S4|E10: H

Summary

Gone South S4|E10: H – Detailed Summary

Introduction

In the tenth episode of the fourth season of Gone South, host Jed Lipinski delves into the tumultuous life of Harold "H" Landry, a man whose actions intertwine crime, personal relationships, and legal battles in Southern Louisiana. This episode highlights the complexities of human nature, the intricacies of the legal system, and the profound impact of personal vendettas.

Pat Fanning's Transition to Defense Attorney

The episode begins with an introduction to Pat Fanning, a renowned attorney in Louisiana known for his aggressive prosecution strategies. After nine years as a state and federal prosecutor in New Orleans, Pat made a surprising career shift in 1983 to become a defense attorney.

H. Landry [01:46]: "I think when I was a prosecutor, people thought I was a pretty hard right lock them all up and throw away the key kind of prosecutor. And then when I became a defense attorney, people thought that I was a guy who really wanted to fight with the government and get in their face and all that sort of stuff."

Pat's transition puzzled many, but it established him as a formidable figure in both prosecution and defense.

Introducing Harold "H" Landry

By the mid-90s, Pat had built a reputation for handling high-profile criminal defense cases. His clientele included Gerald Elwood, a notorious drug gang enforcer, and Len Davis, a corrupt cop involved in a hit-and-run. When Harold Landry approached him, Pat anticipated another challenging case.

H. Landry [02:49]: "I don't know that I ever remembered anyone calling him Harold. He was always just known as H."

H. Landry was a successful engineer living in Covington, a suburb of New Orleans, known for its high incarceration rates. His personal life, however, was fraught with complications that would soon escalate dramatically.

The First Incident: Attempted Murder

H. Landry's first major legal battle involved an altercation that resulted in him shooting a man. The incident stemmed from H's extramarital affair with a married woman, leading to a confrontation with her husband.

H. Landry [04:47]: "So H said, you know, I'm an older guy, I don't exercise. And he's this young guy who works out and fancies himself a boxer. And he's going to pull me out of the car and beat me up. And so I took my gun out and told him to stay away, and he kept coming at me, so I shot him. And so what's wrong with that?"

H fired a single shot that severed the man’s carotid arteries. Miraculously, the victim survived due to the proximity of a major hospital.

H. Landry [05:28]: "So they rolled the guy who got shot, rolled him up in the hospital and immediately put him into surgery and stopped the bleeding. And he survived with really very little ill effects."

Despite the victim surviving, H. was charged with attempted murder in a region notorious for its tough stance on crime.

Building the Defense Case

Pat Fanning meticulously prepared H. Landry's defense by interviewing eyewitnesses, including a 16-year-old girl who viewed H as a "cold-blooded murderer."

H. Landry [07:00]: "My hopes were that, yeah, I was scared to death this guy was coming, he was screaming and cursing, and he was going to pull Mr. H out the car and hurt him. But instead it was like I couldn't believe he had a gun. He pulled it out and he shot the guy."

Pat faced challenges in defending H., especially with the negative perceptions from witnesses. He considered, but ultimately decided against, calling H. as a witness due to his aggressive demeanor.

H. Landry [07:35]: "I think he's just a little different. And I thought that it was going to be hard to put him on the stand and have him tell his story because he was very angry and he couldn't believe he was being prosecuted."

Instead, Pat focused on discrediting the victim’s testimony by portraying him as menacing and not a credible threat.

The Trial and Verdict

Pat presented evidence that the victim was a threatening individual, aiming to shift the jury’s perception of the altercation.

Pat Fanning [13:18]: "So it's like, you know, you're a pretty macho guy. Now let's talk about H."

Despite Pat's efforts, the jury found H. guilty of aggravated battery, sentencing him to five years probation, a $500 fine, and community service—an outcome that stunned both H. and Pat.

H. Landry [14:18]: "How in the world did you get that verdict out of a jury in Saint Tammany? How did he not get found guilty of attempted murder after he shot an unarmed guy whose wife he was fooling around with?"

H. Landry’s Personal Life and Second Crime

While H. was serving his probation, his personal life took another dark turn. He married Lucy, an online acquaintance from the UK, in 2002. Their marriage was strained, leading to H.'s eventual descent into violence.

In February 2010, Pat received shocking news that H. had killed his wife in Worcestershire, England. The brutal nature of the crime—stabbing Lucy 26 times—indicated a significant escalation from H.'s previous actions. H. claimed self-defense, stating that Lucy had threatened him with a knife, but the jury quickly dismissed his account.

