloody Angola, and I know you read every single night. My mom likes it--

Jim: Love it.

Woody: She's in her early-- well, I won't tell her age, but she works out every day still. But

she listens to us when she works out.

Jim: Ms. Overton, we appreciate you. Thank you. Woody: But she likes to read more.

Jim: Yeah, she's a sharp lady.

Woody: Mom, you can get the PDF of transcripts. Jim: That's right.

Woody: We love all y'all. Thank you so much. We appreciate you. You rock. Thank you again for getting us nominated for Best History Podcast, and then, the overall best in the world, Adam Curry's People's Choice. Go to podcastawards.com and vote for us if you would, please. We only got, I think, less than two weeks left.

Jim: Yeah.

Woody: Hey, just to be nominated is fire. To make the finals would be sweet. To win it all--

Jim: Blessing. Total blessing. And we love you, appreciate you all, y'all very much. Until next time, I'm Jim Chapman.

Woody: And I'm Woody Overton.

Jim: Your host of Bloody-

Woody: -Angola.

Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making.

Woody: The complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison. Jim and Woody: Peace.

In this episode of Bloody Angola:A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman, We continue to cover the stories of those inmates eventually executed at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, from the crimes to their final walk.

#Louisianastateprison #AngolaPrison #BloodyAngola #TrueCrime #Podcast #WoodyOverton #Podcasts #Deathchamberpart2 #deathchamber #Execution #Convict

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Full Transcript Death Chamber Part 2

[Bloody Angola theme]

Jim: Hey, everyone, and welcome back to Bloody- Woody: -Angola.

Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making.

Woody: The complete story of America's bloodiest prison. Jim: And I'm Jim Chapman.

Woody: And I'm Woody Overton. Thank y'all for listening and liking and sharing. Please continue to do so. Leave us a review wherever you listen up in your podcast. And Patreon members, we appreciate y'all, you rock. Thank you for your continued support. This one, we're going back to one that got a whole lot of interest and-- [crosstalk]

Jim: People loved it.

Woody: Well, I love it.

Jim: Yeah.

Woody: I guess, you're twisted y'all, right? We're going to tell you about- Jim: Death chamber.

Woody: -death chamber stuff.

Jim: Yeah, Part 2.

Woody: Execution. Yeah, Death Chamber Part due. Jim: Part duh.

Woody: Duh.

Jim: Yeah. So, we're going to get into it and what we do with these folks-- If you hadn't listened yet, you can go back and listen to Death Chamber Part 1. The good thing about these is we cover just individual convicts that were executed at Angola. We tell just a little synopsis of their crime, and they got some really interesting final words in there for these guys.

Woody: [crosstalk] -things like that.

Jim: People just loved it the first time, so we're going to continue with it. I'll start out with our first convict up for, I guess, grabs today, and that is Leslie Lowenfield. Leslie Lowenfield was executed in 1988, and he rode the lightning.

Woody: Yeah, he graduated-- [crosstalk] Jim: Electrocuted. Gruesome Gertie. Woody: Gruesome Gertie.

Jim: He had a seat in that chair. And to tell you a little bit about this guy, he was a native of Guyana. He came to Louisiana from Canada in 1981, and he met his primary victim, which was a lady named Sheila Thomas.

Woody: I think he's well-traveled. I think Guyana is like in Africa or somewhere.

Jim: Yeah, then he goes to Canada.

Woody: And then he comes to south, to Louisiana.

Jim: He figured it out. He figured out the USA was where he wanted to be, I guess. And we didn't want him here after--

Woody: To make [crosstalk] Gruesome Gertie.

Jim: Yeah. Sheila Thomas was his primary victim. She was a deputy sheriff in Jefferson

Parish, Louisiana,-

Woody: JP. Yeah.

Jim: -which is around the New Orleans area.

Woody: Actually, it's one of the largest parishes geographically, because it expands all the way around Orleans, all the way down to Grand Isle. Did you know Grand Isle is in Jefferson Parish?

Jim: I did not.

Woody: Absolutely. There it cut across all that marsh and everything else, land wise,

Tangipahoa is the longest parish in the state. North and south, I think JP is the biggest. Jim: Interesting. I didn't know Tangi was the longest.

Woody: Yeah, Tangi is longest state north and south. Very longest parish--[crosstalk]

Jim: Very interesting. So, Sheila Thomas was a deputy sheriff. And Ms. Thomas, along with her daughter, young daughter, who was Shantel Osborne moved in with Lowenfield in the summer of 1981. So, you can already see. Uh-oh.

Woody: Right.

Jim: Lowenfield and Ms. Thomas, they lived together off and on for about a year. During that year, Ms. Thomas left Lowenfield on three separate occasions and returned to live with her mother. So, they're probably fighting, having arguments.

Woody: Off and on. Went off and on.

Jim: Yeah. Lowenfield became increasingly bitter following each separation. So, every time

she would leave, he would get more and more pissed.

Woody: Right.

Jim: When Ms. Thomas returned to her mother's home for the last time, he repeatedly threatened and harassed Ms. Thomas and her mother, victim, Myrtle Griffin. In the late afternoon of August 30th, 1982, Owen Griffin, Sheila Thomas' stepfather, was in a vacant lot near his home in Marrero, which is like an outskirts of New Orleans. He was playing cards with friends. Owen Griffin, all of a sudden, hears shots ring out from their home. He runs to the house, rushed inside, where more shots were fired. When police arrived, they found five bodies sprawled about the living area of the house, they found the bodies of Sheila Thomas, her four-year old daughter Shantel, Owen Griffin, his wife Myrtle Griffin,

Woody: Wow.

Jim: -and Carl Osborne, the father of Shantel. All of the victims had sustained multiple gunshot wounds, each had been shot in the head at close range.

Woody: That's crazy. Well, think about that last seconds when you're sitting there and whatever pops off and he shoots the first one. You're like, "What the f--?" And then boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

Jim: Just blasting--[crosstalk]

Woody: You're just sitting there. You know, I'm sure someone trying to scramble and get

away, but he's close enough to shoot them in the head. Jim: No doubt about it.

Woody: No mercy. Animal.

Jim: No mercy, and total animal. And he goes to court, gets convicted, gets sentenced to death. And eventually, as a matter of fact, in 1988, he does get executed. His final statement included remarks directed at his two attorneys, Wayne Walker and John Craft, who had worked on his trial and appeal. His last words were, "I hope you feel satisfied. Don't give up on me. Although my life will be over tonight, because the one responsible is out there."

Woody: Wow.

Jim: Yeah. Deny it to the end. "There is no reason to hold anything against me. And the rest who would lie when I'm gone, the body will be gone, but the spirit will live on. Mr. Walker and John Craft, your job was more important than my life. I hope you feel satisfied. Thank you to all of you, and peace."

Woody: Did he say peace?

Jim: He said peace. That was his final words.

Woody: Peace-- [crosstalk]

Jim: How dare he use the word.

Woody: Right. Road to hell. Yeah.

Jim: [chuckles] Yeah.

Woody: [crosstalk] -use a moniker.

Jim: But here's an interesting thing about this entire case. Dale Brown, the head basketball coach at that time, actually attended his execution.

Woody: Oh, I didn't know that.

Jim: They had been corresponding since Dale Brown toured Angola years earlier with the LSU basketball team actually became friends, and he attended that execution. I found that very interesting.

Woody: Wow. That’s crazy. So, that was the real deal execution. Gruesome Gertie. I got to sit in probably around that same time, and the chair would not, obviously, get executed, but think about the difference between what they do now. They just put him asleep, in a Gruesome Gertie,-

Jim: Oh, yeah.

Woody: -they strap you in and you about to ride, "rahhh." Jim: Yeah, lights.

Woody: Yeah, lights in. And off-on. rahhh. They don't just hit him once. They did it like, three or four to five times. So, fuck him, and he got what he deserved.

Jim: Yeah. And don't use our peace anymore. [laughs]

Woody: Yeah. Never use the peace. Tell the devil peace, son of a bitch. Jim: That's right.

Woody: All right. I'm going to take you to a guy named Timothy Baldwin. And the date of the murder was April the 4th, 1978. He killed a lady named Mary James Peters. Now, what's unusual about this killing one person and getting a death penalty? Well, Mary James Peters was 85 years old. That's bad, right?

Jim: Yeah. Elderly.

Woody: But she was blind.

Jim: Oh, my God. That's horrible.

Woody: He beat her to death with a skillet, a stool, a small television, and a telephone. You would think, me being retired from, say police, I would have all these pronunciations correctly, but I'm going to say this one wrong, because every time I say it, somebody corrects me. But I say Ouachita Parish, Louisiana, which is, y'all, is all the way up northeast in Louisiana. Great fishing and hunting. He was electrocuted in Louisiana on September 10th, 1984. Let me tell you about the case.

Timothy Baldwin, and his wife Rita, and their seven children were neighbors of Mary James Peters in West Monroe, Louisiana. Again, y'all, that's way northeast Louisiana. He was roommates with them from 1971 until 1977. Mrs. Peters was godmother to their youngest, Russell. During the latter part of their stay in West Monroe, William Odell Jones also resided with the Baldwins. Okay.

The group went to Bossier City for six months, and now, y'all, Bossier City is on the other end of the north part of state by Shreveport. All right, so probably about a three-hour drive. The group went to Bossier City for six months and then moved to Ohio. The oldest daughter, Michelle, remained in West Monroe with one brother. A second son entered the service. Marilyn Hampton and her three daughters stayed with the Baldwins in Ohio. Marilyn, Timothy Baldwin, and her children then left, accompanied by Jones. Baldwin and Jones worked together in the business of installing aluminum siding. After the departure of her husband, Rita Baldwin got into financial difficulties and was picked up on bad check charges. Her four younger children went to live with Michelle in West Monroe. Meanwhile, Timothy Baldwin, our bad guy, Jones, Marilyn Hampton and her three children led an itinerant existence. Their last means of transportation was a 1978 black Ford van which had been rented in Tampa, Florida.

On April 4th, 1978, Marilyn Hampton and Timothy Baldwin drove the van to West Monroe. Jones and the children stayed at a cabin in Holmes State Park, near Jackson, Mississippi. Jackson, Mississippi is not that far. Ouachita, however you want to say it in the Monroe is pretty much on the Mississippi, Louisiana. And just north of that is the Arkansas line. So, about an hour from there to Jackson. So, Baldwin and Marilyn Hampton visited Michelle's apartment in West Monroe but left there around 8:00 PM. Shortly thereafter, a van was seen parked in front of Mrs. Peters' house. A man and woman were observed leaving the residence between 10:00 PM and 11:00 PM. Shortly before their departure, passersby saw and heard indications that someone in the Peters' home was being beaten.

Baldwin testified in his own behalf and admitted that he and Marilyn visited Mrs. Peters that evening but denied the murder. Mrs. Peters, who was 85 years old, was beaten with various things, among them a skillet, a stool, and a telephone.

Jim: Oh, my God, and this is a blind woman. Woody: Right.

Jim: She doesn't even know it's coming at. Woody: Right. Yeah.

Jim: Poor. Damn.

Woody: That's unimaginable, right? Jim: Poor lady. Argh.

Woody: Think about the one I had Ms. [unintelligible [00:12:39] had the 57 blows. It was from a base and a Coke bottle, but she was on a walker and stuff. But at least she could see it coming, yeah?

Jim: Yeah, that's awful.

Woody: Anyway, she remained on the kitchen floor overnight and was discovered the next morning shortly before noon by an employee of the Ouachita Council Meals on Wheels, who was bringing her noon meal. Although helpless and incoherent, Mrs. Peters tried to defend herself against the police officers and the ambulance attendant who took her to the hospital.

Jim: Poor woman, man.

Woody: She doesn't know who they are. Jim: Yeah.

Woody: Dr. A. B. Gregory saw her in the emergency room around 12:30 PM on April 5th, 1978, and found her in a semi-comatose. Her left cheekbone and jawbone were shattered. She had brain damage from multiple contusions and lacerations. According to Dr. Gregory, Mrs. Peters could not communicate rationally. She died of the injuries the following day. Dr. Frank Chin, who performed the autopsy, attributed her death to massive cerebral hemorrhage and swelling, secondary to external head injuries. So, brain bleeds ultimately killed her and it didn't kill her instantly. Can you imagine that, living there, laying there on the floor all night?

Timothy Baldwin and Marilyn Hampton were subsequently located in El Dorado, Arkansas. Remember, y'all told you, Arkansas is just north. Timothy Baldwin signed consents for the search of their motel room and the van. Two blue bank bags, one empty and one containing savings bonds and certificates of deposit payable to Mary James, were found in the van. Jones, to whom Marilyn Hampton and Timothy Baldwin had made statements both before and after the crime, helped police officers locate a safe that had belonged to the victim in the LaFourche Canal in West Monroe. Baldwin's finger and palm prints were found on various items in the Peters' home, a cigarette lighter, a television set, and a coffee cup.

Baldwin was found guilty, and the jury did what they should have. They recommend the death sentence. So, Timothy George Baldwin was executed on September 10th, 1984. Baldwin was convicted of beaten to death the 85-year-old blind woman, Mary James Peters. And Peters, who was a former neighbor of Baldwin's and the godmother's of his youngest

child, was beaten with everything I told y'all about. Baldwin maintained his innocence and gave this final statement. He said, "I've always tried to be a good sport when I've lost something, and I see no reason not to leave this world with the same policy. After all, it was a hell of a battle. I therefore congratulate all those who have tried so hard to murder me. I definitely have to give them credit as it takes a very special kind of person to murder an innocent man and still be able to live with themselves."

Jim: Victim [unintelligible [00:15:37], huh? Woody: Burning in hell.

Jim: Yeah.

Woody: I'm going to tell you something. Jim: Hella jail as usual.

Woody: Hella jail. But you go through all these years, he sat on death row for shorter time than they do now. You know, you're strapped down and that's going to be your last words. I'm thinking about trying to find me some Jesus.

Jim: Amen.

Woody: Even if I don't believe them and be like, "Oh, Lord, if you could please forgive me if

you're really there and bring me home." But he's saying, "Mm, I didn't do it."

Jim: What a horrible human. Wow. Yeah, we're getting real on this one. Look, these guys, they were executed. So, you're going to hear some disturbing stuff, but we're real with this stuff.

Woody: Executed for a reason.

Jim: That's right. I'm going to tell you about Sterling Rault. And Sterling Rault was executed, y'all, by electrocution, Gruesome Gertie in 1987, August 24th to be exact. And this is an interesting case, because a lot of these guys that end up on death row and executed, they come from really hard upbringings, and a lot of them didn't have money their whole lives. Sterling Rault was a little bit different. He had a good job, he was a Comptroller at a company called LUTEX. And there was a lady there named Janie Francioni. And Mike, if he were here, could help me pronounce that Italian last name.

Woody: Right. [crosstalk] -for sure.

Jim: But we're going to go with Francioni. She worked as a secretary. On the evening of March 1st, 1982, which was a Monday, fellow employees observed Rault and Francioni leaving work together in her car. Less than an hour later, three U.N.O. students, which is University of New Orleans inside of New Orleans, they saw the two struggling in the campus parking lot. Francioni screamed at the students, asked them to call the police and make him leave her alone, because he was attempting rape. The students closest to the car observed what appeared to be splashes of blood on her clothing. Rault repeatedly said he had to get her to the hospital, before throwing her into the car from the driver's side all the way to the passenger's side and driving away.

Woody: He was saying [crosstalk] the witnesses.

Jim: Yeah.

Woody: "Oh, I got to get her to the hospital." [crosstalk]

Jim: Basically, grabbed her and threw her so hard into the car, she went straight into the passenger seat. So, he was probably a strong guy.

Woody: Right.

Jim: Approximately 9:20 that evening, a state trooper driving north on Paris Road in an isolated area of New Orleans East stopped to investigate what appeared to be a brush fire and discovered a burning female body.

Woody: Ah, worse way.

Jim: Close by were partially used five-gallon cans of gasoline and Francioni's blood stained car, which smelled strongly of gasoline. So, he's trying to burn the car in her. A spent bullet was even found on the floor of the car. The victim had a man's belt wrapped around her neck and a jagged wound on the right side of her neck. She had been shot twice. One bullet had struck her in the thigh, traveling into the abdomen, through the small intestines, stomach and liver before exiting the left side of her chest. The pathologist actually testified that this that this would have caused extensive slow bleeding. The wound would have been very painful and would have resulted in death in less than a matter of hours.

The second bullet entered directly into the abdomen, and damaged blood vessels in the right kidney and the large blood vessel known as the interior vena cava, before lodging in the spine and would have also caused really rapid bleeding. That wound would have been fatal in 5 minutes or 10 minutes. So, we're painting a picture of here is how she suffered. It was just horrible. The victim was dead-- [crosstalk]

Woody: [crosstalk] twice. Yeah.

Jim: Yeah. The victim was dead when the neck wound was inflicted and she was set on fire. Thank, God. Her fingernail scrapings have human blood on them. So, she fought. She's a fighter. Janie Francioni had been with her mother and a friend during the preceding weekend and had had no sexual encounters. I'm sure they tested for that. Her mother took her to work on Monday morning. However, she had engaged in sexual activity 12 to 24 hours prior to her death. Vaginal swabs showed semen fluid but no sperm. Sterling Rault had a vasectomy in 1979.

When police searched the area, they detected movement under a nearby bridge. As they approached, a man broke out and ran. After a brief chase, he turned around, threw up his hands, and hollered, "I'm Sterling Rault".

Woody: Ran like a bitch.

Jim: Yeah. He appeared quiet, calm and relaxed. He was dressed in casual clothing. He was lacking a belt. What his detective brain can put two and two together on that one. And he had a strong aroma of gasoline. So, there were several fresh red scratch marks across his chest. His right hand was swollen. After being advised of his rights, he claimed two men in ski masks kidnapped him and Francioni and raped her. Of course.

Testimony at the trial revealed that Rault had been embezzling funds from LUTEX, and his secretary was about to basically ride him out. So, in December, 1981, .25 caliber semi-automatic weapon had been sold to a buyer with a driver's license in the name of Jerry Jones. In executing a search of Rault's residence, they recovered a gun box or the pistol, a box of .25 caliber cartridges and a Mississippi driver's license in the name of Jerry Jones.

Woody: Jerry Jones.

Jim: So, there it is. They end up taking him to court, obviously, and he gets the death penalty. So, he got executed on August 24th, 1987. He was convicted of raping, stabbing, shooting, and burning the body of Jane Ellen Francioni, a 21-year-old secretary, as we told you. And his final statement was, "I would like the public to know that they are killing an innocent man at this time."

Woody: Yeah, three for three. All innocent, huh?

Jim: Crazy. "I pray that God will forgive all those involved." How nice of you. "I, personally, do not hold any animosity towards anyone. The country professes to be 'One nation under God,' but the death penalty goes against the word of God. Into the arms of--" [crosstalk]

Woody: So does murdering, shooting, laid twice, and choking her with a belt and everything else.

Jim: Yeah. "Into the arms of love of God I now go. I love y'all. May God bless y'all." There was a little write up in the paper shortly after these. It was interesting, because he was fighting to try to get these stays of execution, as are typical, but unsuccessful. He rode the lighting as he deserves.

Woody: I'm so glad Gruesome Gertie was still involved in all these stories. Jim: Yeah.

Woody: I just think that's such a good way for them to go. I know so many people hate the death penalty, and I don't want anybody that's innocent, but these people-- [crosstalk]

Jim: Hear some of these stories. You know what?

Woody: It's like having a migraine. Everybody knows about someone, not someone about murder, but unless you're going through it, unless it's your loved one. I've seen people who said before their family members got murdered, they were against the death penalty. And after their family members got murdered, they wanted the death penalty.

Jim: Yeah.

Woody: You understand it, but you don't get it. Jim: That's right.

Woody: Well, let's take to our next winner, Antonio James. And, y'all, he's a murderer during some robberies, and he killed two people in January of 23rd, 1979, and was arrested on the 26th of 1979. He was born in 1954, so he was at 1964, 1974, so he was like 24, 25. This happened in Orleans Parish. He actually, this winter, got lethal injection instead of Gruesome Gertie.

Jim: Got the needle.

Woody: Right, got the needle. Let me tell you about it. So, James had amassed a very extensive juvenile and criminal record by the time he was tried for the murder of-- He murdered two people, y'all, Henry Silver, age 70, and Alvin Adams. I don't know what Adams age was. But James had amassed a very extensive juvenile and criminal record by the time he was tried for the murder of Silver. The post-sentence investigation report-- Let me tell you about that. Anytime you get convicted of any crime, especially you're going to do a lot of time, there's actually a division of the parole officers and probation officers who do, what they call a PSI, presentence investigation report on you, and they tell your whole prior

criminal history, work history and everything else, drug use, whatever, and then they write a synopsis on whether to tell the judge whether or not they're likely to offend again.

Jim: Yeah.

Woody: So, that helps the judge determine how many years or whatever they're going to

get.

Jim: I didn’t know that.

Woody: Unless it's automatic life in prison. The post-sentence investigation report prepared for the sentencing court listed 37 juvenile incidents. 37. That's the ones that they called [crosstalk]. That's the ones that they called him for. Think about all the ones he got away with.

Jim: Probably double it.

Woody: Right. James was ordered confined to the Louisiana Training Institute at age 14.

And, y'all, that is basically the Angola, we need--[crosstalk] Jim: LTI.

Woody: LTI.

Jim: [laughs] That's what you used to call it.

Woody: That was right down the road from me. We're going to actually cover that one day, because that's real shit there too. But most of these guys, a lot of them go to death row. But anyway, he was locked up in basically juvenile prison which was a very bad place at age 14.

In 1973, he was convicted of attempted armed robbery and sentenced to serve three years at the state penitentiary. During this period of confinement, he was convicted of attempted simple escape. He was released in 1975. I don't understand all these years, because armed robbery carries 99 attempted, I think is 40 up to, and then the simple escape alone is 10 years. Anyway, he was released in 1975. In 1978, he was charged with aggravated rape. That's a mandatory life, if not death penalty. But the charge was later refused by the prosecution.

James was convicted of the first-degree murder of Alvin Adams on January 23rd, 1979 and was sentenced to life imprisonment. Okay. The first-degree murder, he could have got the death penalty. He was convicted on January 26th of 1979. So, just shit, three days later, armed robbery of Robert Hooten and was sentenced to 99 years for this offense, the maximum under Louisiana law. Now, we go to Henry Silver.

On January 1, 1979, James approached 70-year-old Henry Silver as the latter was getting out of his car in his neighborhood in New Orleans. James placed a gun to Silver's head and demanded his money. When Silver shouted for help, James placed the gun under Silver's right ear, cocked the hammer, and fired a shot into Silver's head. James then rifled through Silver's pockets and removed his wallet containing $35. He drove away in a nearby waiting car. Silver died a few hours later at Charity Hospital.

Now, let me tell y'all this, I used to go there all the time back in the day. It's closed now after Katrina, but Charity Hospital was rated as the number one trauma center in the world for gunshots [crosstalk] you know why? Because it handled all New Orleans shit. In the 1990s, the Orleans was the murder capital of the world. So, I've seen some crazy shit in there. But anyway, he obviously lived on the machine for overnight. James was arrested on January

26th, 1979 when he bungled another armed robbery attempt and was shot with his own gun. He was indicted for first degree murder.

At trial by Orleans Parish grand jury indicted in first degree murder. In December 1981, jury found him guilty as charged at a trial where the principal witness against James was his accomplice, Levon Price. After deliberation, the same jury unanimously recommended that the defendant be sentenced to death. Rightfully so.

Jim: Yeah.

Woody: So, let's go to March 1st, 1996. All these years later, that's 15 years later, James

was executed by lethal injection at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, listeners know it as- Jim and Woody: Bloody Angola.

Woody: -at the age of 42. The execution team had difficulty locating a vein to insert the catheter into his arm in order to commence the execution. Our hero, Warden Burl Cain requested that James make a fist in order to assist the process. James complied to this request. James declined to give a final statement. However, when Warden Cain later said that James stated, "Bless you," as he was strapped to the execution gurney. His last meal was fried oysters and crab gumbo.

Jim: Wow. Good choice. I'd say that. Woody: It made me hunger.

Jim: Yeah, dang.

Woody: James' execution was the subject of an ABC News documentary on Prime Time Live. In the UK the BBC broadcast a 40-minute piece on April 18th, 1996 on Radio 4 about this case, with particular reference to the role of the British lawyer Clive Stafford Smith in providing adequate defense. So, there you go.

Jim: Yeah. Antonio James, we talked about him a little bit on our-- [crosstalk] look, go back and listen to that series, the Burl Cain series, we just wrapped up.

Woody: Three or four parts.

Jim: Well, it was three parts.

Woody: Three parts and then me and Kelly. So, it's four parts. Jim: Yeah. So, the patron, we did an episode with Kelly Jennings. Woody: That's right.

Jim: Only available to patron. So go join that patron. Listen to that one. But we discussed Antonio James, and it was interesting. That was the second execution for Burl Cain and the one that he said, "I'm going to do this one right:"

Woody: Because the first one-- y'all, go listen to series.

Jim: It's really good.

Woody: Super powerful. Burl, we're still waiting on you to come on the show, buddy.

Jim: You know what I notice about that whole thing? Yes, we are. What I notice about that whole thing is, he's the first one we've come across today that didn't blame it other people.

Woody: Yeah, that's right. The first one that didn't-- [crosstalk] Jim: He just said, "God bless, and I'm out."

Woody: Yeah, God bless and riding out.

Jim: Yeah. At least took it like a man. That's right. So, John Ashley Brown. Let's get to him. John Ashley Brown was executed by lethal injection in April of 1997. I'm going to tell you a little bit about this crime. On the night of the murder, Mr. Laughlin and his wife had eaten dinner at a restaurant near the corner of Dauphine and Touro Streets in New Orleans. Very famous.

Woody: Yeah.

Jim: Yeah, area of New Orleans. At approximately 11:45 PM, they left the restaurant and began walking to their car, which was located about a block away. Brown exited a nearby vehicle and he confronted the Laughlins. He pinned them against their car, and demanded money from Mr. Laughlin. Mrs. Laughlin screamed and ran back towards the restaurant. When she returned to the scene, her husband was dead.

According to NOPD, who had arrived at the location, the victim who had arrived at the location, the victim was found lying face down in the street and bleeding profusely. An autopsy later revealed that Mr. Laughlin had been stabbed 13 times.

Woody: It's a lot.

Jim: Mrs. Laughlin provided the police with a description of the perpetrator and the vehicle which she had seen him get out of prior to the attack. She also told police that a woman with dark hair had been driving. So, Sergeant James Scott of the NOPD was stopped at a traffic light when heard the description of the crime and saw the suspect being broadcast over the radio. He looked to his left, and there's Brown sitting in a vehicle that matched the description given by the victim's wife. And there was a female at the wheel of the car.

Brown’s vehicle was pulled into a nearby service station, and Sergeant Scott followed, believing that the occupants of the car might be the suspects. The officer watched as the woman put gasoline in the car while Brown walked over to a water hose and he began washing his hands. He then-- [crosstalk]

Woody: [crosstalk] -blood all over him.

Jim: He then re-entered the car. Good point. Sergeant Scott approached the vehicle and ordered Brown to step out and place his hands on the hood, when Brown did so, the police officer observed scratches, marks and droplets of blood on his forearms. He also observed blood between Brown’s toes, which were visible through the sandals that he was wearing. In plain view on the floor of the car was a New Orleans shopper's card which belonged to the victim. Wow, the evidence is mounting up, right?

Woody: Right.

Jimmy: He was arrested, taken into custody, and a search yielded Mr. Laughlin's wallet. A second search pursuant to a properly secured warrant led to the discovery of a Bowie knife which had been concealed underneath the front seat of the car on the passenger side. Mrs. Laughlin positively identified Brown from lineup and basically nailed that, "This is the guy that attacked my husband and killed--"

Woody: For those of you who don't know, Bowie knife is a big ass knife.

Jim: Yeah. So, obviously, he goes to court, he gets convicted, he gets sentenced to death. And on April 24th, 1997, he was put to death by lethal injection at Bloody Angola. His final words were, "Let my baby sister know I love her and the rest of my family, for supporting me. I love you very much. I'm ready to go now." As he felt the lethal drugs enter his system, Brown stated, “Wow.”

Woody: Really?

Jim: That's it.

Woody: Wow. That's crazy.

Jim: Pretty crazy stuff. And those final words, man. But I guess, credit to the guy for not denying it.

Woody: Yeah, saying, "You got me bad. Go find the real murderer," and all that shit, right? Jim: Yeah.

Woody: And he said, "Wow."

Jim: "Wow," when he felt that stuff-- [crosstalk]

Woody: [crosstalk] -saw face of Jesus. Jim: Yeah, it could be.

Woody: All right. So, now, y'all, we're going to take you to our next, whatever you want to call him. His name is Willie Watson, and he's a murderer. And not only he is a murderer, he's a rapist and a kidnapper and a robber. This offense took place on April 5th, 1981. And Willie Watson was born in 1951. And he killed a lady, Kathy Newman, who was 25 years old, who was a Tulane University medical student. If you don't know that, if you're not from Louisiana, Tulane is basically the Harvard of the south. He did so by shooting her in St. Charles Parish.

On the evening of April 5th, 1981, Willie Watson abducted Kathy Newman, a third-year Tulane University medical student, at gunpoint as she arrived at her apartment building in the Carrollton section of New Orleans. Very familiar with that. Watson forced Newman to drive to an isolated area in St. Charles Parish, which would be towards El Paso, he drove her across the bridge, anyway, where he robbed her of her jewelry and raped and sodomized her. [unintelligible [00:37:42]

Watson then instructed Newman to dress herself, and as she did so, he shot her in the back of the head, killing her. Watson later confessed to the murder, stating that he shot Newman because he feared that she could identify him. On June 5th, 1981, Watson was found guilty of first-degree murder. And Willie Watson was executed on July 24th of 1987. Watson was convicted of the kidnapping, rape and murder, like we told you, of Kathy Newman. When they asked if he had any last words, Watson calmly shook his head, "No." Let me read you the article.

Jim: Mm, no last words.

Woody: This article is from The New York Times. It's right up after execution, dates July 25th, 1987, New York Times. "Willie Watson went calmly and silently to his death in an electric chair of Gruesome Gertie." They didn’t say that, y'all, it's me.

Jim: [laughs]

Woody: "Early today, for the rape, robbery and murder of the Tulane University medical student. He was the sixth murderer executed in Louisiana since early June and the second this week--" [crosstalk]

Jim: Wow. They making it happen back in those days.

Woody: The student, Kathy Newman, 25 years old was abducted, raped, and shot. Now, not just raped, y'all, sodomize I'll say, also and shot to death in 1981. Mr. Watson, 30, confessed that he killed her, attributing the crime to his drug addiction while an adolescent growing up in New Orleans housing projects. Look, back then they were real and legit projects. Did I ever tell you about that? You could be on where Mike's house is on St. Charles and go two blocks in any direction, they had the project-projects. The big high rises and shit. They had their own New Orleans police authorities for it. It was so bad. They wouldn't go in there in the daytime unless they had three units at a time.

Jim: Wow.

Woody: But anyway, this is a-- [crosstalk] Jim: So, he grew up rough.

Woody: That was rough shit, the concrete jungle. So, the execution, which had been scheduled for midnight, was delayed two hours after the US Supreme Court rejected Mr. Watson's appeal on a 4-to-4 tie vote. And Mr. Watson's lawyers made a last-minute plea to Governor Edwin W. Edwards, my boy, in Baton Rouge, and he refused the final statement. At 1:58 AM, Mr. Watson walked into the death chamber. His head had been shaved of the shoulder-wide afro, because he had a big fur, y'all, hairstyle he had the day before when he appeared at the state Pardon Board in a futile appeal.

Asked if he wanted to make a final statement, Mr. Watson shook his head, "No." He was then strapped into the wooden electric chair before his face was masked. Y'all, they do that because the eyes fry out of the head and the scalp will catch on fire. Before his face was masked, he looked at his spiritual adviser, Sister Lee Scardina, and mouthed ''I love you, Sister Lee.'' Then he received the first of four jolts. Remember I told you earlier, hit it, they go, "Hit it. [imitating electric sound]." Turn it off. And they did, "Hit it," four times. Anyway. So, then he received the first of four jolts of electricity at 2:02 AM. He was pronounced dead at 2:09 AM. After it was over, the spiritual adviser went to Jed Stone, Mr. Watson's lawyer, who was outside the death chamber, and cried on his shoulder. Outside the prison, six advocates of the death penalty marched in the darkness.

Now, I remember back in those days that basically the neighbor in parish where I grew up and-- Shit, I remember, they were rolling [unintelligible [00:41:39] Governor Evers was in office. My mom was on the parole board, parole and pardon board. Anyway, he was good friends with my dad.

Jim: Wow. That was like six minutes, they were jumping.

Woody: Yeah, they give him for a minute, turn it off, give him another minute, and then--

[crosstalk]

Jim: Good. Very good.

Woody: Nothing more but fuck you. Jim: Yeah. [crosstalk]

Woody: Killed 25-year-old, she was going to be a doctor. He raped her and butt raped her.

Jim: Awful. All right, we're going to tell you-- Look, and this one's disturbing, so prepare yourself. But we're going to tell you about Andrew Lee Jones. And he was executed by electrocution on July 22nd of 1991. Tell you about the crime. On February 17th, 1984, 11-year-old Tumekica Jackson was living with her mother, grandparents in the Scotlandville section of Baton Rouge. Tell them about Scotlandville, Woody.

Woody: Yeah, I'm just going to tell you. I'm about to do a full-blown episode. I have all the research and everything on this case, and it's bad.

Jim: Yeah.

Woody: Scotlandville, y'all, it's in north Baton Rouge almost to Baker, what they call Baker, Louisiana, which is really Baton Rouge just runs into Baker. It's all still east Baton Rouge Parish.

Jim: Bad part of Baton Rouge.

Woody: Yeah, it's-- [crosstalk]

Jim: A lot of gang activity in that area. It used to be way back in the day, a decent area.

Woody: Decent. Back in this time, it wasn't that bad. But this dude is that bad. Again, Real Life Real Crime original episode, you're going to get all the details, we'll get you.

Jim: There you go. So, at 04:00 AM on February 17th of 1984, the grandmother discovered that the child, the 11-year-old Tumekica Jackson was missing from her bedroom. The police discovered that someone had broken the screen of the rear den window and had opened the back door. In the muddy ground, near the house, police obtained a cast of an imprint made by the left shoe from a pair of size 8 1/2 tennis shoes. There were no signs of a struggle inside the house. The investigation immediately focused on Jones because his stormy romantic relationship of several years with the victim's mother. It had been broken off the week prior to this incident. The victim knew Jones well, and he had been in the home many times. On the evening of the child's disappearance, Jones had called the mother's home three times and had told the grandmother that he would not be responsible for his actions,-

Woody: Not going to be responsible.

Jim: -if the mother continued to refuse to see him. About 6:30 AM, the police went to the apartment where Jones lived with his sister, Terry Jones, and his half-brother, Abraham Mingo. Jones told the police he had been home all night, and Mingo and Ms. Jones confirmed his story. A few hours later, Ms. Jones called the police and said she may have been mistaken about that. After questioning her further, the police obtained a written consent to search the apartment. When no one answered the officer's knock, Ms. Jones used her key to open the door and officers found Jones in the bathroom washing a pair of size 8 1/2 tennis shoes. The bath tub was full of dirt and leaves. The officers seized the tennis shoes and a pair of green gloves, and they requested that Jones give them a statement. After signing a waiver, Jones gave the police a tape-recorded statement in which he denied any knowledge of the offense.

Woody: "I don't know nothing."

Jim: Lack of evidence, so they had to allow him to leave with his sister. But approximately 06:00 PM, the victim's partially nude body was found in a drainage canal.

Woody: In a ditch.

Jim: An autopsy established a child had been beaten, raped and manually strangled. The police again questioned Mingo. Although he initially told conflicting stories, he eventually gave a detailed account of his activities with the defendant on Friday night and Saturday morning. According to Mingo, he and Jones were out with the defendant on Friday evening, but dropped him off in Scotlandville. About 1:00 AM, Mingo and Jones went to the Snowflake Lounge, but Jones left alone about 30 minutes later, and Mingo returned to the apartment.

Now, at some point between 04:30 AM and 05:00 AM, Mingo was awakened by Jones, he knocked on the door, whereupon he let defendant in and went back to bed. When Mingo and Jones were alone in the apartment later that morning, the defendant told him that he should've stayed home, that he did something he didn't want to do, and that he done fucked up. Jones gave Mingo a TG&Y bag and asked him to throw it away, which he did without looking inside. At Mingo's direction, police recovered a TG&Y bag from a dumpster near a grocery store. The bag contained socks, a pair of blue jeans and a pink sweatshirt, which were wet, muddy and stained. Of course, they put some analysis on that and identified the stain is a mixture of blood and semen fluid.