Pat Fanning [21:17]: "Unlike H's trial in Louisiana years earlier, H's attorney allowed him to testify. H sobbed on the stand and said he loved his wife. He told the jury that she'd provoked him into losing self control. On the night of her death, he claimed that Lucy had come after him with a knife and he'd stabbed her in self-defense. The jury didn't buy it. It took them less than four hours to find him guilty of murder."

H. was sentenced to a minimum of 16 years in prison, a stark contrast to his earlier probation.

Reflections on H. Landry

Throughout the episode, Pat reflects on H.'s character, describing him as someone capable of extreme violence, influenced by personal vendettas and perhaps deeper psychological issues.

Pat Fanning [25:20]: "Sometimes you have these cases. This has been my experience over all these years practicing law, which is a perfect storm scenario where you have kind of nut job people on both sides. Take these two people and put them away from each other. You might not have a problem, but when you put them next to each other, neither side wants to back down. They're both aggressive, they're both kind of crazy, and you end up with a bad outcome."

H. Landry’s Ongoing Relationship with Pat

Despite the gravity of H.'s actions, their attorney-client relationship persisted. H. continued to reach out to Pat from prison, maintaining a cordial, albeit complicated, connection.

H. Landry [26:01]: "When I get his Christmas card, he tells me how many years and months he's got left. And he's down to like two or three years. And so he's like, well, you know, we still have the condos in Cozumel. We'll see you down there and we'll go have a margarita together."

Conclusion

This episode of Gone South paints a vivid portrait of Harold "H" Landry—a man whose personal failings and violent outbursts resulted in tragic outcomes. Through Pat Fanning's legal battles, listeners gain insight into the challenges of defending individuals who appear beyond redemption and the profound effects of personal vendettas in the realm of crime and justice.

Notable Quotes with Attribution and Timestamps

• H. Landry [04:47]: "So H said, you know, I'm an older guy, I don't exercise. And he's this young guy who works out and fancies himself a boxer. And he's going to pull me out of the car and beat me up. And so I took my gun out and told him to stay away, and he kept coming at me, so I shot him. And so what's wrong with that?"

• Pat Fanning [13:18]: "So it's like, you know, you're a pretty macho guy. Now let's talk about H."

• H. Landry [14:18]: "How in the world did you get that verdict out of a jury in Saint Tammany? How did he not get found guilty of attempted murder after he shot an unarmed guy whose wife he was fooling around with?"

• Pat Fanning [25:20]: "Sometimes you have these cases. This has been my experience over all these years practicing law, which is a perfect storm scenario where you have kind of nut job people on both sides."

• H. Landry [26:01]: "When I get his Christmas card, he tells me how many years and months he's got left. And he's down to like two or three years. And so he's like, well, you know, we still have the condos in Cozumel. We'll see you down there and we'll go have a margarita together."

Final Thoughts

Gone South S4|E10: H offers a gripping exploration of crime in the Southern United States, illustrating how personal relationships can spiral into violence and the legal system's role in navigating such complexities. Through detailed storytelling and compelling interviews, the episode sheds light on the darker aspects of human nature and justice.

Transcript

[Ana Garcia]

I'm Ana Garcia with True Crime News, the podcast Every crime tells a story. Every story demands justice. True Crime News the podcast covers breaking crimes, investigating high profile and under the radar cases. Every week we dive beyond the headlines, exploring the effects of violent crimes on victims and search for justice. We hope you join us as your weekly source for true crime news. Listen to and follow True Crime News, the podcast on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.

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[Pat Fanning]

Many towns and cities in this country have their well known defense attorneys. You might see them on the 10 o'clock news, talking to the press on the courthouse steps, or maybe you've seen them in true crime documentaries. They tend to be quasi public figures in a way that most attorneys are not. Pat Fanning is one of those attorneys. He spent nine years as a state and federal prosecutor in New Orleans and he was known as a fierce advocate for the government. So when he left the prosecutor's office to become a defense attorney in 1983, some people were surprised. They struggled to understand how, after a career spent locking criminals up, Pat could dedicate himself to defending them instead. But Pat sees things differently.

[H. Landry]

I think when I was a prosecutor, people thought I was a pretty hard right lock them all up and throw away the key kind of prosecutor. And then when I became a defense attorney, people thought that I was a guy who really wanted to fight with the government and get in their face and all that sort of stuff. And so, you know, I think that when a lawyer is an aggressive lawyer and tries hard to do the best job he can for his side, people make the mistake of thinking, well, he's very pro prosecution or he's very pro defense, he's very pro his client, whoever he's fighting for.