Woody: This is before DNA.

Jim: Mingo also told the police about a pair of boxer shorts that he had found in the bathroom of the apartment. The shorts belonged to Mingo, but Jones had worn them on Friday night. Pursuant to Mingo's written consent, the police recovered a pair of stained brown and white boxer shorts. Analysis confirmed the presence of blood and semen fluid on the boxer shorts. On the basis of this information, they finally got a warrant. They arrested Jones. Jones gave a videotape statement in which he asserted that he and Rudolph Springer had gone to the victim's house on Saturday morning to commit a burglary. They were scared of being recognized, so Jones remained in the car while Springer entered the house. When Springer returned carrying the victim, Jones got in the backseat and pulled his cap over his face.

After a few minutes, Springer drove Jones to his apartment. That was the last time the defendant saw the victim. That was his story, they didn't buy it. And eventually, he gets sentenced to death.

So, he was executed on July 22nd, 1991, by electric chair. While he did not make a final statement, at a pardon board hearing three days before he was executed, he said, "There's a possible chance I did it. A possible chance I didn't do it. If I had not been drunk, nothing like that would have happened. I'm like anybody else. I don't want to die or anything like that." So, that was his statement after that. I hate it when it involves children. It's disgusting.

Woody: Yeah, I actually have some more in-depth knowledge on that case. I'm going to bring it to you on a original RLRC episode in the future.

Jim: Oh, very good.

Woody: He is a real piece of shit. I know of Mingo personally, and I'll explain all that. Jim: I look forward to that, fellas.

Woody: Right. Let's take to the next one. John Brogdon. I'm going to give you the facts of the case. On the evening of October 7th, 1981, Rubeta Brown and her 11-year-old sister, Barbara Jo, walked to a convenience store near their home in Luling, Louisiana. Y'all that is in St. Charles Parish. Again, down there in the El Paso area and all that kind of outside New

Orleans, but across the swamp. So, they walked to use the telephone. 19-year old Brogdon and his 17-year old friend, Bruce Perritt, arrived at the store while Rubeta was on the phone.

Perritt approached Barbara Jo and put his arm around her. Rubeta called her sister away, and the two left. On the way home, Barbara Jo asked her sister if she could visit a neighbor's home for a few minutes. Rubeta allowed her sister to leave her to do so. Rubeta went to the neighbor's house, about 10 minutes later to pick up Barbara Jo. Barbara Jo wasn't there. And after short search in the neighborhood, Rubeta informed her mother that Barbara Jo was missing. And they called the sheriff's office.

After that, a friend of Barbara Jo's came forward to say that he had seen Barbara Jo earlier that evening in a car seated between Brogdon and Perritt. Two men discovered Barbara Jo's body later that evening behind a levee. Again, y'all levee are high dirt walls, usually dirt, sometimes cement, hold back the rivers in the water. But anyway, they saw him behind the levee in Luling. And look, you get no fucking business being behind a levee, period.

Jim: Yeah, especially in Luling.

Woody: Right. Perritt's car was found parked a short distance away. Two other men later informed authorities that they had seen Brogdon and Perritt walking on the road near this levee. Brogdon was without a shirt and appeared disheveled. Brogdon and Perritt were arrested that evening at Brogdon's home on suspicion of Barbara Jo's murder. After being informed of his Miranda rights at the sheriff's office, Brogdon waived his right to counsel and confessed to the murder and aggravated rape of Barbara Jo. In his statement, Brogdon told how he and Perritt tortured and killed her. Instead of visiting the mother's home that night, Barbara Jo had returned to the convenience store and met with Brogdon and Perritt. The confession-- Well, that's their story, y'all. Confession admitted that after they picked her up at the convenience store, Brogdon and Perritt drove her to the levee where her body was later found.

They repeatedly raped her and forced her to perform oral sex on them. All during these acts, they beat Barbara Jo with their fists. They also broke bottles on the cement and then stabbed her repeatedly with the edges. Perritt also struck Barbara Jo in the head with a brick that he found lay nearby. Brogdon then beat her with the brick. The two also used pointed sticks to pierce her body. Brogdon and Perritt left the scene of the crime and Perritt's vehicle when they heard another car approached and they hauled ass in Perritt's vehicle.

Brogdon was convicted by St. Charles jury of murder and aggravated rape and sentenced to death. So he was executed on July 30, 1987. Brogdon and his co-defendant Bruce Perritt were convicted of raping, beating. We told you about all that. Perritt received a life sentence, y'all, because the jury deadlocked in the penalty phase. I don't know what fucking--

Jim: Some juror. Yeah.

Woody: -idiots on that jury. Brogdon made no formal final statement. As he turned to seat

himself in the electric chair, his last words were, "God bless y'all." It's crazy, right? Jim: Horrible.

Woody: We do some really uplifting stories. We've done some great, great shit. But sometimes, you got to let it be known. Wow.

Jim: How the cow eats a cabbage.

Woody: Right. [crosstalk] -the worst fucking place in the world.

Jim: Yeah. These people that are getting executed are not always angels. Woody: They did everything to that girl. Poor-- [crosstalk]

Jim: Blind woman. That's just awful. Thank y'all so much for supporting us. We hope y'all enjoyed this episode. We've got a Part 3 that we'll drop at some point that you'll really like as well. But we just thank y'all for all you do for us.

Woody: Definitely patron members, hope you're enjoying your commercial free, early releases, and all your bonus episodes, and everything else. And you want to be a patron member, you can go to patreon.com, type in Bloody Angola.

Jim: Yes. And it'll pull it right up.

Woody: Follow us on Facebook, and look for Bloody Angola announcements and everything Real Life Real Crime, including Real Life Real Crime app, and follow our other show, Real Life Real Crime Daily, [crosstalk] me and Mike Agovino.

Jim: Yeah, absolutely.

Woody: Original Real Life Real Crimes like the one I'm going to tell you about with Mingo

involved in it. It drops on Tuesdays as of now, y'all. Jim: Until next time, I'm Jim Chapman.

Woody: And I'm Woody Everton.

Jim: Your host of Bloody-

Woody: -Angola.

Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making.

Woody: Complete story of America's bloodiest prison.

Jim and Woody: Peace.

[Bloody Angola theme]

n this episode of Bloody Angola Woody Overton and Jim Chapman wrap up this amazing series with part 3 of the story of legendary Warden Burl Cain. Burl Cain was the longest serving Warden in the history of Louisiana State Penitentiary and his vision and reforms changed this historic prison forever. This docu-series is the most anticipated and sought after we have ever done on Bloody Angola Podcast and it starts now!

#BloodyAngolaPodcast #BurlCain #Becomingthewarden #Louisianastatepenitentiary #PrisonWarden #Podcasts #Dixoncorrectionalinstitute #DCI #MDOC

Our Sponsors for this episode have a great deal for you!

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In this episode of Bloody Angola Woody Overton and Jim Chapman continue with part 2 of the story of legendary Warden Burl Cain. Burl Cain was the longest serving Warden in the history of Louisiana State Penitentiary and his vision and reforms changed this historic prison forever. This docu-series is the most anticipated and sought after we have ever done on Bloody Angola Podcast and it starts now!

#BloodyAngolaPodcast #BurlCain #Becomingthewarden #Louisianastatepenitentiary #PrisonWarden #Podcasts #Dixoncorrectionalinstitute #DCI #MDOC

Our Sponsors for this episode have a great deal for you!

GET 16 FREE MEALS PLUS FREE SHIPPING AT HELLOFRESH!

HelloFresh delivers step-by-step recipes and fresh, pre-portioned ingredients right to your door. First, you set your meal plan preferences with options for carnivores, vegetarians, calorie-counters, and more. You'll choose from 30+ delicious weekly recipes carefully put together by the amazing chefs!

Click Here to Take advantage of 16 FREE MEALS and FREE SHIPPING!

In this episode of Bloody Angola Woody Overton and Jim Chapman tell the story of legendary Warden Burl Cain. Burl Cain was the longest serving Warden in the history of Louisiana State Penitentiary and his vision and reforms changed this historic prison forever. This docu-series is the most anticipated and sought after we have ever done on Bloody Angola Podcast and it starts now!

#BloodyAngolaPodcast #BurlCain #Becomingthewarden #Louisianastatepenitentiary #PrisonWarden #Podcasts #Dixoncorrectionalinstitute #DCI #MDOC

Our Sponsors for this episode have a great deal for you!

GET 16 FREE MEALS PLUS FREE SHIPPING AT HELLOFRESH!

HelloFresh delivers step-by-step recipes and fresh, pre-portioned ingredients right to your door. First, you set your meal plan preferences with options for carnivores, vegetarians, calorie-counters, and more. You'll choose from 30+ delicious weekly recipes carefully put together by the amazing chefs!

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FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW

BECOMING THE WARDEN: THE LEGACY AND LEGEND THAT IS BURL CAIN PART 1

Jim: Hey, everyone, and welcome back to Bloody-

Woody: -Angola.

Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making. 

Woody: The Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison. 

Jim: And I'm Jim Chapman. 

Woody: And I'm Woody Overton. 

Jim: And we're back, Woody Overton. 

Woody: Back in the saddle. 

Jim: Back in effect. 

Woody: Back in effect. 

Jim: And we're bringing y'all a hell of a story today. Highly requested.

Woody: Yes. A legend.

Jim: Legend. Someone you have some experience with. 

Woody: I do. I have a lot of years of experience with him. Solid dude. They can say whatever they want to. Everybody's going to have their haters or whatever. And certainly, he marches to the beat of a different drummer, but he's a visionary and has affected so many lives. 

Jim: Boy, he sure has. And I'll tell you, as far as research, I've probably enjoyed researching this man more than just about anyone I've researched.

Woody: I've read his book years ago when it came out. Of course, I have the family history at Angola and all that, and of course, my personal history with him. Just super, super intelligent, super unique.

Jim: Yeah, very. I think that's a great word to describe him. And of course, if you're hanging by a thread right now trying to figure out who we're talking about, it is the legendary warden of Angola, Burl Cain. So, we're going to start off and we're just going to take you through a journey of his life.

Woody: Yeah. And I think it's so important, this research that you put together, a lot of it I didn't know, especially about the early years. And I don't know how they haven't made a movie about him yet, honestly. 

Jim: It's got to be coming at some point. 

Woody: Y'all, we've done a couple of series before, but not real long ones or anything. But it's going to be several parts to this. But you got to stay tuned because every one of them is going to kick you. 

Jim: Yeah. So, to start off, he was born in Pitkin, Louisiana, and I was not familiar with Pitkin. 

Woody: Small town in Vernon Parish. 

Jim: Vernon Parish. And for those of you that are kind of wondering where Vernon Parish is, that's on the Texas line. It's in the center of the state all the way to the westernmost.

Woody: If you're familiar with Toledo Bend, the largest lake and kind of splits Louisiana. Texas too, but fantastic for fishing, all that. It's real close to that. Kind of a piney woods area, but really, really rural. Shit, there's not even any major highways to get over there. From off the Interstate 49, which runs north and south, splits the state. Shit, it's probably hour and a half, two hours from there. 

Jim: Yeah. And he actually described it in an interview one time, and he said, "We didn't even have a stoplight."

Woody: Yeah, well, my hometown still doesn't have a stoplight.

Jim: [laughs] So, you think about that, folks. He went from that to warden of the largest maximum-security prison in the United States which, first of all, goes to show you that it doesn't matter where you're from, it doesn't matter, hard work and really destined. I think he was kind of touched by God to do what he does. He's 80 years old as of today. 

Woody: So, he is a couple of years younger than my dad. Actually, maybe one year because my dad was born the week before Peral Harbor, and he was born on July 2nd, 1942. 

Jim: And still going.

Woody: Still going, very, very healthy. 

Jim: We're going to get into that. 

Woody: But he grew up on a farm, y'all, that's where he developed his work ethic. And let me tell you something, this dude can work. 

Jim: Let me tell you, if you're 80 years old-- look, if I make 80, I'm considering that a success. When you're 80 and you're still working, that tells you who he is as far as his work ethic is concerned. He grew up on a farm that would play a huge role in his future development. And he grew up in a very religious house. 

Woody: Right. Back then, not knocking it, but a lot of people, especially ones that were raised on farms, their parents had to raise them as help. I mean, they worked. 

Jim: That's right. You needed help, you had another kid.

Woody: Talking about throwing hay, tending animals and cows and everything else and working the gardens. And hey, there wasn't any PlayStations and cable TV or anything. Hell, they're lucky if they had electricity. 

Jim: And you woke up 4:30 in the morning to milk them cows and do all those things. 

Woody: You didn't have a problem going to bed at dark with your ass tired.

Jim: You were tired. And his household was very religious, y'all, extremely religious. He attended church, as he described it, every time the doors were open since birth. And he didn't even dance. He wasn't allowed to dance or attend dancing--[crosstalk] 

Woody: And I had a lot of people that I grew up with that were the same way. That just wasn't acceptable. People talk about Bible Belt, I can't say Vernon is directly, but I know there's some count-- not counties, parishes over there that are actually dry. They don't sell alcohol. They're Bible Belt. So, down here where south Louisiana, where everything goes, and then you hit that area of the state, it was borderline to the west of Alexandria and all that, but they were really, really country, and the farther north you go, the more country getting. There's a couple of dry parishes in the state, and this area would have been one of them.

Jim: No doubt. At his age, being born in '42, he was kind of hitting those late teenage years when Elvis Presley-

Woody: Absolutely.

Jim: -was big. So, I'd love to sit him down and ask him, "How did you avoid dance when Elvis Presley came on the radio?"

Woody: He didn't have a radio. 

Jim: [laughs] Yeah, that's it. That's probably exactly what he would say. "I was out there milking cows. I wasn't worried about the King." Also, Burl Cain never dreamed he would be a prison warden growing up. Of course, being from such a small town, that'd be like most people dreaming they were going to be an astronaut. It just didn't seem possible. As a matter of fact, he remembers vividly fearing Angola, as it was common for his mother to tell him, "If you don't straighten up, you're going to end up in Angola." It was a threat, matter of fact. 

Woody: And one thing they did even back then, believe it or not, is most schools, once a year, certain age group of kids, they bus them to Angola. And of course, it was educational for them, and they didn't hold back. They took you down the walks and stuff like that, and they fed you the prison food, and they were like, most girls be crying and shit like that, and they're like, "I ain't never coming to this motherfucker."

Jim: Yeah. It was used as a form of threat. And so, he had another dream. And believe it or not, y'all, he wanted to be a veterinarian.

Woody: Yeah, he wanted to be a vet. And when he graduated from high school, he went to LSU Alexandria campus, y'all, that's a satellite campus, and they have one in Alexandria and one in Shreveport to do just that. But he struggled coming from a small town where the chemistry side of school basically was a fight for him. And they just didn't teach a whole lot beyond the basics, like the element charts and stuff like that at his high school. So, he switched to something that was more prevalent in the areas from and that's agriculture, education. Let me tell you something, vet school is tough. You might as well go and become a doctor. Nowadays, you got to have a four point whatever just to get in, and there's no guarantee you're going to make it. And it's heavy, heavy on sciences. 

Jim: A lot of people don't realize LSU has probably the best vet school, if not one of the best in the country. 

Woody: So, imagine this, coming from probably my hometown, I graduated we had 28 in my graduating class. Still don't have a red light to this day. I submit to you that his town was smaller. And back then, they didn't test for the kids to pass the test. You just got the books, you know Jim, it was a different type of education. And they were just giving your basics.

But the ag part, growing up on a farm, he already knew tons about it. And pretty much everyone in his family were teachers. So, he settled on basically just working towards a life of teaching after college, which I think is very unique now that I know him.

Jim: Right. You look back on that life and you see how those skills benefited him, even though he wasn't in the world of education when he really got going. So, he graduates from LSU in agriculture education. He starts teaching at a high school, and [chuckles] he figures out in about three months' time that teaching is not easy.

Woody: Not at the high school level.

Jim: Yeah, not at the high school level. So, he figured, "This ain't for me." He lasted about three months, and he went to work for the state of Louisiana at what's known as the Louisiana Farm Bureau. 

Woody: Yeah, Louisiana, of course, our number one industry is oil and gas. It's kind of a tossup between the two, but then you have seafood, and then it's agriculture. And the seafood and agriculture are kind of on the same level. Like, where I'm from, it's all farms, we raise trees. So, agriculture is beyond just raising cows. It's growing trees. It's everything that you can profit from in the long run by growing it or raising it.

Jim: That's right. And he was a master of that, having grown up in it, and then got official education in it. And in 1976--

Woody: '76, I was six years old.

Jim: I was two. [laughs] In 1976, he finally starts his career in state government, and he started out with the Louisiana Department of Corrections as the Assistant Secretary for Agribusiness.

Woody: And that's huge. Now, I'm going to be honest with you, and this is just a straight-up truth, and it's how I got my state government job, my first one with the Department of Corrections. Actually, when I was in high school, I got a job. One of the local state reps got me a job cutting grass at the state-run old folks' home and the Villa. So, when he gets this job with the state, there's a lot of things that go along with that. One of them is, and I have some personal knowledge of this, I'll tell y'all probably on the next episode, one of them is you're civil service. And there's a lot of protections afforded to you through the civil service. And you get your guaranteed raises. You're never going to get rich, but you have protection. There's a certain comfort level of that.

Jim: Yeah, they can't just fire you.

Woody: Right. Real quick. When I left the university PD, we were civil service, to go to the sheriff's office, and they were like, "Why would you leave a civil service job to go somewhere where you're an at will employee?" I said, "Well, I don't need civil service to save my job." But civil service, and this is the truth, this is how much protection you have, if I was state police and I walked in my captain's office and I got on his desk and I took a shit on his desk, the first time, all they can do is give you a verbal warning. The second time, I go in and take a shit on his desk, then they can write you up for it. And the third time, they can fire you. There's only certain offenses like drugs or whatever that they can fire you for on the spot. 

Jim: Did you ever take a shit on his desk? [laughs] 

Woody: No, I didn’t. I didn't have a captain either. I answered to the colonel. But just an example. And they say, it's like the Snark missile. For you who don't remember, during the Iraq War, Saddam had these missiles called Snarks. Every time they were developed and every time they fire them, the fuckers blow up. And so, they said, civil service employee is like a Snark missile. You can't fire and you can't make it work. That's not true. A lot of the best people in the world are lifetime state employees, and a lot of my dear friends are. 

Jim: Absolutely. And look, y'all, this is 1976, so the economy is down at this point in time. That was a really good job. And of course, look, any sort of state job at that level, sometimes you got to know somebody, Woody Overton.

Woody: Absolutely. 

Jim: That ain't changed. That's been that way since the beginning of time.

Woody: [crosstalk] -is and it's Louisiana. 

Jim: That's right. 

Woody: I got my job at Department of Corrections because my dad pulled some strings with politicians. 

Jim: Sure. And that was a good job. And this was a downtime in the economy. So, Burl freely admits, and he said this on many interviews, that his brother was instrumental in getting him that job. His brother, y'all, and whether you're aware of this or not, was a senator from the state of Louisiana. 

Woody: They look almost identical. I'm surprised that they're not twins. 

Jim: Yeah. So, he starts that job, and he's a rockstar at it. He's doing great, and in 1981, he gets an opportunity. 

Woody: 10 years before I went there. In 1981, he became the Warden of Dixon Correctional Institute, known as DCI. And he was only 38.

Jim: Only 38, warden of the prison. 

Woody: When I met him, it was in '90 or '91, and of course, he had been the warden for 10 years. DCI, y'all, it's a mixed security prison, and this is kind of a misnomer here too, but mixed security, meaning it has medium, maximum, and some trusty camps. The trusty camps would be like-- Jackson, Louisiana, is full of state-run facilities. Villa, like I was telling you about, geriatric home, state run. The hospital from mentally insane, which is basically on DCI property, right across the street from their Claiborne. And it has the state-run mental hospital. If you don't have healthcare and you legitimately to be, I'd say crazy, what's politically correct term? 

Jim: Nuts. [laughs] 

Woody: If you're literally nuts, you went there. Look, I had an aunt who spent most of her life in that hospital. Then, you have DCI. It's all these state run-- the war vets home was there. Biggest state war vets home is there. So, you have all these state-run facilities. And I guarantee you, all my people from Jackson, I've got family from there, all of them were state employees, one facility or another. So, DCI is located right outside of Jackson, y'all, which is about 40 minutes north of Baton Rouge. Small town still to this day. One major road running through it. And then, DCI is off of one of those roads.

But the mixed security, the main camp at DCI where I worked, you had two maximum security camps. And then, they had the satellite, the trusty camp at the state mental hospital. And that's because they took everything there. They were orderlies and took care of the grounds and the whole nine yards. And I used to go to little peewee football practice on the state ground. And there, the prisoners would line up on the fence, all the trustys. And years later on extra duty shifts, I would go pick up and I'd go be the guard at the trusty camp there. But they do that for economic reasons, and Burl had them do that for economic reasons because they didn't have to bust them back and forth to work every day. 

Jim: Wow. 

Woody: And so, they were there around the clock. And they were instrumental in all the state-run facilities, the trustees, the cow barns and everything. I'm talking about, look, DCI wasn't 18,000 acres, but it was a lot, but spread out in different areas. The cow barns and all that, shit, they raised cattle for the state of Louisiana. But anyway, it was there. Burl--

Jim: 38 years old.

Woody: Yeah, I didn't know that--[crosstalk]

Jim: Damn, when I was 38, there's no way I'm running a prison. I'm lucky to stay out of prison. 

Woody: You're right. I was in Texas still when I was 38.

Jim: Yeah, really amazing and a huge opportunity. And guess what? It was his first experience as being a warden, what he would become just an absolute legend for it. At that time, DCI had about 1400 inmates. That was its capacity. And it was female and male, which made it different from other prisons. It was also relatively new. It had been built in 1976, so it was only six years old. That's like the state-of-the-art presence, especially compared to Angola at that time, which was hundred years old.

Woody: By the time I got there in '91, there were no females there. It was probably like 2500, they had added on to it. 

Jim: So, no females at that time, gotcha. 

Woody: And then, the other kicker is, and I forgot to mention this earlier, so I say it's about 40 minutes north of Baton Rouge. Well, guess what? It's only 30 miles from Bloody Angola. It's East and West Louisiana. I was born and raised in Clinton, where my grandfather was a judge, but West Feliciana butts up to it. My mama was from West Feliciana, where her daddy was the DA during this time, actually. But that 30 miles is deceiving because back then, they had the old road to Bloody Angola and that wound up the Tunica Hills and part of it's gravel and shit. And when you turn it off at 61, it took you another 40 minutes to get from there, the last 10 miles to get in. 

Jim: It seemed like 300 miles. It was not what you would call picturesque. You're not looking at the Rockies when you're going down the highway. This is where Cain coined what would eventually be one of his most famous phrases. He started at the facility, and as is common, your first day on the job as warden, you're going to have a meeting with all of your people, and you're going to learn the ins and outs of this prison, things that maybe the outgoing warden didn't tell you. And one of the things he found out was that they had no worship services for the inmates. And it was where he kind of coined the phrase, "moral rehabilitation." 

Woody: He carried that [crosstalk] to talk about it, but he still carries to this day. And he was serious about it. 

Jim: Yeah. It was, as a matter of fact, one of the first things he changed at Dixon, was bringing religion into prisons, something that, look, we're going to talk a lot about. So, he becomes a rockstar again. He's just killing it at Dixon. 

Woody: Let me tell you just a couple real quick stories, and I know I'm going off script, but I met him the first time, I think it was 1990 or 1991, and I got hired. So, he had what they call the White House. And the White House was an administrative building. I had to go to the White House, do paperwork and stuff like that, but I hadn't seen him. And then they put me on the largest rec room-- after I got back from Angola, doing my training and all that. They put me on the largest rec room at DCI. And long story short, I ended up getting in a fight with him because the captain told me, you give them direct orders like, "Hey, do this," and if they don't do it, you can arrest them for it. And so, one of them I told to come with me, and he turned around, ran out in the yard, and I had to hit my pager and get the captain to come. And the captain went out there and got him and arrested him. He said, "But next time you do it, you hit your pager, and you use whatever force necessary to bring the situation out of control." 

Well, it wasn't two weeks later, Sunday night, they turned off the lights in the dorm, and I told him to clear the rec room, except for the night guys that were up. And one guy was standing on the back wall by the water fountain with his foot up on the wall. And we said, "Get to your house." And I told him, "Get to your house." And he just kind of looked at me. I said, "I'm not going to tell you again. Get to your house." And he didn't move. And so, I hit my pager, and I said, "Well, you're under arrest. You're coming with me?" He said, "Fuck you." And he turned around, walked into the dorm, which was closing down at that time. The lights and the inmates are shuffling back and forth, getting the water, going to the bathroom, and I tackled him, and the fist fight was on. 

So, Captain Raymond Newman said, he said, "Man, when I hit that rec room door, and I was long ways away from it," he said, "And I didn't see you." He said, "I knew it sure had turned to shit. I knew shit was going down." And what happened was that there's a couple of fireable offenses. One, if you get caught having sex with an inmate or you get caught bringing in contraband or sleeping on duty, civil service doesn't protect you for that. And the biggest one is if another officer is in a fight and you don't help them, then you can be fired on the spot.

Well, there's two sergeants on the dorm. I'm fighting with this guy. I didn't think I could start a riot. And I'm fighting with this guy, and he's a big dude, and one of the sergeant is trying to help me, the other froze up, didn't want to do anything. Newman came in. Long story short, we get him out. We were punching, we were punching. My eye was swollen and stuff. Long story short, Ray gets me to the office. He said, "You got to go home." I'm like, "Fucking getting fired, man." I said, "Ray, you told me, use whatever force necessary. He wouldn't stop and put my hands on, and he went to fight." And he said, "You could have started a fucking riot, man. You realize that? You got to go home, and we'll call you." I'm like, "Fuck, I'm getting fired." So, they called me on Monday morning, and he said, "You need to report to Warden Cain's office." 

Jim: [chuckles] Oh, shit. 

Woody: My first time in a life on the carpet, besides the military, being called on the carpet, it means you know you're going to get your ass shoot to get fired or whatever. And he brought me in, and I'll never forget it. He actually got up from behind his desk and he shook my hand. He said, "Sergeant Overton, come on in. Have a seat. Boy, tell me what happened." I said, "Warden Cain, Captain Newman, he was in there." I wasn’t trying to throw him on the bus. I said, "This is what happened before. He told me next time, use whatever force necessary to bring the situation under control. And so, I did. We ended up fighting." He leaned back and steepled his fingers a little bit, kind of like [unintelligible [00:26:36] would. Warden Cain, he's not big in stature, he's not tall, but he's not fat, but he's kind of-- I don't want to say heavy set, he's more of a round of shape. You wouldn't think this guy has such a presence, but he does, but he was just super, super nice. 

He said, "All right, son, I get that. I appreciate you taking an initiative. But I'm going to send you somewhere where you could fight every single night." I said, "Well, where is that?" He said, "I'm going to send you to the working cell block. That's where we have our worst of our worst, and somebody's going to be--" You know what, he would curse sometimes. As religious as he was, and he probably did say ass-- when he got mad, he'd curse. But he said, "I'm going to send you back there." And believe me, I passed this down to all the guys I trained over the years. I would tell them, I say, "Look, you don't have to go out of your way put your hands on somebody to look for shit because there's enough assholes out there that are legitimately going to give you a reason to fight them, when you go to arrest them or whatever." He said, "I'm to going put you back there." And I did it, and I rose up as a superstar. And every time he'd see me, he'd say, "How are you doing, Sergeant Overton?"

Jim: Love that story, and I'm sure you've got several. And what we're going to do, folks, is this is going to be a docuseries. So, this is going to be three episodes. In the third episode, we're going to have Kelly Jennings, who also has some experience with Burl Cain on the show. And it's going to be storytelling time with Woody and Kelly. And they're going to tell some stories that are just fire.

Woody: We need to promote that.

Jim: Yeah.

Woody: The last episode is going to be The True Stories.

Jim: The True Stories. 

Woody: From Woody-

Jim: From Woody. [chuckles]  

Woody: -and female Woody.

[chuckles] 

Jim: Yeah. You can't get no better than that. Look, I got the best seat in the house, and I'm going to be kind of the moderator of what will be an amazing episode coming up just in a couple of weeks. We're going to move on. Look, Warden Cain, he became an absolute star. He made a name for himself. And of course, he had a brother that was in politics. And so, they knew the Cain name. And in 1995, the warden of Angola, a guy by the name of John Whitley, who at some point we're going to do a story on, but John Whitley was retiring. And so, secretary at that time was Richard Stalder. 

Woody: And he was the head of the Department of Corrections when I was there also. 

Jim: That secretary he is kind of like who is the boss of the wardens.

Woody: He's the boss of all the prisons. 

Jim: Yeah. Outside of the governor, he is the top person in the prison system. And he announces the new warden will be the warden at that time of DCI, which was Burl Cain. Now, you may be surprised to know something. Burl Cain did not want that job. [laughs] 

Woody: Yeah. And that's because he knew that wardens in Angola didn't last long.

Jim: That's right. 

Woody: I think they averaged just over five years of service because Angola was so bad, y'all, and somebody had to be the scapegoat for the bad things that happened. But he wasn't left much of a choice. He had the most experience of any warden in the state of Louisiana with his 14 years at DCI. So, he took it.

Jim: Secretary Stalder just basically said, "You're going to be the warden of Angola."

Woody: When he took it, I tell you, it was truly bloody Angola, and they were under all this federal scrutiny and everything else. And he's like, "Mm, don't want to do it." I'm sure it was a challenge to him, but he didn't want to lose what he had going on.

Jim: No. You're 14 years at one place, you have a system, it's working. You're looked at as a rockstar in the system, and now you're being sent another challenge. You're comfortable. You don't want to have to do that. But also, Angola had some issues. There were 300 attacks on the staff and 766 inmate-on-inmate assaults, half of which were--

Woody: That was in one year, the year before he went there. And this was right around when I was getting out of corrections, he left right after I left DCI. And he went up there but, fuck, I knew about it. I mean, you heard about it. It didn't make the news every day, but it made the correctional officer grapevine. It was bad shit.

Jim: Yeah. I remember when he was announced as the warden of Angola, and if you were from the state of Louisiana, I mean, that was big news. Big news. Side note to that, this may or may not seem out of order, but I'm going to mention it now. He was actually still living at DCI throughout-- Wardens typically live at the prison they're at.

Woody: They have very nice homes that are provided to them by the state at no cost. It's part of your salary, and it's maintained by the convicts and all that. He took the job. But shit, nobody wants to move-- especially back then, wants to move to Angola, not even on the B-Line, because it's so fucking far away. I knew his wife at the time, and then he was there, and he's got kids and the whole nine yards.

Jim: Well, and you may wonder who took his place at DCI. Well, Jimmy Le Blanc took his place there. They were good friends. 

Woody: Jimmy was an underwarden to Burl at the time. And so basically, Burl Cain tapped him to take it over. 

Jim: Right. And he made a deal with him. He said, "Look, take it over. I think you would be a great replacement for me, but I ain't moving out of my house." [laughs] He literally said that. And Jimmy Le Blanc was okay with that. In the state of Louisiana, they gave Jimmy Le Blanc kind of a stipend for the home he was already living in, because that's considered a perk. It's a huge perk. 

Woody: It's a big part of your salary. And I'm sure you have it in here, Jim, that when Stalder retired, Jim Le Blanc ultimately became the head of the corrections--[crosstalk] 

Jim: Yeah, we'll be getting into that. But just to finish that point up, Cain lived at DCI, y'all until 1999. And what prompted him to actually leave was the murder of Captain David Knapps in Angola. And we'll get into that in the second episode. 

Woody: Captain David Knapps was a multi-generational correctional officer, and he lived on the B-Line. And that's all he ever knew. His father done and his grandfather done, his brothers and everybody-- he lived there. And he was brutally murdered in '99 during an attempted prison escape. And we're going to cover that. Ultimately, he's a superhero, but Burl would have been his boss for almost five years at that time.

One thing I'm going to tell you about Burl Cain, is as any good leader in any good spot, if your people take care of you, you damn well going to take care of your people. And you're going to know who they are, and you're going to promote them up and everything because, unfortunately, and I've said this many times, and I felt this, I truly did believe this, some of the people that you worked with in corrections were shittier than the convicts. I think that plays into the whole civil service thing, because you can't fire them, you can't make them work, and they knew the rulebooks and all that, but absolutely 95% of them were the best people in the world. But Burl knew who were his rising stars and who would run whatever, and David Knapps was one of them. 

Jim: Look, being a good leader, one of the best attributes you can have is being able to spot other good leaders.

Woody: And I've had so many, and I'm telling you, I think he is probably one of the best leaders I've ever had. And I'm talking about my military career, my police career, my corrections career, whatever. 

Jim: Yeah, you've been around a lot of them.

Woody: And I took a lot of his leadership skills from him. Like that day when I was trouble in his office, I mean, if I'd have been a turd, he'd have fired me. But no, he gave me freedom to run. And he knew I was going to handle my business.

Jim: Yeah. So, imagine you're Burl Cain, it's 1995, February, and you're now in charge of the largest maximum-security prison in America. 18,000 acres of sheer intimidation.

Woody: And the worst of the worst.

Jim: And the worst of the worst.

Woody: I would put those guys up there against any convict in the world as far as the horrificness of the crimes, etc. 

Jim: So, warden gets there, and one of the first things he did was he outlines his philosophy to the inmates, and I'm going to quote him here. He said, "Your dorm is like a city or a community. The beds and houses along that are the street, with the street being the aisle itself. So, three beds down is like saying three houses down. You should visit your neighbors." 

Woody: He'd actually say that, yeah. 

Jim: "Counsel your neighbors and be concerned for each other. Keep your city free from drugs and violence. And don't curse. Once you start cursing each other, violence is sure to follow." That was his philosophy. 

Woody: Absolute genius. And do you know that to this day that's what they call their bunks and stuff as their houses? 

Jim: Yeah. Well, it essentially is.

Woody: And the aisles, because these big long aisles that run in between rows of bunks and they call them their streets. 

Jim: That's their streets. 

Woody: Isn't that crazy? 

Jim: It is. 

Woody: I never knew Burl was the one that coined that phrase. 

Jim: Yeah. And so, I'm going to tell you a quick story here, Woody and I both, and this is about when he went to Angola, he had to deal with one thing he didn't have to really deal with at DCI, and that was executions. I don't care who you are, I don't care how blessed you are to deal with certain things, that's hard for anybody.

Woody: And keeping in mind that Burl-- when I knew him, as far as I know to this day, he's a very strong Christian man. 

Jim: Absolutely. His first experience with that was with an inmate by the name of Thomas Ward. And this would play probably-- I bet, if Burl was sitting across from us, and Warden Cain, if you'd ever like to sit across from us, we'd love to have you. I've tried to reach out to your guy. But if he was sitting across from us, he'd probably say this changed him more than anything else he's ever done.

It was just after midnight, Warden Cain found himself alone. He was in the death chamber with Thomas Ward. And without one word, Woody, he lifts his hand, he gives a thumbs down signal, which he would later say he hated. He hated doing that. It did not feel right to him, but it was a signal that was common to give to the executioner. This was lethal injection. So, when you would issue that lethal dose, he would give that thumbs down signal. The lethal dose gets administered, and six minutes later, Ward was dead. It was Cain's first execution.

Now, immediately, Cain began to regret that signal, as I told you. His uneasiness, it started to grow. He felt guilty because he never found out Ward's spiritual condition that night or before. He just basically ordered the lethal dose to be administered. Warden Cain actually was quoted as saying, "He didn't utter a word as we strapped him to the gurney. When the time came to ask him if he had anything to say, he didn't answer. He just choked up." The execution took place only three months, y'all, after Cain took over as warden and completely spearheaded the change that we're about to tell you in that prison.

Woody: So, real quick, let's go back to that. We've talked about executions before on the show, but now in the execution chamber, the warden is the one that's in there, and they have to read the death warrant. But giving that thumbs down, he didn't know what he was going to feel. It's the first time he ever basically legally murdered someone, and that's it. But I know as a Christian man, he just saw somebody being murdered, even though it's legal murder. He just saw the state of Louisiana take a human being's life, and he knows that he's not in there for being a choir boy, but as a Christian, he's thinking, "Mm, you know what? I should have talked to him. And even if he told me, 'Go to hell, I don't believe in Jesus,' I'd have done my job as a Christian to try to spread the word, to give him a chance to call on Jesus to repent." 

Jim: That's right. And he had a conversation with his mother, Woody, after this. It bothered him that much. And his mom said, "You need to do everything you can to get those guys spiritually ready to meet the Lord, because you're going to have to answer for that."

Woody: Because--[crosstalk] 

Jim: Yeah, me too.

Woody: When you have that opportunity, and so very few people do, to ever have an opportunity to talk to someone that you know is about to die, and even like I said, even if they reject you, you don't take that opportunity, you have to answer for it. 