[Pat Fanning]

By the mid-90s, Pat had spent more than a decade doing criminal defense work. He'd represented some tough characters like Gerald Elwood a notorious drug gang enforcer who drove an armor plated pickup truck with the word Homicide stenciled on the windshield. He'd also repped Len Davis, the most corrupt cop in modern New Orleans history, who once paid a hitman to kill a mother of three for filing a public affairs complaint against him. Pat figured he'd seen it all when a new client named Harold Landry walked through his door.

[H. Landry]

I don't know that I ever remembered anyone calling him Harold. He was always just known as H. He was living in the suburbs of New Orleans over in Covington, had a very nice home. He designed specialty cranes for offshore oil installations. And you can charge a lot of money for that kind of work, and so he made a lot of money.

[Pat Fanning]

When Pat sat down with him, H explained that for the past two years he'd been in a relationship of sorts with a married woman. H was in his late 40s. She was in her mid-20s.

[H. Landry]

She was very attractive. And H is no show my age. He was no Rock Hudson kind of guy. You know, he was overweight, balding, thick glasses kind of guy. But he had a problem because he had a dispute with his girlfriend's husband that ended up with him shooting the guy.

[Pat Fanning]

On the day of the incident, H had dropped the woman off at her house. Unbeknownst to H, the husband had come home early from work. As H drove away, the husband chased after him and H shot him in the neck. The guy survived and H was charged with attempted murder. But H was convinced he hadn't done anything wrong. The ensuing trial would be among the most bizarre that Pat Fanning had ever seen. And that's saying a lot for a Louisiana defense attorney. But as it turned out, the case was only the prelude to another, far more violent crime. I'm Jed Lipinski. This is gone south. If you talk to a defense attorney, they'll tell you that most clients believe they're innocent. And Harold Landry, also known as H, was no different. This is how H described the altercation between him and the man whose wife he was sleeping with.

[H. Landry]

So H said, you know, I'm an older guy, I don't exercise. And he's this young guy who works out and fancies himself a boxer. And he's going to pull me out of the car and beat me up. And so I took my gun out and told him to stay away, and he kept coming at me, so I shot him. And so what's wrong with that?

[Pat Fanning]

H had fired a single shot into the husband's neck with a 38. According to medical records, the bullet had severed both of his carotid arteries. Blood gushed from the wound. Incredibly, the shooting occurred just feet from the largest hospital in the region. Emergency room staff heard the shot and rushed outside.

[H. Landry]

So they rolled the gurney out and rolled the guy who got shot, rolled him up in the hospital and immediately put him into surgery and stopped the bleeding. And he survived with really very little ill effects. Afterwards, I talked to a friend of mine who was a surgeon about it. They said, man, this was amazing that this guy lived. If he'd have been anywhere else when he got shot, other than at the door of the emergency room, he'd have bled out. Each would have been charged with murder.

[Pat Fanning]

It was a miracle the guy survived. But the fact remained H had shot an unarmed man in St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, a New Orleans suburb which at the time had the highest incarceration rate in the United States.

[H. Landry]

I think you could say it's where the redneck meets the blue sky. It's where all the people who don't want to live among the crime in New Orleans go. The prosecutor liked to refer to it as st slamming because he would slam everybody in jail that came into the courthouse there. And so that's not a good place to be charged with a crime in general. And then I'm talking to the prosecutors and they're wanting 50 years or something for a sentence. And so I said, well, this is obviously a trial. This is not a case where you're gonna work out a deal and it's gonna go away.

[Pat Fanning]

In preparing for trial, Pat tracked down all the eyewitnesses to understand how to build his case for the jury. The first witness he spoke to was a 16 year old girl. She had been babysitting H's kids that day, and H was driving her home when the altercation took place.

[H. Landry]

My hopes were that, yeah, I was scared to death this guy was coming, he was screaming and cursing, and he was going to pull Mr. H out the car and hurt him. But instead it was like I couldn't believe he had a gun. He pulled it out and he shot the guy. And the guy didn't have a gun or anything. She thought he was a cold blooded murderer. And I said, well, it doesn't look like she's going to be a very favorable witness, so better find some other path to take here.

[Pat Fanning]

Pat considered calling H as a witness on his own behalf. The question was, what kind of witness would H make? What was your impression of H when you first met him?