Jim: You're going to have to answer for it, and it bothered him. Literally, this was the start, y'all, and we can't even dictate into words how huge this is. But this was the start of a change at Angola. Not to sound like Donald Trump, but like nothing you've ever seen. Just unbelievable. He started instituting what he called, and this was another phrase that he coined, "cultural change." The first thing he did, and thank God, Woody was not working there at this time.

Woody: Right. I'd have been damn sure been in trouble for it.

Jim: He banned cursing by guards and inmates. Now, you can only control that so much, but it was definitely frowned upon. I think that's why he banned it. 

Woody: Actually, they put it in the rulebook after that that you can't curse. 

Jim: Yeah. And he believed that cursing led to other things. It wasn't the curse word itself. Now, as Woody said, he said one every now and then, but it was when it was appropriate. 

Woody: I said it, I'm not going to lie. 

[laughter] 

Woody: What he's talking about-- I got to interject again. 

Jim: Sure. 

Woody: What he's talking about is, I would carry this later on. When I talk to the younger guys and say, "Listen, most of the time when you're dealing with people, you're dealing with them on their worst day. They're going to be upset, they're going to be screaming, they're going to be cursing. So, you should start out nice as can be." Look, when I was in the street, unless we were fighting or something, we didn't curse people. Will Graves [unintelligible 00:43:37] would have hung your ass or any department I work for. I said, "You always start out low and treat them super kind, even if they're cursing you and berating you, start out low, because then if you need to jump up and escalate, they'll be surprised."

But one person cursing at another one, it's not going to end well usually. Especially between men, and one of them has never had any respect for authority in their entire life, and they hate you as a correctional officer. What is he doing with this just simple thing? By taking out curse words or trying to take out curse words, he is making a mutual level of respect. You take that off, that gasoline that can do no good. Somebody's going to feel degraded, somebody's going to be pissed off, say, "Fuck you, Jim Chapman. You're a dick," where's it going from there? 

Jim: That's right. Fisticuff. 

Woody: If you give me a direct verbal order, and I'm like, "Yessir." Then, I can go write you up. There's other ways to handle it. So, that was genius on Burl's part.

Jim: It really was. And he also instituted cleanliness, like we told you earlier, he had this conversation with the inmates where he said, "This is your house. Keep your house clean. Encourage your neighbors to keep their house clean. Cut your grass." 

Woody: Most of them come from lifestyles that they never had anything clean. They lived in the hoods, they were raised around cursing, they had no respect for anything. And he's just trying to give them the base things. Just because you're in prison, doesn't mean you're not living. 

Jim: That's right. And he started inviting kind of the outside world. Look, let me tell y'all real quick. One of the hardest things to do for me in preparation for these shows is research. And why is that? Because we're dealing with a prison where not a lot gets out, for obvious reasons and I get it, but it requires an enormous amount of work to dig up some of this stuff because it just doesn't get out. He, at the beginning, was very open with inviting people into the prison, letting them see-- look, Barbara Walters, which we'll tell you a story on later, came into the prison and actually did I think it was a 2020 special on the executions that take place there. So it was a huge thing on that front. But his message initially was, "We don't have anything to hide, and we want to let people in here, see what we're doing to change what is in a horrible situation."

Woody: Yeah. "Not that we're perfect by far, but we're not hiding anything." The culture in the past was, shit, loose lips sink ships. What happens in Angola, dies in Angola. 

Jim: So, I know y'all are ready for something here. And that is what was one of the more historic changes that he made right off the bat, well, we got it for you. One of the first, maybe one of the most controversial changes that he made, but this is Burl Cain genius right here. So, he's sitting there-- I'm assuming he's sitting at his desk one morning, this is how I'm picturing it. And he says, "We got a problem. Our death row inmates, most of them can't read and they can't write." It might surprise y'all to know that they didn't offer any sort of education, even as simple as reading and writing to death row inmates.

Woody: They just locked them up. 

Jim: Yeah. So, you might say to yourself, "Well, who cares?" Burl Cain cared. And the reason he cared was not-- these are condemned men, so they're probably not getting out. Although we have done many stories with you guys where people were exonerated and didn't do it. So, there are those situations. But his thing was, if they can't read and they can't write, especially if they can't read, they can't read the Bible. That was a problem for him. He didn't like that.

Woody: That's exactly right.

Jim: And so, it was the first change he made, was he said, "We're going to offer education to our death row inmates." That's huge, Woody Overton. 

Woody: That’s huge. Like you said, most of them had never had any kind of education. Right? 

Jim: Right. 

Woody: Ultimately, y'all, during this time, the death penalty put on hold and stuff like that, years later and stuff. But what do you give somebody who's locked up 23 hours a day and then they're all by themselves? That's where people go crazy and then they got nothing to do, they didn't have TVs, they didn't have all this stuff. So, he gives them, we say the word "hope," not hope that they're going to live, but he gives them something to do besides sit there and rot. 

Jim: That's right. 

Woody: And if you're going to sit there and rot, if the Bible is the only book you can read, maybe you glean something from it. And it goes back to what his mama said, you got to give them the opportunity. 

Jim: You got to give them the opportunity. And that's just what he did. It was controversial. Look, there were people screaming, "Why are we spending money to educate death roommates?" And yes, most of them did horrible things. But his thought process was, the way he felt about it, "I'm not only in charge of their imprisonment, I'm in charge of their soul. And this is between me and God and what I am doing to try to help these men." And that's the way he thought. And the prisoners themselves really started to take note. This guy seems like he cares. I mean, it was probably an absolute shock to them. 

Woody: He didn't judge them for what-- And I got this from his time too, and he told me this. He said, "Your job is not to punish them. Your job is to keep them safe and keep the public safe from them escaping. They're doing their time for their crime. Your job is not to punish. You treat them like a human being." And nobody had ever done that. 

Jim: Nobody had ever done that. He does another historical thing right after that, and that is, he was the first warden to invite, and in this case, it was the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, to come in. And basically, they had like a satellite seminary right there at Angola. For those of you that don't know what they do, they offer degrees in the field of seminary so you can become an ordained minister.

Woody: Basically, it's like a Bible college.

Jim: Yeah. This was genius. I cannot stress enough how genius this was, because in his long-term vision and if anybody can say anything about Burl Cain, he had vision. In his long-term vision, he saw inmates changing other inmates through God. And that's what was missing in prisons, in his opinion. That was probably, looking back on it, one of the most successful programs he ever had. Those graduates, they would be allowed to travel, not only to other prisons in Louisiana, but eventually all over the country. They were going all over the country speaking at these other prisons, and he called that imposing morality. 

Woody: And back to you, now, you get a degree from a college, then you have a little bit more self-worth. And these college studies aren't free. They were funded by outside donations. And Angola offered a four-year college degree in ministry, including instructions in Greek and Hebrew, as well as lessons on how to preach.

Jim: Yeah. And it really changed the lives of not only these inmates themselves and gave them self-worth, but it enabled them to go out and then work to change others. 

Woody: And this gives me the bumps again, if you're doing that and you get self-worth for the first time in your life, guess what you're not doing? You're not raping and killing. Inside the prison, there's still raping and killing.

Jim: Mainly hit it right on the head. 

Woody: Look, we're going to talk about Christianity and God and all this stuff a lot during this series, but here's the deal. I don't care what you believe in. And there certainly are convicts at Angola that were like, "Fuck you, I don't believe in anything. I'm an atheist," whatever. And that's fine too. But they were given an opportunity because Burl was raised that way. 

Jim: That's right. And he knew that the principles in religion were sound things that would keep people out of trouble.

Woody: He also knew Angola was full of the darkness. He was trying to shine a little light and make the darkness back up. 

Jim: That's right. So, he started thinking about this and looking at the things that were missing from Angola. This became pretty successful. And he knew that work was or learning to work was critical in rehabilitation. Many of the inmates in Angola, y'all, they had never learned to work. They basically grew up in life, they robbed, they raped, they pillaged, and they murdered to survive. So, he instilled what he called meaningful work. 

Woody: Well, yeah, and let me tell you this, another famous Burl Cain saying, when you get to prison, he introduced himself and he said, "Welcome to the Department of Corrections. You're here for however long you've been sentenced. We're not here to punish you. We're here to make you secure. But you're sentenced to hard labor. Religion is an option. You'll have that opportunity while you're here to get religion, but work is not. You're going to work every day, and everybody has a job." And that goes back to him teaching the basics. Like I said, most of them never even knew how to work. They weren't raised like-- my daddy raised me, and your daddy raised you with a good work ethic. 

Jim: That's right. And it also gave them that pride that they were seeking, obviously, teaching these inmates to work. And he wasn't done yet. And this is probably-- well, it definitely is another part of his vision in those early days. And that was he founded a program in Angola called Malachi Dads. He did this with some inmates who came to him. Now, Warden Cain, he took note, y'all, of the fact that almost all convicts on Angola grew up in a broken home with the father typically being absent. Look, that's at any prison in the country, overall, it is not even close. 

Woody: It's not something we're making of. 

Jim: It's an issue.

Woody: We're not people we're picking on or whatever. It's just the way it is. 

Jim: Yeah, I mean, you're talking 6000 inmates and most of them were fathers, but they came from broken homes. And so, it didn't take a genius for Warden Cain to figure out maybe that's part of the problem. Now, you can't fix the people that are in there. They can't be at home with their kids, they're in prison. But this program--

Woody: And they're there in prison for the worst. [crosstalk] 

Jim: The worst of the worst. So, he knew that there's kids out there and they're now growing up without a father because he's in prison.

Woody: Well, also, I'm going to interrupt you again, there are generational prisoners in there. There are fathers and whose sons, or grandfathers, or dads whose sons murder and grew up because it's the only thing they ever knew, right? 

Jim: Absolutely. 

Woody: And they got sent to Angola. I'm telling you, there's generational. Their grandson, the oldest one now, who's old, old timer in Angola whose son is down now for life of murder, that guy's son would come in for murder. He's looking this and he's like--

Jim: It's a pattern. 

Woody: Oh, yeah. It's proven. And you're right, him being a forward genius thinker, he's like, "Mm, you know what? Why wouldn't I try this? Why wouldn't I try? If I can make a change in one person's life, it'd be something special." And nobody had ever done what you're about to tell about.

Jim: That's right. He gets with about, let's say, these six trusted inmates that he had that they were all graduates of this seminary. And he says, "Do y'all see the same problem I do?" And they said, "Not only do we see the problem, we can institute a program where we teach other inmates how to be fathers behind bars." It's possible. Look, I got chill bumps again. They form what they call Malachi Dads. Basically, this is one of the best programs he ever instituted. And it was a program in which fathers that were incarcerated learned how to parent their kids from inside of prison. We're going to play you a clip real quick. These are the inmate founders of Malachi Dads. And they're discussing a little bit about Warden Cain and a lot about that program. We're going to play that right now. 

[video recording of Malachi Dads]

Ron:My name is Ron Hickson. I've been incarcerated for 25 years. I'm serving life sentence for second-degree murder. 

Darryl:My name is Darryl Waters. I'm from Gibson, Louisiana, and I was sentenced for second-degree murder in 1992. 

George:My name is George Gilliam. I am from New Orleans. I'm currently serving a life sentence for a second-degree murder. We discovered in 2006 that a child of an incarcerated father had a 70% likelihood to come to prison and so we discovered those statistics and God gave us favor and that became Malachi Dads. Just because you're locked up in prison, that does not give you the right to not still be a father. Healthy people, who have a heart that's healed, who have a soul that's whole, they want to help, they want to give back. And that's what we do every day. 

Interviewer:Why do you think violence has come down in Angola?

Inmate:When Warden Cain came on the scene, what he did was open up the door of opportunity. He was able to see, "If I can get these guys to start coming out to success because what success do, it change the way you think." If I can achieve something, I feel better about myself. 

[clip ends]

Woody: Wow. Super. There's so much to be said, y'all. I'm going to do one more part that is-- maybe I don't want to say shows a harsher side, because it's not a harsher side, but it shows the business side of Burl. 

Jim: And a good story.

Woody: He's all about trying to shine the light in the darkness and see what kind of positive things can come about it. But he's also all about, it's his prison and who's going to rule it. But listen to this story. This is crazy. And Jim researched this, and I had never-- believe it or not, I had never even heard of this. But as we told you many times on the show, Angola is huge. It's sprawling over 18,000 acres. And that's mostly-- the camps are spread out. It's mostly agriculture, big fields, Tunica Hills, Mississippi River, shit ton of wildlife. So one day, one of the convicts saw a huge 400-pound black bear on the property, and they freaked out and they're like, "Holy shit." Most of these guys are city boys, etc. 

Jim: They don't like the wolfdogs.

Woody: Right. Until two years ago, I had never seen a bear in the state of Louisiana. But in Jackson, where DCI was, the first restaurant I've worked at was called Bear Corners. Back in the day, black bears were preliminary in the area. And now, they're coming back because of strict hunting ban, etc. But you got this mass 18,000 acres, and as rare as they are, there's a bear.

Jim: In the middle of the prison.

Woody: Massive black bear living in the middle of Angola. And you know what Burl thought? 

Jim: [laughs] [crosstalk] 

Woody: You know what? Kind of scared me, And I know it scared them because they came running to me. And he's like, "That's just extra security."

[laughter]

Jim: That's exactly how he said it. 

Woody: And I'll quote him. He said, "I love that bear being right where it is. And I tell you what, none of our inmates are going to try to get out after dark and wander around when they might run into a big old bear. It's like having another guard at no cost to the taxpayer." He was about business. We keep talking about all these good things that he's doing, let me tell you something, and we'll talk about it in later episodes in the series. I've seen it, that's one dude you don't want to see mad. And it's one dude that knows his business, right? 

Jim: That's right. 

Woody: Anyway, the bear was first seen by an inmate crossing the road in the prison. And it was taking a stroll near the center of prison, where about five and a half square miles were mostly untouched piney woods, y'all. And the prison workers measured the bear's footprints, which were six inches in diameter. Now, every inch that they can measure equals 75 pounds. The biologists have figured this out. So, that made that bear about 450 pounds. And Cain said, the wildlife people told us they think it's a big female they've been tracking for a while. And Warden Cain estimated at the time that 8 to 10 bears lived on that 18,000 acres. 

Jim: Holy crap. 

Woody: You better believe he promoted the shit out. 

Jim: Oh, yeah, I was about to say that. He told every inmate.

Woody: When they come in, "Hey, if you out in the field, you see a bear, you ain't going to be the fast. You just got to be fast from one of the other convicts. We might not shoot you if you're running from the bear, but if you go out there at night, that bear is hungry. Bears got to eat." 

Jim: Y'all, we're just getting started. 

Woody: Yeah, just getting started. 

Jim: But we got to cut this one off. We've gone over an hour. 

Woody: Still though, I'm going to say it again, wait until you hear-- we talked a lot about-

Jim: Oh, my God, we ain't scratched the surface.

Woody: -the positive side today, which is something. But I'm going to tell you something, tough dude, bruh. There's a reason he lasted as long as he lasted and is still doing what he does. But it's the totality of circumstances of the man, which to me makes him a legend. 

Jim: Just to give you a little sauce for what you can look forward to the next episode, we're going to talk about a little bit about Billy Cannon and how Burl Cain was instrumental in bringing him into Angola. We're going to talk about Hurricane Katrina and the effect that that had on Angola prison. Y'all going to love that story. Look, this is stuff you cannot find anywhere else. 

Woody: We're going to talk about some executions. 

Jim: Yeah, how about his second execution, different than the first, right? 

Woody: And then what happened following after that. Just a whole--

Jim: Captain Knapps. 

Woody: Captain David Knapps.

Jim: A bunch more to bring you. 

Woody: Can't wait to bring you. And we appreciate and love each and every one of y'all. 

Jim: Yeah. Thank y'all for-

Woody: Patreon members-

Jim: -everything. 

Woody: -you rock. Our Patreon members, the show couldn't run without you. We appreciate y'all so much. Y'all, look, if you want to be a patron member, go to patreon.com/bloodyangola. 

Jim: We've got a bonus episode coming next week. So, what we're going to do next week when we record our second episode of the story of Burl Cain, we're also going to record our bonus episode just for patron members. And what it's going to be on, y'all, is we released the first episode to the general public, it was on executions and we kind of told a little bit of the story and it was great. We've got more for you, but it's only going to be for patrons, that second one, it's a good one. 

Woody: Y'all, we have all the different tier levels with all the different benefits. And I'm telling you right now, I've been doing this over five years, podcasting, and Real Life Real Crime original probably doesn't have as many patron episodes locked up as [crosstalk] of Bloody Angola. 

Jim: We got a ton of it. That's right. 

Woody: If you like Bloody Angola, go subscribe. If you can't be a patron member, we love you just as much. 

Jim: And transcripts. People love the transcripts. We've got all of our episodes transcribed on Patreon for some of the tiers, and these are not transcriptions, y'all, that are like the AI versions. This is actually someone sitting down typing because our southern accents don't cross over too well. [laughs] 

Woody: [crosstalk] 

Jim: Unfortunately, it's horrible. 

Woody: Look, we have merchandise. People love the shirts and--

Jim: Hats. 

Woody: What about the Bloody Angola wine? 

Jim: Oh, yeah. We got limited wine in there for you, ladies.

Woody: And that's good stuff. We sold out of at the live shows. But anyway, y'all, please share us-

Jim: Review us.

Woody: -like us and leave us a review if you're so inclined. And we appreciate you and love you. And wait until you hear what's coming next. 

Jim: Oh, yeah. And until next time, I'm Jim Chapman. 

Woody: And I'm Woody Overton.

Jim: Your host of Bloody-

Woody: Angola.

Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making. 

Woody: The Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison. 

Jim and Woody:Peace.

In this episode of Bloody Angola:A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman they cover an escape from Angola in 1953 that resulted in the invasion of a home off prison property and the shooting of the homeowner.

#Escapingprison #RicardoEscobar #BloodyAngola #truecrimepodcast #prison #Podcast #Louisianastateprison #AngolaPrison #TrueCrime #Podcast #WoodyOverton #JimChapman #DeathChamber #Escape #Louisianastatepenitentiary #PrisonEscape

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Kelly Jennings of Unspeakable:A True Crime Podcast by Kelly Jennings graciously filled in for Woody Overton today and joined Jim to dive into the murder case and the life inside of Angola of Justin Granier, who, in 2001 was involved and eventually convicted as principal to murder and sentenced to life without parole in Angola for the murder of Luke Villar , a teenager working at a grocery store in Gonzales, LA during an attempted robbery.

#PrincipaltoMurder #JustinGranier #BloodyAngola #truecrimepodcast #prison #Podcast #Louisianastateprison #AngolaPrison #TrueCrime #Podcast #WoodyOverton #JimChapman #DeathChamber #principaltomurder #Louisianastatepenitentiary #justingranier

Unspeakable: A True Crime Podcast by Kelly Jennings on Apple Podcasts

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Unspeakable: A True Crime Podcast by Kelly Jennings on Spotify

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Unspeakable: A True Crime Podcast by Kelly Jennings on facebook

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#Louisianastateprison #AngolaPrison #BloodyAngola #TrueCrime #Podcast #WoodyOverton #JimChapman #DeathChamber #GruesomeGertie #Louisianastatepenitentiary #Angolaprison

Our Sponsors for this episode have a great deal for you!

GET 16 FREE MEALS PLUS FREE SHIPPING AT HELLOFRESH!

HelloFresh delivers step-by-step recipes and fresh, pre-portioned ingredients right to your door. First, you set your meal plan preferences with options for carnivores, vegetarians, calorie-counters, and more. You'll choose from 30+ delicious weekly recipes carefully put together by the amazing chefs!

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In this episode of Bloody Angola:A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman, they cover the several of the stories of those inmates eventually executed at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, from the crimes to their final walk.

#Louisianastateprison #AngolaPrison #BloodyAngola #TrueCrime #Podcast #WoodyOverton #JimChapman #DeathChamber #GruesomeGertie #Louisianastatepenitentiary #Angolaprison

Our Sponsors for this episode have a great deal for you!

GET 16 FREE MEALS PLUS FREE SHIPPINGAT HELLOFRESH!

HelloFresh delivers step-by-step recipes and fresh, pre-portioned ingredients right to your door. First, you set your meal plan preferences with options for carnivores, vegetarians, calorie-counters, and more. You'll choose from 30+ delicious weekly recipes carefully put together by the amazing chefs!

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In this episode of Bloody Angola, Woody Overton and Jim Chapman tell you some stories you will have to hear to believe regarding inmate of Louisiana State Penitentiary who were sentenced to DEATH ROW getting exonerated after DNA evidence or other substantiating evidence cleared them of their crime and saved them from getting the needle.

#DeathSentence #DNA #InnocenceProject #BloodyAngola #Podcast

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Jim: Hey, everyone. And welcome back to another edition of Bloody-

Woody: -Angola.

Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making. 

Woody: The complete story of America's bloodiest prison. 

Jim: And I'm Jim Chapman. 

Woody: And I'm Woody Overton. 

Jim: And we're going back to our roots, Woody Overton.

Woody: Right back inside the wire. 

Jim: Back inside the wire. Just when you thought we got out. Just coming back here. 

Woody: Yep. [crosstalk] They made me come back in. 

Jim: That's right. Look, we talk a lot on this show about the advancement, especially DNA, something you've worked with in the past many times. 

Woody: Yeah. This is a huge testament to DNA. When I started, it was really coming in its own. Now it's so much more advanced. I remember putting rushes on murder cases, and it taken six months to get the results back. 

Jim: That's crazy. Even back, we talked about Sean Vincent Gillis, and that was really probably one of the first times they were ever able to really rush something to the point where it really helped because you had to get that serial killer off the street. 

Woody: Derrick Todd Lee too. Still, even the rush back then took a long time. Not like it is now. 

Jim: Right. 

Woody: You know what? I'm totally for it. And let me do this real quick. I want to give a shout out to all our patrons. We love and appreciate each and every one of y'all. We love all you listeners, and bloody shooting to the top of the charts. It's because y'all are listening, liking and sharing. Please continue to do so. And we love y'all very much. Back to the DNA, it's just come leaps and bounds that continue to change every day. We always tell you Bloody Angola is going to be different, and this is different. You would think, oh, hard ass like me, lock everybody up, I don't believe in that. I believe if you're innocent you're innocent. 

Jim: If you're guilty, lock them up.

Woody: If you're guilty, you- [crosstalk] 

Jim: Don't wait [crosstalk] 

Woody: [crosstalk] -you'll pay hella jail. 

Jim: [laughs] Hella jail, that's right. We did want to preface this episode with some of these guys were exonerated from DNA. Some of them, it was other reasons. And we're going to get into that. The intriguing thing about today's episode is many of these guys that we're going to tell you about were actually serving in death row. They've been sentenced to death. 

Woody: Today, we're going to be talking about people or convicts who were exonerated and released from Bloody Angola.

Jim: Yes. We want to kind of start this off. I'm just going to tell you about the Innocence Project. The Innocence Project was founded in 1992 by Barry Scheck, y'all, familiar with him through OJ. It was basically formed to assist incarcerated individuals who could be proven innocent, primarily through DNA testing. Although sometimes they find so many holes in a case, they'll pick up a case where there's so many problems that they take that case on and look for exonerations in those cases. The average prison sentence before they'll take on a case is 14 years before their exoneration or release. And so, it's a process, even with those guys, but we're going to them to it. 

Woody: They don't just take anybody, right? 

Jim: Yeah. 

Woody: One of the ones I can tell you about if-- ready to get started?

Jim: I'm ready. 

Woody: Is John Thompson. John Thompson was from Orleans Parish. I'll just read you some of the facts of the case, some of the highlights, and what ultimately ended up happening. Shortly after midnight on December 6th, 1984, Raymond Liuzza was shot several times in the course of an armed robbery just around the corner from his New Orleans, Louisiana apartment. When the cops arrived, they found Liuzza laying on the ground, but he was still conscious. He told them he was robbed and shot by an African American male and then took him to hospital and he died. On December 8th, responded to tip, the police arrested two men in connection with the crime. John Thompson and Kevin Freeman. Photos of the two men were published in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, and soon afterwards, police received a call from a family that had been carjacked several months earlier, claiming that Thompson looked like the person who had robbed them. Thompson was charged with the murder. Meanwhile, Freeman agreed to testify against Thompson in the murder trial, and in return, prosecutors charged him only with being an accessory to the murder. He was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison. We're talking about Freeman, y'all. 

The world-famous New Orleans district attorney, Harry Connick, Sr,, not Junior, that's his son, the singer and actor, decided to try Thompson for the carjacking case first, knowing that a conviction could be used against him in the murder trial. Based primarily on the eyewitness testimony of the three carjacking victims, all of whom were minors, Thompson was convicted on April 4, 1985, and sentenced to 49 years in prison. That is for the carjacking. Y'all, always told you that eyewitness testimony is the worst testimony there is, but doesn't mean it's not true. 

At his murder trial, held shortly thereafter, the prosecution demonstrated that Thompson had at one time been in possession of both the murder weapon and a ring taken from Liuzza’s finger. Thompson decided not to testify in his own defense because if he did, his felony carjacking charge would have been admissible to the jury. As a result, he was unable to tell the jury that Freeman had sold him the murder weapon and the ring. Freeman, the main witness for the prosecution, claimed that he and Thompson had robbed Liuzza together and that Thompson had shot him. This testimony was contradicted by the statements of eyewitnesses who claimed to have seen only one man running from the scene of the crime. Richard Perkins, who had originally called in the tip implicating Thompson and Freeman, also testified for the prosecution, claiming that he had heard Thompson make incriminating remarks. Thompson was found guilty and sentenced to death on May 8th, 1985. 

Fast forward a whole bunch of years, y'all, and events took a dramatic turn in April 1999, 30 days before scheduled execution, an investigator discovered that there was a blood stain from the robber on the clothing of one of the carjacking victims and that this evidence had never been disclosed to the defense. It's Brady, y'all. If they had it, they got to give it up. The prosecutor had ordered testing to determine the blood type of the stain, and in fact, they had rushed the test. But when the blood type was determined-- I guess this was before DNA. Blood type was determined and was different from Thompson's. They concealed it. Defense attorneys then obtained an affidavit Michael Rielhmann, a former district attorney, who said that five years earlier, in 1994, Gerry Deegan, one of Thompson's prosecutors, admitted on his deathbed that the blood evidence was intentionally suppressed and that he left a report about it on the desk of James Williams, the lead prosecutor. Williams denied ever seeing the report. Defense attorneys also learned that Perkins, the witness who testified that Thompson had admitted the murder, had received $15,000 from the Liuzza family as a reward. When this evidence was presented to the trial judge, he granted a stay of execution and dismissed Thompson’s carjacking conviction, but he denied Thompson’s motion for a new trial on the Liuzza murder. In 2001, however, he reduced Thompson’s death sentence to life in prison without parole. 

Jim: Wow. 

Woody: Pretty crazy, right? 

Jim: Very crazy. 

Woody: In July of 2002, the Louisiana Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal overturned Thompson’s murder conviction and remanded the case for retrial, ruling that the false robbery conviction obtained by deliberate government misconduct had deprived Thompson of his constitutional right to testify on his own behalf at the murder trial. Y'all, I'm not against that. I mean, give him a new trial, if it was messed up. At the second trial, Thompson was able to explain that he purchased the murder weapon from Freeman, and the defense called several new witnesses who claimed to have seen only one man fleeing the scene of the murder. They said that the man did not look like Thompson, but did resemble Freeman who, in the meantime, had been killed in a shootout with a security guard. On May 8, 2003, a jury acquitted Thompson after deliberating for 35 minutes, and he was released from prison the same day. Y'all, 35 minutes is for conviction? That's outstanding. But for exoneration, I mean, that's unbelievable. It normally takes hours--[crosstalk]  

Jim: They were pretty convinced. 

Woody: Yeah, they want to make sure. In 2008, Thompson won a $14 million civil suit against the District Attorney’s Office. That judgment was reversed by the US Supreme Court in March 2011 on the grounds that the misconduct in the case was not the result of a deliberate policy or systematic indifference by the New Orleans DA's Office. He got $330,000 in state compensation. But you know what? That's a long time to be on death row, and you didn't do it. 

Jim: He's a good example of someone that it wasn't necessarily DNA evidence that exonerated him, but it was the facts of the case. 

Woody: I have heard this case before, and actually, I think it's pretty well documented-

Jim: Thank you.

Woody: -but what's right is right and what's wrong is wrong. But you know what the sad thing is? In 2017, Thompson died of a heart attack at age 55. 

Jim: Yeah, man. And you nailed it when you're talking about those bloodstains. Back when he was convicted, it was '85. There was no DNA. 

Woody: I think it was like '92 when the first time it was used successfully. Even then, most prosecutors thought it was junk science. So, it had to be used over and over again successfully and tested and tested and tested and it grew to what it is today. 

Jim: That's right. Let me tell you about another case out of death row in Angola that was actually-- 

Woody: That place you don't want to go.

Jim: No, you don't want to go there. But was actually reversed over DNA, and that is the case of Ryan Matthews. So, Matthews was 16 years old, y'all, at the time he was sentenced-- or arrested rather, and was 17 when he was sentenced to death for shooting of Tommy Vanhoose, who was a convenience store owner in Bridge City, Louisiana. You familiar with Bridge City? 

Woody: Yeah. That's where the juvenile prison used to be. 

Jim: There you go. So, in April of 1997, a man wearing a ski mask entered the store and demanded money. When Vanhoose refused, the perpetrator shot him four times and fled, taking off his mask and diving into the passenger seat of a window of an awaiting car. Several eyewitnesses viewed the perpetrator's flight. One woman was in her car and watched the perpetrator run from the store, fire shots into her direction, and leap in the car. So, these guys were hightailing it. They done shot somebody four times. When she was later showed a photographic array, which is like a six pack, y'all, she tentatively identified Matthews as the assailant. By the time of the trial, she was sure that Matthews was the gunman. Two other witnesses in the same car watched as the perpetrator shed his mask, gloves, and shirt as he fled. The driver claimed to have seen the perpetrator's face in his rearview mirror while he was being shot at and trying to block the escape. The witness and his passenger were brought to a show-up hours later. The driver identified Matthews. His passenger was unable to make an identification.

As per our previous case, identifications not very reliable now.

Ryan Matthews and Travis Hayes, both 17 at the time, were stopped several hours after the crime because the car they were riding in resembled the description of the getaway car. They were arrested and Hayes was then questioned for over six hours. His initial statements to investigators, Hayes claimed that he and Matthews were not in the area where the crime occurred. Hayes eventually confessed that he was the driver of the getaway car. He stated that Matthews went into the store, shots went off and Matthews ran out and got into the car. Both boys were described as borderline intellectually disabled. In 1999, based mainly on identifications, Matthews was convicted of murder and sentenced to death.

Woody: There you go. 

Jim: Hayes was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. Matthews had maintained his innocence since the arrest. The defense presented evidence that forensic testing of the mask excluded both Matthews and Hayes. A defense expert also testified the car the two boys were driving, the reason they were stopped, could not have been a getaway car because the passenger side window that Matthews allegedly jumped through was inoperable and could not be rolled down. How do you get around that? I don't know, but they did. Other witnesses to the crime described the shooter as being much shorter than Matthews as well, which that's not necessarily that reliable. Height is hard to determine. 

Woody: You can put four people in the room and four people may get the different height and weight or whatever on. If it's a correct identification, basically you can bring them back two weeks later and they can still pick out the facial features.

Jim: That's right. So, y'all ready to hear how this person got exonerated? Well, DNA testing in another murder case proved to be the keys to proving Matthews' innocence, another murder occurring shortly after Vanhoose's death in the same area. A local resident named Rondell Love was arrested. He pled guilty, and Love bragged to other inmates that he also killed Vanhoose. And that happens, y'all, you'd be surprised. 

Woody: Street cred. 

Jim: This got back to Matthews' attorneys, I'm sure, through Matthews, and they began to investigate Love. DNA test results from the second murder were compared to the results from the Matthews' conviction, indicating that Love had been wearing the mask that was left behind in the Vanhoose's murder. Testing on the mask, gloves and shirt had already excluded Matthews and Hayes, but they became conclusive after Love's profile was included. 

Woody: There you go. 

Jim: So somehow, even though they were excluded from all that DNA in the first trial, there was no one to necessarily pin it on. So, it got pinned on them. Well, you can't get around it when someone else's profile shows up. Over a year after this information was discovered, he was granted a new trial. He wasn't released. He was just granted a new trial. But he did eventually get released. The new trial, he was found not guilty and became the 14th death row inmate in the United States proven innocent by post-conviction DNA testing. 

Woody: That’s crazy.

Jim: After two more years of legal battles, you'd think he'd get out right away?

Woody: They got to make sure. 

Jim: Yeah. Travis Hayes was released in December 2006 and exonerated in January of 2007. You may think that someone in this position, they must have got a ton of money. I mean, you sentenced to death, for Christ's sake. He received $252,000 in state compensation and another $133,000 from the federal courts. To tell you how resilient this cat is, in 2019, Matthews graduated from Texas University with his bachelor's degree. 

Woody: Cool. 

Jim: I get chills from that because, man, look--

Woody: They were going to kill him.

Jim: They were going to kill him. 

Woody: I get it, not to get into death penalty arguments, whatever, but I'm telling you this I'm glad John Thompson got off death row, and I'm glad he got off a death row, but I promise you, there's some monsters up there deserve to be there.

Jim: Oh, there's no doubt about it.

Woody: Don’t deserve [crosstalk] to breathe. 

Jim: Well, it's like you always say, just make sure you get it right. That’s the important thing.

Woody: Yeah, that’s it. If you're going to do it, do it right. Especially when you're talking about taking somebody's life. That's why they have the appeals process the last 20 plus years before they kill them. Let's talk about Glenn Ford. Glenn Ford from up in Caddo, that's where Hugo Holland-- 

Jim: That's right. Caddo--[crosstalk]  

Woody: He was another one, y'all, sentenced to death. He was convicted in 1984. But let me tell you about it. On November 5th, 1983, a 56-year-old Isadore Rozeman, a jeweler and watchmaker, was found shot to death in his shop in Shreveport, Louisiana. His pockets were pulled, and items were missing from the store. One of the first people to be questioned was 34-year-old Glenn Ford, an affable man who did yard work for Rozeman. Ford denied being involved in the crime, though he admitted he had been near the store at some point earlier in the day and witnesses told police they saw him near the store. In February 1984, items from Rozeman’s store turned up in a pawnshop and a handwriting analyst said that Ford had signed the pawn slips. Marvella Brown told police that her boyfriend, Jake Robinson, Jake’s brother, Henry, and Ford were at her house on the day of the crime and left together after Ford asked "if they were going." Brown said Ford was carrying a brown paper bag. When the men returned later that day, Ford was carrying a different bag and had a gun in his waistband. Jake Robinson also was carrying a gun. Brown said Jake showed her a bag containing watches and rings. That is suspicious.

Ford, along with Jake and Henry Robinson and a fourth man, George Starks, were charged with capital murder and conspiracy to commit armed robbery in February 1984. November 1984, Ford went to trial. And Ford was represented by two appointed defense attorneys, neither of whom had ever handled a criminal trial, and one of whom had never handled a criminal case of any sort. That's kind of bad. 

Jim: Yeah. That's not the attorneys I want to represent--

Woody: Right. When you're on trial for your life. 

Jim: Oh, my God. 

Woody: If you're in Livingston Parish, you want Jasper Brock handling your business. [crosstalk]  

Jim: Yeah. This is a death penalty trial. 

Woody: If you're anywhere else over on that side of Louisiana, you want Thomas Davenport out of Alexandria to handle it, because that's what they do. These guys had never even handled a case like this. 

Jim: It's crazy. 

Woody: Anyway, Brown fell apart on the witness stand and said on cross-examination that detectives had fabricated her responses and she had lied in her testimony. She said she had been shot in the head earlier in her life and the bullet was never removed causing difficulty with thinking and hearing. 

Jim: Makes sense.

Woody: Several witnesses testified that they saw Ford near the victim’s store on the day of the shooting, but no one testified that they saw the crime. A gunshot residue expert testified for the prosecution that after Ford had voluntarily come in for questioning, he recovered gunshot residue on Ford’s hands. A fingerprint analyst said he lifted a single fingerprint from a paper bag found at the scene. He said that the print contained a “whorl” type pattern and that Ford had such a pattern, while the Robinson Brothers did not. Dr. George McCormick, Caddo Parish coroner, testified that he had analyzed the scene of the crime, including the position of Rozeman’s body and a duffel bag found next to the body with a bullet hole in it. McCormick said he concluded that the victim was shot by someone who held the gun in his left hand. Ford is left-handed and the Robinsons are right-handed. Not looking good for Ford.

Jim: No, not at all. 

Woody: McCormick also said that Rozeman had been dead for as long as two hours by the time the body was discovered, a time when witnesses said they saw Ford near the store. Ford testified on his own behalf, which most of them don't, but he testified and denied his involvement in the crime. He admitted selling items to the pawn shop, but said he'd got them from the Robinson brothers.