[H. Landry]

A different breed of Cat. He doesn't think like you, and I think he's just a little different. And I thought that it was going to be hard to put him on the stand and have him tell his story because he was very angry and he couldn't believe he was being prosecuted. And so he was going to get on the stand and show a bad temper and start screaming about, why am I here? All I did was shoot the guy. So I said, well, we can't use him as a witness on his own behalf because that will end up a train wreck. And so that was one less thing we had to work with.

[Pat Fanning]

Pat then turned his attention to the victim himself, the unarmed man whose wife H was allegedly sleeping with. There was no way he'd be calling him. But as Pat learned more about the case, he reached a surprising conclusion. The victim was going to be his star witness.

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[Angela Kinsey]

And I'm Angela Kinsey. We are best friends and together we have the podcast Office Ladies where we rewatched every single episode of the Office with insane behind the scenes stories, hilarious guests and lots of laughs. Guess who's sitting next to me?

[H. Landry]

Steve.

[Angela Kinsey]

Carell in the studio. Every Wednesday we'll be sharing even more exclusive stories from the Office and our friendship with brand new guests. And we'll be digging into our mail bag to answer your questions and comments. So join us for Brand new Office Ladies 6.0 episodes every Wednesday. Plus on Mondays we are taking a second drink. You can revisit all the Office Ladies rewatch episodes every Monday with new bonus tidbits before every episode. Well, we can't wait to see you there. Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts.

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[Pat Fanning]

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[Pat Fanning]

Pat Fanning never learned the full details of H's tryst with the victim's wife, but the gist was that H had supposedly hired her to clean his house, and before long he was buying her extravagant gifts, including diamond rings. So she was actually cleaning his house. Or that was a cover.

[H. Landry]

I guess everybody could have their own take on what was going on there, but usually two and two ends up being four. And so if somebody was taking my wife back to their house in the day when nobody was there and buying the diamond rings and stuff, I'd have to think the worst.

[Pat Fanning]

According to Pat, the husband did eventually put two and two together. But rather than confront his wife or file for divorce, he'd requested gifts of his own from H. And I don't.

[H. Landry]

Remember what they were, but they were sort of manly sort of things. You know, a new riding lawnmower and stuff like that. It wasn't anything that was going to be for the wife. And H did it. He bought the gifts for the guy. And then finally the guy, after he got his wish list filled, said, okay, that's enough. Don't go near my wife anymore. So then when he saw H after that leaving the house, that's when he came after H.

[Pat Fanning]

At trial, Pat put the husband on the stand. The man offered a simplified version of the truth. H was sleeping with his wife, and when he tried to get H to stop, H shot him.

[H. Landry]

I was like, well, hold on a second now. Let's flesh this out a little bit. You say he was having an affair with your wife. How did you know that? Well, she talked about it. She told me she was going over there to clean house, and then she showed me some of the gifts. And of course I'm saying that in fact you didn't object to it. In fact, you Gave her your list with the gifts you wanted in exchange. So you were sort of pimping your wife out. And then he starts screaming at me, you know, like, what do you mean pimping at my wife? How dare you say. I said, wait, hold on now. You're not gonna shoot me or anything, are you? And the jury's like nodding their heads saying, like, yeah, this guy's kind of scary.

[Pat Fanning]

Pat continued to play up the husband's intimidating Persona. Before trial, the man's wife had given the defense photos of her husband punching a heavy bag and flexing menacingly in front of the mirror. Pat presented the photos in court.

[H. Landry]

So it's like, you know, you're a pretty macho guy. Now let's talk about H. Pat then.

[Pat Fanning]

Asked the husband if he felt H posed a threat to him.

[H. Landry]

Were you afraid of him? That he was going to beat you up? No, that fat Floyd, bald headed, you know, so you're right. So you didn't intend to just talk to him or to slap him around? You're going to whip his ass pretty good. That's right. He had it coming, you know, so we got that kind of stuff from him.

[Pat Fanning]

Pat managed to keep H off the stand to prevent him from incriminating himself. A few days later, the jury entered deliberations.

[H. Landry]

While the jury was out, he wrote me a note and said, you know, you did a great job and whatever the verdict is, I thank you for all your efforts and I think we're going to be okay. Or something like that.

[Pat Fanning]

The charges H faced were attempted murder, attempted manslaughter, and aggravated battery. The jury found him guilty only of aggravated battery. The judge gave him five years probation, plus a paltry $500 fine and some community service.

[H. Landry]

I got a lot of calls from people later. How in the world did you get that verdict out of a jury in Saint Tammany? How did he not get found guilty of attempted murder after he shot an unarmed guy whose wife he was fooling around with?