On December 5th, 1984, the jury convicted Ford of capital murder and conspiracy to commit armed robbery. Following the jury's recommendation, Ford was sentenced to death on February 26th, 1985. After Ford was convicted and sentenced, the prosecution dismissed the charges against the Robinson Brothers and Starks. 

Jim: Let me just say this, okay, the inexperience of the lawyers that you mentioned is glaring when they allowed him to testify in his own defense in a death penalty case. Holy crap.

Woody: I don't know when they changed the law, but I know Jasper Brock in Livingston Parish-- [crosstalk] 

Jim: Yeah. Jasper Brock would say, "He ain't talking." [chuckles] 

Woody: And I know Thomas Davenport, they're certified in death penalty cases. You have to actually get certified to defend somebody in death penalty cases now.

Jim: Yeah. Probably, this case caused it.

Woody: Probably one of them I mean, they should've known this shit was going to get done the way--[crosstalk] 

Jim: That’s crazy. 

Woody: Still, I believe everybody has the right to a fair trial. Ford goes to death row. His appeals were unsuccessful until 2000 when the Louisiana Supreme Court ordered a hearing on post-conviction petition for a new trial filed by the Capital Post Conviction Project of Louisiana. At the hearing in 2004, a defense expert testified that McCormick's attempt to reconstruct the crime had no connection to known facts and were speculation at best, and I agree with that, they're talking about the coroner. You can't tell somebody's left-handed from a bullet hole and a duffel bag. Anyway, another defense expert said that the gunshot residue evidence was meaningless because it was gathered more than a day after the crime and that Ford could have easily picked up the residue merely by being in a police station where such residue is extremely common.

Another defense expert said that the prosecution's fingerprint expert misidentified the fingerprint on the paper bag, and it could have been left by the Robinson Brothers. All very, very true. Ford's lawyers at the trial testified that they were very inexperienced in criminal cases. 

Jim: Even the lawyers. 

Woody: [crosstalk] -Jasper and Thomas Davenport. And had no training in capital defense. If I was Ford, I'd be raising hell. I'm like, "You got me two guys that are wet behind the ears. Give me a pro."

Jim: Crazy, man. 

Woody: Jasper Brock or Thomas Davenport. They're even saying that he deserves--

Jim: Yeah. They go on the stand and say, "Yeah, we pretty--" [crosstalk] 

Woody: One of the lawyers who specialized in oil and gas law had never tried a case to a jury, either civil or criminal. That's like my brothers. One's a tax lawyer and one's a maritime lawyer. They've never been inside a courtroom. The extent of his prior criminal work was handling two guilty pleas. That's easy enough. The other lawyer, who was out of law school less than two years and was working at an insurance firm handling personal injury cases. Both said they were unaware they could seek court funding for defense experts, shocker, and didn't hire any because they couldn't afford to pay out of their own pockets. Both were unaware of how to subpoena witnesses from out of state. So, Ford's family members, who lived in California, did not testify for Ford at the guilt or punishment phase of the trial. The defense presented numerous police reports that had never been disclosed to the defense.

The report showed that Shreveport Police had received two tips from informants implicating only Jake and Henry Robinson in the robbery and murder. Other police reports showed that some detectives had falsely testified at Ford's trial about statements Ford made during his interrogation. Testimony that the prosecution should have realized was false, the defense claimed. Moreover, other police reports that were withheld from the defense contained conflicting statements by Marvella Brown and by the witnesses who said that they saw Ford near the store at the time of the crime. Reports could have been used to impeach the witness testimony at trial. 

Jim: Wow. 

Woody: But still, the post-conviction motion was denied. In 2012, the Caddo Parish District Attorney's Office began reinvesting the case, and in 2013, disclosed that an informant told authorities that Jake Robinson had admitted shooting Rozeman.

Jim: Oh, wow.

Woody: So, the honorable and right thing to do, in March 2014, the prosecution filed a motion to vacate Ford's conviction and death sentence in light of the newly discovered evidence from the informant. On March 11th, 2014, a judge vacated Ford's convictions, and the prosecution dismissed their charges, and Ford was then released. 

Jim: How about that? 

Woody: Even after all that, they'd fallen so hard in the second trial, etc. They came forward-- I think, you know what? I don't know if Hugo Holland was still the prosecutor up there at the end. I'll have to look it up. Maybe I'll ask him. He just messaged me last night. But that's an honorable thing to do. But in March 2015, a Caddo Parish district judge denied Ford's request for state compensation. Judge ruled that Ford knew the robbery was going to happen, did not try to stop it, that he attempted to destroy evidence by selling items taken robbery, and that he tried to find buyers for the murder weapon. Unfortunately, in June of 2015, Ford died of lung cancer. 

Jim: Yeah, that's a good kind of segue for a second, Woody, just to talk about, look, not all the guys we're going to tell you about today are Citizens of the Year. Some of them definitely committed some crimes or may have withheld some evidence, like in this case. But that's a long jump from being sentenced to death for a murder you didn't commit. 

Woody: Look, we have our legal process for a reason. A lot of my cases are bad cases where the witnesses are like really shady people or they're criminals themselves. Well, guess what? A lot of these crimes don't happen with a bunch of choir boys. You know what I mean? You're not running with choir boys when you're going to murder somebody and steal the jury. 

Jim: You're going to put them to death--

Woody: But having two inexperienced attorneys and all the other stuff and the guy saying about-- whatever, that's not enough to kill somebody.

Jim: That's right. We're going to give you a two for one right here. And you're not going to believe this. 

Woody: Let me tell you real quick, I know I keep talking about [unintelligible 00:31:23]. I don't know if this is-- we'll have to get him on. This part, he's a part of this Innocence Project, but I don't think it's the same one. Barry Scheck is another one. He got a guy off a death row. 

Jim: Wow. He'd be great to sit down and talk to.

Woody: He got a guy off a death row. He told me about the case, and I was like, "Holy shit." But I think it was out of Missouri. He's in all federal courts and everywhere else, Thomas Davenport, but he believes everybody deserves a criminal defense. And I agree with that. If you're a cop and you got it right, you got them right. Don't sentence them to death, don't send them away for life on some bullshit. 

Jim: That's right. We're going to tell you about Michael Graham and Albert Burrell. Now, both of these gentlemen were sentenced to death back in 1986.

Woody: I was 16 years old. 

Jim: That was a long time ago. Long time ago. On the night of August 31, 1986, 65-year-old William Delton Frost and his 60-year-old invalid wife, Callie, were fatally shot in their two-room home in Downsville, Louisiana, which is almost like a plantation area of Louisiana, very rural. The front door had been smashed in and police believed the motive was robbery because Frost didn't trust banks and was believed to keep cash in a suitcase in his home. A lot of older people, especially in those times, they didn't put money in the bank. They put money everywhere but the bank. The shots appeared to have been fired through a window and their bodies were discovered a couple of days later.

Now, six weeks after the murders, in October of 1986, Janet Burrell told police that she had met with her ex-husband on the night of the crime and that he had $2,700 in $100 bills and blood on his boots. That don't look good. She said he admitted firing the shots and she saw Frost's wallet on the front seat of his car. Wow. That's dead to rights. So, Burrell was arrested within the hour. Not long after, Kenneth St. Clair, another witness, told police that he had come to Louisiana with Michael Graham to find construction work. St. Clair told police that on the night of the crime, Graham and Burrell left the trailer where Graham was living near St. Clair about 8:30 PM returned, Graham had blood on him, St. Clair said. Now, you've got another person seeing that blood. At the time, Graham was in the Union Parish Jail on forgery charges for stealing a checkbook from a woman who hired him in St. Clair to do some work and then cashing about $300 worth of checks. 

Woody: Like you said, everybody in these stories aren’t angels. 

Jim: Yeah. On October of 1986, Graham and Burrell were each indicted on two counts of murder. Two days later, Graham's cellmate, Olan Brantly, told authorities that Graham had admitted he and Burrell committed the crime [crosstalk] [chuckles] that's it. And that Burrell had fired the fatal shot. So, Graham goes on trial in 1987 in the Union Parish Courthouse. The state's key witnesses were Janet Burrell, who we told you about, and Brantly, we also told you about. So, they got him dead to rights although police reports said that Frost's wallet was recovered in his home. A deputy testified that he believed Burrell had returned to the Frost home and put the wallet back because he suspected his wife had seen it the night they met. 

Woody: That makes a lot of sense, right? 

Jim: Yeah. 

Woody: Why wouldn't you just throw it the fuck out-- [crosstalk] 

Jim: Yeah, that's a stretch and a half right there.

Woody: If you go back to the murder scene to put the wallet back, you got to think, "My wife might have seen it." 

Jim: [chuckles] Yeah. You're dumping it in the ditch or something. You're not putting it back. Another witness, 14-year-old Amy Opiel, who had spent the night of the crime with the St. Clair Family testified that she saw Graham Burrell sitting on the couch of a trailer with a suitcase and stacks of money. So, Graham was convicted on March 22nd, 1987, and sentenced to death. Burrell went on trial in August of '87, and he was also convicted and sentenced to death on pretty much the same evidence as Graham. Five months after Burrell was convicted, Janet Burrell, who by then was remarried to Burrell's brother James, I told you this was a good one, recanted her testimony, Woody Overton. She said she lied because she wanted to get custody of their child, which had been awarded to Albert Burrell prior to the murders. That's called motive to lie. So, the Louisiana Supreme Court, they grant--

Woody: That’s cold hearted.

Jim: Yeah, that's cold.

Woody: [crosstalk] 

Jim: That’s as cold as you can get.

Woody: How shitty of a mom does she have to be for the dad to get custody in the state of Louisiana? That’s a rare deal. 

Jim: Well, somewhere along the line, her conscience weighed on her and she admitted she lied. The Louisiana Supreme Court granted Albert Burrell a hearing. A hearing. But at the hearing, Janet Burrell changed her testimony back, she's figuring it out, "Uh-oh. I might get in trouble for this," to her original story. The motion for a new trial was denied. Eventually, the conviction and death sentence got upheld by the Louisiana State Supreme Court. Meanwhile, Graham, don't forget about him, his case was also sent back for a hearing in motion for a new trial because of all this going on. His lawyers, they continued to get extension after extension, and they began to cover new evidence. By 1995, Janet Burrell shows up again. She says, "I'm going to recant my testimony again."

Woody: She's unreliable now. 

Jim: Yeah. The crazy thing was, the execution date was in August of '96, she recants it in 1995. The lawyers, closer it gets to that execution date, they're 24 hours a day trying to get you a stay. 17 days away from his death, Burrell's lawyer obtains a stay. In 1998, Amy Opiel shows up again and recants her testimony, claiming she was pressured to lie and that it was St. Clair she saw with blood on his clothes and counting money. It wasn't Burrell. Okay, so Graham, he finally gets a hearing in 2000 where lawyers present all these recanted statements, as well as evidence that prosecutors failed to turn over, exculpatory evidence and impeachment evidence, including that Brantly had cut a deal with prosecutors on a pending charge, and then he was taking medication to control his mood swings. So, Brantly had a little bit of an anger problem, probably. On March 4th of 2000, Graham was granted a new trial after the Third Judicial District judge, Cynthia Woodard, ruled that prosecutors have misled the jury and failed to turn over exculpatory evidence. Woody, what is exculpatory evidence? 

Woody: Anything that could possibly make the jury find them not guilty.

Jim: Yeah. On December 28th of 2000, they dismissed charges against Graham, and he was released from prison. This is a man that was 17 days from getting the needle. 

Woody: From executing.

Jim: Yes. On January 2nd, you may wonder, "What about Burrell?" January 2nd of 2001, charges against Burrell were dismissed and he was released. Now, in 2016, a state appeals court upheld a lower court ruling denying Graham and Burrell compensation from the state of Louisiana. Burrell and Graham filed a federal lawsuit, but a jury ruled against them.

Woody: They never solved the crime now. That's a cold case.

Jim: Cold case. And here's the interesting thing. You may wonder why they're denying this money. 

Woody: It's hard. It's almost impossible to get a nickel for being wrongfully convicted.

Jim: Exactly. Especially when you don't have DNA evidence to back it up, because basically that was so many inaccurate statements, but it didn't necessarily mean you didn't do it. It just means the people that said you did it were lying.

Woody: A lot of times, if they have find gross negligence, they have to prove that DA actually did what they said that you did or whatever. 

Jim: That's it. 

Woody: Really, people don't really care about people that are exonerated, basically in paying--

Jim: Those are two for one right there for you. 

Woody: A lot of states have a set amount. If you get exonerated, it's just whatever, which is crazy. There's no amount of money worth being on death row. In Angola, much less on death row. 

Jim: Yeah, the guy that was the singer that we did the episode. 

Woody: Yeah, Archie. 

Jim: How can you give that guy enough money? 

Woody: You can't. 

Jim: And he was exonerated on DNA evidence. He did not do it. 

Woody: You cannot give him enough.

Jim: You can't give him enough. So, why are you putting a ceiling on it? Because every situation is different. Someone like that, you can't give them enough, but Goddang, you need to give them millions. 

Woody: They should never have to work or do anything.

Jim: Period. 

Woody: Y'all, we will tell you another one, and this one is a rape and a murder. It's the case of Damon Thibodeaux, which is a good, strong Cajun name. And another Louisiana man that was sentenced to death row at Bloody Angola. On July 19th, 1996, at around 05:15 PM, 14-year-old Crystal Champagne left her apartment in Marrero, Louisiana, to walk to a nearby supermarket. When she didn't return home as expected, her mother went looking for her. At around 6:45 PM, her father and 21-year-old stepcousin, Damon Thibodeaux, also went out to look for her, as did several neighbors. The search continued until the following afternoon, when friends of the family heard that a girl who looked like Crystal had been seen walking on the levee. Y'all, if you're not from South Louisiana, levees are manmade walls that hold back the rivers or the bayous or whatever. Said Crystal been seen walking on the levee in previous evening. Not long after, Champagne’s body was found near the levee. She was partially naked and had been strangled with a wire.

Before the girl’s body was found, JPSO investigators began interviewing people who had been with Champagne before she disappeared. An officer was interviewing Thibodeaux, who had been at the Champagne’s home when Crystal left for the store. When he was informed that her body had been found, a homicide detective then took over the questioning. Thibodeaux initially said he knew nothing about the murder. He agreed to a polygraph test, which police said indicated deception regarding the girl’s death. Uh-oh. 

Jim: And you being a former polygrapher--

Woody: I'm still a polygrapher, actually-- it's just so hard. Basically, at that point, the polygraph is an interrogation tool. It's hard to clear somebody who's accused of murder if you're not good as fuck like me.

Jim: [laughs] 

Woody: No, seriously. You got to set the questions, the questions that they lied to, their response has to be stronger than, "Did you rape and murder this girl?" Well, fuck you, you're in the hot seat. You're looking at a death penalty. It's hard to do. So, they failed him, whoever it was, I don't know who it was. They failed him on the polygraph, which, let me tell you, the polygraph is a long process, but it's basically made to break people down if they're guilty. And it's five or six hours. But I always said a good homicide interrogation doesn't even begin until after five or six hours. That's when you really start to get in that ass. 

Eventually, after nine hours of questioning, Thibodeaux said that he had raped and murdered Crystal. He was arrested and charged with both crimes. After he was allowed to eat and rest, Thibodeaux quickly recanted his confession, but was ignored. At Thibodeaux’s 1997 trial, the prosecution built its case around his confession to the rape and murder. Dr. Fraser MacKenzie of the JPSO Coroner's Office, who performed autopsy on Crystal, testified the girl had been strangled to death and had injuries to her right eye and forehead consistent with getting hit by a bat or a rock. He noted bruises on the girl’s buttocks, which he said indicated a struggle. He estimated Crystal had been dead about 24 hours before she was found. Separately, Dr. Lamar Lee, a professor of entomology at Louisiana State University, testified about the insect samples taken from Crystal’s body. He said flies will lay eggs on a carcass within a couple of hours after death but will not lay eggs after dark. He said that the eggs were laid before nightfall--

Jim: That’s true?

Woody: Yes. 

Jim: [crosstalk] as hell.

Woody: Came out of the body farm originally out of Tennessee, but I didn't if they used maggots and the generation of flies, and they could tell you how long a body's been down like almost within 15 minutes. 

Jim: Damn.

Woody: On July 19th, 1996, and calculated the age of the fly larvae or the maggots at between 24 and 28 hours old. They eat until they turn and fly, die and have more babies in cycle. There was no physical evidence linking Thibodeaux to the crimes, and though Crystal was found undressed, they found no semen on her body and no other physical evidence that she had been raped. A police officer testified that the semen could have been eaten by maggots. I guess.

A week after the crime, detectives questioned two women they found walking on the levee. Both said they saw a man pacing and acting nervously on the evening of the murder. Both women picked a photo of Thibodeaux from a photographic lineup, and both identified him at the trial. Thibodeaux’s attorney argued that detectives coerced the confession and suggested facts of the crime to him during their interrogation. On October 3rd, 1997, a jury convicted Thibodeaux of first-degree murder and rape. He was sentenced to death.

Jim: Oh, my God.

Woody: It's another one of our boys going up to death row.

Jim: Death row. 

Woody: So, fast forward ten more years, in 2007, the JPSO district attorney's office agreed to reinvestigate the case with the Innocence Project and other lawyers who volunteered to work on the case. Now, DNA testing as well as other forensic testing was performed, and investigators interviewed numerous witnesses. The investigation revealed that the women who identified Thibodeaux as the man they had seen pacing near the crime scene had seen Thibodeaux’s photo in the news media before police showed them the photo line-up. Moreover, the date of the sighting turned out to be the date after the body was found, when Thibodeaux was already locked up.

Jim: That could be a problem. 

Woody: Right. Well, you know what, you got to give props to JPSO DA's office for even trying to reopen and look at this, because most of them are like, "Fuck you. I [crosstalk] conviction."

Jim: Yeah, you did it. 

Woody: And he's on the death row. But extensive DNA testing on items recovered from the scene of the crime failed to detect any trace of biological material connecting Thibodeaux to the murder. Tests also showed that despite Thibodeaux’s confession to rape, Crystal had not been sexually assaulted. And DNA testing on the cord used to strangle Crystal identified a male DNA profile that did not belong to Thibodeaux.

Jim: Uh-oh.