[Pat Fanning]

It was hard for anyone to imagine a better outcome. And yet H wasn't happy with it.

[H. Landry]

And then a few days after the trial, wrote me a note saying that he was hiring another lawyer to second guess my work because he didn't think I did a very good job. I was like, well, whatever.

[Pat Fanning]

Pat wrote H's disappointment off as just another of H's eccentricities. He didn't take it personally. And the two of them remained in touch. H even visited Pat at his condo in Cozumel, Mexico.

[H. Landry]

I took him down there with me One time and he told me that he wanted to move out of Saint Tammany and the whole damn United States of America because of how he was wronged in this case and he never should have been prosecuted.

[Pat Fanning]

Did you enjoy going on a mini vacation of a sort with H, or was he. What kind of companion was he? Traveling companion.

[H. Landry]

Well, he wasn't a bad guy. Was a nice enough guy to hang out with, you know. Now my wife, she did not want to be around him. She really didn't like him. And she just said, you know, this guy shot this guy and he was having an affair with the guy's wife and why do you want to hang around with him? You know? And I was like, it was a client. We tried a case, he paid me a fee. What's the problem?

[Pat Fanning]

Some years later, H bought a condo not far from Pat's in Cozumel. They occasionally met up for margaritas by the beach. Around 2000, H told Pat about a woman he'd met online. Her name was Lucy and she lived in the UK. She was 28 or 26 years younger than H. From what Pat understood, Lucy had been living with her mother and her young son and working as a bartender. H had bought her a car and begun whisking her across Europe on exotic vacations.

[H. Landry]

And then he told me that he gave her a ring that he intended to be an engagement ring. And she accepted the ring and said, thank you for the diamond ring, but I don't want to get married. And so at first it was like, well, you're not getting a ring until you agree to marry me. And I was like, h, the lady doesn't want to marry you. Take a hint, pal. And so anyway, he won her over with the ring and other material things, I think. And that's what led up to their marriage.

[Pat Fanning]

H and Lucy were married in 2002 in an elaborate ceremony in England. They moved into a million dollar home in Worcestershire on a private 34 acre estate. One day, H called Pat to say he was coming to Cozumel with Lucy and her son when he first brought.

[H. Landry]

Her down to Mexico with him. She was attractive, but she was like grunge, you know, like earrings on her nose and blue eye makeup and, you know, hair with all different outlandish colors in it. She just looked kind of out there for me, for an old guy like me.

[Pat Fanning]

Pat also found it odd that Lucy had thought to bring her ex boyfriend, the father of her child.

[H. Landry]

There were times when she and the guy would go off and H would be there with the kid. And I was just like, this is all very strange.

[Pat Fanning]

Pat saw H Only sporadically after that. From what he could tell, H. Seemed happy to have escaped the perceived injustices of Louisiana.

[H. Landry]

And then I was home in Mexico. In fact, the phone rang and somebody with a very British accent said, I'm such, such a reporter from the London Daily Mail or whatever the name of their paper is. And they asked me, are you H. Landry's attorney? I said, well, I have been in the past. I'm not aware that he needs an attorney now. And the lady said, well, he might. He just killed his wife.

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[Pat Fanning]

Or dsw.com In February of 2010, a British reporter called Pat to say that his former client H. Landry had just killed his wife at their home in.

[H. Landry]

Worcestershire and they go, oh shit, here goes H again. And so I said, well, where did this happen? And she said In England. I said, well, good. I'm off the hook. I don't have to represent him in England.

[Pat Fanning]

Pat immediately went online and started reading what he could find about the incident.

[H. Landry]

I read that he stabbed the lady 26 times and left her for dead and ran out of the house and took off somewhere and she staggered out of the house and went to the neighbor's house and banged on the door. And when they came, she still had the knife in her chest and went down and died on the people's doorstep. Didn't look pretty.

[Pat Fanning]

What did you think when you read those stories?

[H. Landry]

I thought, H is going to have a much more difficult time wiggling his way out of this one than he did the last one, because we actually have a dead body now.

[Pat Fanning]

According to news reports, the two of them had been drinking heavily that evening. Neighbors could hear them arguing around 10:30pm an hour before her death, Lucy had posted a note on Facebook that read, I've never hated someone as much as I hate someone now. H claimed that Lucy had come at him in the kitchen with a carving knife, but he'd managed to wrestle it away from her before using it himself.

[H. Landry]

But I have to say I was very surprised, maybe not shocked, because after all, I did hear all the testimony about the last time he shot somebody. So I knew that he wasn't beyond having that violent outburst. But at the same time, I didn't expect him to go killing the lady.