Woody: Well, doesn’t totally excuse him. It could have been anything. Somebody else could have held the cord, and Thibodeaux could have been wearing gloves, we don't know. But the reinvestigation established firmly that Thibodeaux's confession was false. He claimed to have raped Champagne when in fact, no rape occurred. He said he strangled her with a gray speaker wire he took from his car, when in fact she was strangled with a red cord that had been tied to a tree near the crime scene. The prosecution consults an expert in false confessions who concluded that the confession was the result of police pressure, exhaustion, psychological vulnerability, and fear of the death penalty.

Jim: Wow. 

Woody: Yeah. I mean, it can happen, y'all. I hope every day that I didn't get the juice from somebody on the wrong level, and I don't think I did. Anyway, on September 29th, 2012, he was released from death row. Thibodeaux later filed a federal civil rights lawsuit that was put on hold in January 2017. Like most of our guys, he died in August of 2021.

Jim: Wow. 

Woody: But you know what? I know false confessions do happen. It's a real deal.

Jim: Yeah. You'll confess to anything if you're tired enough.

Woody: You had your ass [unintelligible 00:49:06].

Jim: Yeah. 

Woody: [laughs] -eight, nine hours not eating, I mean, you're going to get the needle, da, da, da. It might have been, "Help me help you. You tell us what happened, we're going to tell that you cooperated." But the fact that he confesses and then they give him some food and he's like, [crosstalk]

Jim: Yeah. All right, we're going to give, y'all, one more today. We're going to tell you about a guy that definitely did not do it, was exonerated by DNA evidence, and that is Mr. Rickey Johnson. I saved this one for last today because he was in prison a long time for a rape he didn't commit. Matter of fact, he was in prison 25 years. 

Woody: That would suck. 

Jim: Yeah. One day in prison for something you didn't do, it sucks. All right, imagine 25 years. Let me tell you about the crime. In the early morning hours of July 12th, 1982, a 22-year-old woman awoke in her Northwest Louisiana home to find a man holding a gun to her head.

Woody: Wow. 

Jim: The man raped the woman twice, stayed at her house for four hours. He told her his name was Marcus Johnson, and he mentioned several details. He claimed they were about his life. He claimed to be looking for an ex-girlfriend of his from Many, Louisiana. He said he was on probation. He was from Leesville, Louisiana. He even said he had relatives in the town of Natchitoches and Monroe. The weird thing is, he raped this chick twice and then he starts telling her his life story. It's almost like he felt like, "Now, we have a connection." 

Woody: Yeah, I got this special nut dumping connection.

Jim: Yeah. What do you think the victim did? 

Woody: Pillow talk. 

Jim: She reports the rape the next morning, and at which point she told police her attacker was an African American man. He was between 5'6" and 5'8", and he weighed about 140 pounds. He had facial hair and a scarf tied around his head. A detective from the Sabine Parish Sheriff's Department contacted the Leesville Sheriff's Department to ask if they had a man named Marcus Johnson on file. There was no record of Marcus Johnson, but Leesville officers did tell detectives about Rickey Johnson. They said, "Well, we got another Johnson here. His name is Rickey. He's African American," and he was on probation for a traffic violation, a misdemeanor. Rickey matched some of the details that the lady provided of the perpetrator. He was from Leesville, he did have a child with a woman in Many, and he had relatives in Natchitoches and Monroe. So, he becomes a suspect. Nothing wrong with that. Police showed the victim a six pack, but it was actually only three pictures in this one. So, we're going to call it a three pack. 

Woody: Three pack. 

Jim: Yeah. It had Johnson's photo, which was at the center. 

Woody: I don’t know how you get away with that.

Jim: That picture was eight years old, and it was in the center. That's important. Mentally, you go to the center picture first. The victim told police that she had ample time to see the perpetrator's face and she identified Johnson as a perpetrator, even though he had a prominent gold tooth, which was never part of her description of the attacker. If a guy rapes you or a girl rapes you and they have a gold tooth, you're probably going to mention they had a gold tooth. 

Woody: You mentioned facial hair and everything else, and the gold tooth would stand out. 

Jim: Two days later, what do you think they do? They go arrest Rickey Johnson and they don't even investigate any other suspects at this time. They think they got their man. Johnson asserts his innocence. He says, "I didn't do any of this crap." Six days later, they conduct an in-person lineup with five individuals. Again, Johnson, they put in the center. And again, the victim identifies him as the assailant. The lineup was not presented at Johnson's trial because it was ruled inadmissible since Johnson did not have an attorney present at the lineup. I mean, it happens. Doesn't mean he didn't do it. Tests at the Shreveport Crime Lab determined that evidence collected from the victim at the hospital included sperm and serological testing that showed Johnson and 35% of the African American population could have been the contributor. So, that's basically no evidence. Too many people. 

Woody: Too many people are-- [crosstalk] African American. 

Jim: 35% of the entire population. Johnson was charged with aggravated sexual assault and tried before a jury in Sabine Parish, Louisiana. The victim identified him at trial saying she was positive. 

Woody: Game over.

Jim: Positive that was him, and there was no question in her mind. She said the apartment was dark until about 15 minutes before he left. Prosecutors presented the victim's photo ID of Johnson and the serological evidence that his blood type matched the blood type of the perpetrator as determined--

Woody: Back then, they didn't have DNA. They could give you blood types, basically. 

Jim: That's it. So, long story short, he gets convicted by the jury and he's sentenced to life without parole. 

Woody: Bloody Angola.

Jim: Bloody Angola, baby, that's where you're going. So, Johnson contacts the Innocence Project at the suggestion of a guy named Calvin Willis, who was also a fellow inmate at Louisiana State Penitentiary. Willis was exonerated in 2003 after the Innocence Project secured DNA testing that proved his innocence. He basically called his boy and said, "If you really didn't do this, I got some people you need to talk to." Now, in late 2007, that DNA testing was performed on the sperm from the perpetrator of the crime. Remember, we said they had sperm. And the results proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Johnson could not have been the attacker.

Woody: Wow. 

Jim: This is the first DNA exoneration using the new technology with DNA at this time called Mini-STR, which allows labs to accurately test degraded or extremely small samples. First time. [crosstalk] In January 2008, they do what anybody would do, they took that DNA profile and now they have a database in 2008.

Woody: CODIS.

Jim: Uh-oh. 

Woody: They got somebody else.

Jim: They got a hit, Woody Overton. And John McNeal, who was already in prison serving a life sentence for rape committed in 1983 in the same apartment complex incidentally as the crime for which Johnson was convicted.

Woody: How the hell do you not investigate that?

Jim: It's crazy, ain't it? He's already in prison for that rape committed in the same complex. And so basically, they offer their apologies. After 25 years in prison for a rape he didn't commit, Rickey Johnson was released and exonerated in 2008 after 25 years in prison. The state of Louisiana later awarded him $245,000 in compensation. That ain't even close to what he needed. 

Woody: Did Johnson go beat that other guy's ass? [crosstalk] 

Jim: [chuckles] That's a good question. I couldn't find the answer to that. I'm sure he wanted to. 

Woody: [crosstalk] -find, you could. 

Jim: He would've got some inmate justice. 

Woody: Yeah. "Bitch, you knew I've been here all this time for this," and you know they all know what they're down for. 

Jim: Oh, yeah.

Woody: You get your David Constance been in there lying, saying, "My wife put me up, but not on rape charge."

Jim: No. 

Woody: [crosstalk] 

Jim: In the same apartment complex.

Woody: No doubt. That is crazy. 

Jim: It's freaking nuts. You would think that guy's already serving another life sentence. Why not just come clean and say, "I raped that girl"? Yeah, that's exactly right. 

Woody: Even convicts don't like rapists. 

Jim: That's right. 

Woody: Especially kid rapers and all that. 

Jim: That's right. So, long story short, he got $245,000 from the state of Louisiana. A federal wrongful conviction lawsuit was settled confidentially in 2011. So, he did get some money federally. Doesn't say how much. [crosstalk] Look, we hope y'all enjoyed these. 

Woody: We got to do more of these. 

Jim: Oh, yeah.

Woody: These cases you find, criminal mind is always fascinating to me, but this shit is--

Jim: Love it. 

Woody: Hey, we're all about the Gerald Bordelon getting executed for raping and killing Courtney LeBlanc. We're all about--[crosstalk] Almost every one of these, except for Rickey Johnson was on death row. 

Jim: Yeah, something. There's been actually, for those of you out there that are playing trivia games, there's been 11 people released from Angola alone from death row based off of either DNA evidence or strong evidence to force an exoneration. 

Woody: I get that why people are against it. They say, "Oh, you kill one wrong, it's too many, shut it down." You haven't sat across the table or looked at the dead bodies and shit that I've looked at and looked in the face of evil. But hey, I'm a champion, and would go on-- As you know Jim, after my law enforcement career, I went on and defended people that were innocent, that I believe they were innocent. So, it is what it is. We're not totally one sided, but hell or jail or freedom. 

Jim: That's it. 

Woody: It's another great episode. 

Jim: Yeah. We loved it. Thank you, patrons, couldn't do it without you. 

Woody: Yes. 

Jim: If you're not a patron member, go join Patreon. We may do some of these just for patron members. 

Woody: Patrons get commercial-free, early release episodes and locked up episodes, which we probably have more locked up for Bloody Angola than I have locked up for Real Life Real Crime, so a bunch of them. All different kinds of stories. So, y'all go check it out. You can go topatreon.com and type in "Bloody Angola."

Jim: Yep. /bloodyangolapodcast will pull you right to it. We appreciate it. We love each and every one of you. And until next time-

Woody: I'm Woody Overton.

Jim: And I'm Jim Chapman, your host of Bloody-

Woody: Angola.

Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making. 

Woody: The Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison.

Jim and Woody:Peace. 

[Bloody Angola theme]

Woody Overton and Jim Chapman tell the story of Casey White and Vickie White who just last year led authorities on an 11 day manhunt following Casey White's escape from prison in one of the most adrenaline filled escapes in United States history.

#CaseyWhite #VickieWhite #PrisonEscape #Podcast #WhenEvilEscapes

Check out past episodes on our website by clicking here

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Jim: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another edition of Bloody-

Woody: -Angola.

Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making.

Woody: The Complete Story of America's Bloodiest Prison.

Jim: And I'm Jim Chapman.

Woody: And I'm Woody Overton.

Jim: And we're back with a new episode.

Woody: We're back, y'all. And, hey, patrons, thank y'all so much for supporting us. And as any show does, eventually, we took, what, a two-week hiatus? 

Jim: Yeah, we dropped just for patrons for a couple of weeks.

Woody: Right. But we've had meanwhile-- it's funny, we take the little break, and we go to number five again and we're kind of going viral on Bloody Angola and we won't take much time off, y'all, but sometimes it is what it is. That being said, we want to thank everybody and we welcome all you new listeners to this edition of Bloody Angola. What we told y'all, or I've told y'all in every episode of Bloody Angola, is you're always going to get something different. Today's case is really different, because while the story is not directly related to Angola, I can tell you it's directly related to Angola.

Jim: [laughs]

Woody: The case is about a guy named Casey White, who was a convict, and Vicky White, who was a correctional officer. And we're going to get into it but let me tell you this. I can tell you, I've seen it, I've arrested people inside the prison for doing it. What it boils down to is correctional officers and inmates fucking. 

Jim: Yeah.

Woody: You wouldn't think, Jim, that that would happen, but it probably happens more than inmates doing it. I think the convicts use-- certainly some of the people locked up in prison are geniuses and they are master manipulators for whatever the crimes may have been. They find that weak person, male or female. We've done an episode on Bloody Angola about the lieutenant who was banging a convict. But it happens, male and female. So, it's a very real deal inside the prison. I told you, anytime you go behind those gates or the walls, that that normal rules don't apply. And it is what it is.

Y'all, I've actually seen it. I'll tell you one case that really sticks in my head. There was a politician's daughter, and she was an attractive female, who was a correctional officer. Now, naturally, he got her the job and they gave her a cush job. She was in the canteen. She worked where they got all the snacks and shit from. She had an orderly who worked with her when-- we called him, really working her from behind, literally. 

Jim: [laughs] 

Woody: And somebody else had snitched on them. So, we set it up and waited for the opportunity and busted in. They were butt naked, and he was balls deep. She didn't get arrested because of who she was, but she got fired, and he got swung to the working cell block. 

Jim: Oh, very nice.

Woody: But this story is super, super interesting. You know what? I told you correctional officers, some of the best people in the world, and then some of them that you work with that are worse than inmates. This story really shows how the human psyche can roll out, because you can be the best correctional officer for years and then sugar turns into shit. 

Jim: That’s right. This is a good example of it. As Woody just told you, it's one hell of a story. The best place to start is, I want to give you guys and gals an idea of the background of these two subjects that we're going to talk about. The first one is Casey White, y'all. Now, to call this guy a stone-cold killer would really be putting it mildly. The first thing you notice when you see Casey White is his size. He's just flat out a giant of a human being. 

Woody: Like a freak of nature giant.

Jim: Freak of nature, 6'9", weighed 330-- [crosstalk] 

Woody: There's not that many players in the NBA that are 6'9". 

Jim: There's probably not a bunch of people on Earth that are 6'9" and 330 pounds. And, y'all, this ain't fat. This is solid prison muscle. And prison muscle, as you've heard Woody talk about many times on Real Life Real Crime, is different than free people muscle. [laughs] 

Woody: Jim and I have been here before, and somebody came in to be a guest on the show, and I was like, "Oh, shit, that's prison muscle." 

Jim: Oh, yeah. You spot it right off, and that's what he had. The next thing you'll notice about this guy is his tattoos. Now, he has tons of them, but this isn't your typical barbed wire or if you're in the navy, you've got an anchor on your bicep or something. These are mostly white supremacist related tattoos. He was associated with the Alabama-based white supremacist prison gang, Southern Brotherhood. So, not a nice individual. In addition to being a freaking Jolly Green Giant. 

Woody: We need to cover this one day, and we will on prison gangs, different ones, maybe episode on each one. Let me tell you about the Aryan-based prison gangs. They're like the military. On your yard time, you have to work out. They work out in formation. They stay to themselves, etc. The prison muscle deal, if you don't work out and you're not swole, they'll beat your ass. If you don't do what they order you to do, they'll kill you. But at 6'9", 330 pounds, I bet you he was a shot caller.

Jim: Oh, yeah. What we're trying to do here is paint y'all a picture of how intimidating this guy is before you even know even a shred of his criminal record. Now, you may wonder what's that look like. Well, get ready for this. 

Woody: Well, in 2006, Casey White was arrested on a domestic violence charge. But, Jim, it wasn't his wife. Domestic violence doesn't mean it's your spouse. In this case, he was arrested for beating his mama's ass. His own mother. Four years later, in 2010, he pled guilty to attacking his brother, another domestic violence, with an axe handle, and was sentenced to six years in prison.

And, y'all, in December 2015, Mr. White went on another crime spree where he tracked down and tried to kill his ex-girlfriend. The rampage spanned both Alabama and Tennessee as he held victims at gunpoint, shot one woman in arm, killed a dog, and carried out a home invasion and staged multiple carjackings before he was finally captured in a dramatic police chase. Now, this spree unfolded on the morning of December 1st, 2015, when he broke into a home and stole two guns. Later that night, he turned up at his girlfriend's house armed with the stolen guns and opened fire on her and two men inside the home.

Jim: Didn't even hesitate.

Woody: He had it on his mind. After that, White then broke into another home and stole a man's car and another gun. Around an hour later, he shot another woman in the arm in an attempted carjacking in Tennessee before carjacking another person at gunpoint.

Jim: This is all the same freaking weekend.

Woody: He's just rolling. I mean, he's just straight up thug life. White was finally captured in a dramatic 100-mile-an-hour police chase that ended in a standoff back over the border in Alabama. Now, he's in a standoff. And during the standoff, he demands to speak to the sheriff and threatened to shoot himself in the head. He asked for a pack of Marlboro cigarettes and a Sun Drop soda before he surrendered. 

Jim: [laughs] Got to have them Marlboros. 

Woody: Got to get me them reds. 

Jim: That’s crazy.

Woody: Got to get that voice right. Well, he knew he was going back to prison. In 2019, White was convicted on multiple charges over the rampage, including attempted murder of his ex-girlfriend, and he got 75 years in prison. 

Jim: So, that's what kind of guy we're dealing with here. 

Woody: Real winner.

Jim: I guess you could say, walks the walk and talks the talk when it comes to it. 

Woody: When you tat yourself up with Swastikas and shit, you're pretty much not going to get a job as a whatever, as an accountant. I mean, you're in for the thug life. He's proven it, and he has total disregard for the law and anything going on with it.

Jim: Yeah, so he's right where he belongs. And while serving this 75--

Woody: He's the reason they build Bloody Angolas. 

Jim: Yeah, that's right. While serving this sentence of 75 years, he's also awaiting a trial for the 2015 stabbing and murder of a 58-year-old mother of two named Connie Ridgeway. Now shortly after he got locked up for that 75-year stint, he provided a confession for that particular murder. Now, she was found stabbed to death in her apartment. This was in Rogersville, Alabama on the 23rd October of 2015. The case went unsolved for five years until White sent a letter to the Lauderdale County Sheriff's Office confessing to the crime. During a subsequent interview with authorities, he allegedly gave details about the crime that had not been made public which only the killer, y'all, would have known. Prosecutors say he was paid to carry out that hit. 

Woody: Got to make a living. 

Jim: Got to make a living. Look, his whole life, that's how he generated money, I'm sure. In 2020, he was charged with two counts of capital murder. Now, after confessing to the murder in which he initially pled guilty, he changes his plea to not guilty by reason of mental illness. 

Woody: See how that works out for him.

Jim: Yeah, primarily because they were going for the death penalty if he was convicted in that case. So, there's no way at that point he's going to plead just straight up guilty. Now, if that's not enough to paint a picture of how evil this guy is, there's also the mysterious disappearance and death of his 2008 girlfriend. Casey White's then girlfriend, back in 2008, Christy Shelton, was shot in the chest by a sawed-off shotgun inside an Alabama home belonging to White's mother. 

Woody: The same mother he beat the shit out of. 

Jim: Same one he beat the shit out of. Ms. Shelton, who was 31 at the time, died at the scene. Now, White was in the home with her at the time of the shooting, but somehow, Woody, was ruled out as a suspect. 

Woody: Ah, look at that.

Jim: That was his history. Back then, officials ruled the 31-year-old deaths as a suicide and the case was closed. So, he probably made it look like a suicide somehow. Ms. Shelton's family, of course, always doubted that version of events and it was never solved. That is the crimes, Casey White was convicted of and the ones he still faced justice for in 2022 when the incident we're about to tell you about took place. 

Woody: It's just a long, long storied history of being a piece of shit. 

Jim: His whole life.