[Pat Fanning]

Pat knew that H and Lucy's marriage had been on thin ice. Less than a year before her death, H had dropped in on Pat in Mexico and told him that he and Lucy were planning to divorce. As H told Pat, Lucy had begun dating another man, a former high school classmate whom she'd reconnected with on Facebook. It was H's third marriage and he'd seemed resigned.

[H. Landry]

He said that was his third wife. And he said, We've been 10 years. He said, that's how long I was with each of the first two. He said, I guess wives have a 10 year shelf life with me.

[Pat Fanning]

That was all Pat knew. But after his arrest, H began calling Pat from prison. H admitted that he'd killed his wife. There was no hiding that. But as H told it, she'd been provoking him for months and had finally pushed him over the edge. When H returned from Mexico, he discovered that Lucy had moved her new boyfriend into their house.

[H. Landry]

H told, you know, the guy had to leave or some crazy stuff like that.

[Pat Fanning]

H had demanded that Lucy move out, too. He'd given her ten grand to Rent an apartment of her own. But when he came home the next day, Lucy was still there.

[H. Landry]

And she said, yeah, I spent it on a divorce lawyer. I'm going to take you to the cleaners. I'll get everything I can from you and I'm not leaving. You're going to be the one who leaves.

[Pat Fanning]

At some point, H, then in his early 60s, had made what Pat called an inexplicable decision to take nude photos of himself in an apparent effort to win his wife back.

[H. Landry]

Man, you know, I'm old and I can tell you there's a country song, you know, about old people. I don't look good naked anymore. Well, I can't imagine that H did either. So apparently she had a bunch of pictures of copies printed of this and put up posters around the kids school saying, don't let this man around your children and that sort of stuff. So she was really working him.

[Pat Fanning]

In the days before Aitch's murder trial, his British attorney told reporters the level of provocation was such that the normal guy walking down the street may well have reacted in the same fashion. Unlike H's trial in Louisiana years earlier, H's attorney allowed him to testify. H sobbed on the stand and said he loved his wife. He told the jury that she'd provoked him into losing self control. On the night of her death, he claimed that Lucy had come after him with a knife and he'd stabbed her in self defense. The jury didn't buy it. It took them less than four hours to find him guilty of murder. The judge called his actions, quote, unspeakable and unforgivable. He sentenced H to a minimum of 16 years. Once again, H blamed his lawyers for the outcome. He told reporters they'd been unprepared. A few times in our conversation, Pat had mentioned that H suffered from a bad temper. I wondered if perhaps there was more to it. I mean, ultimately he's someone who shot an unarmed man and later stabbed his wife 26 times. Did you think there was something beyond just a bad temper? Like there might have been something mentally wrong with the guy, or did you not give it that much thought?

[H. Landry]

I'd have to say I really didn't give it that much thought. I'll say this about the guy. I've represented some bad people in the past, you know, some really violent, badass people. And I can tell you, I was never afraid of H. Landry. H is pretty harmless to guys like you and me, as long as you're not sleeping with them or moving into his house. And then moving your boyfriend in and taking his money and spending it on things to try to hurt him. As long as you're not a guy coming after him for something that you told him it was okay to do before, you probably don't have a problem.

[Pat Fanning]

With H. Pat has tried hundreds of cases in his career. He calls what happened to H a perfect storm.

[H. Landry]

You know, sometimes you have these cases. This has been my experience over all these years practicing law, which is a perfect storm scenario where you have kind of nut job people on both sides. Take these two people and put them away from each other. You might not have a problem, but when you put them next to each other, neither side wants to back down. They're both aggressive, they're both kind of crazy, and you end up with a bad outcome.

[Pat Fanning]

But apparently H was the only one crazy enough to actually kill somebody who certainly did not deserve to die. During H's years in prison, he's continued to reach out to Pat now and then. He sends Pat a Christmas card every year.

[H. Landry]

When I get his Christmas card, he tells me how many years and months he's got left. And he's down to like two or three years. And so he's like, well, you know, we still have the condos in Cozumel. We'll see you down there and we'll go have a margarita together. Did mention to my wife that I had heard from H and she was like, yeah, well, you two have fun.

[Pat Fanning]

H Landry will be eligible for parole in the year 2027. If you have information, story tips, or feedback you'd like to share with the Gone south team, please email [e-mail] that's gonsouthpodcastmail.com we're on Facebook, TikTok and Instagram @ gonsouthpodcast. You can also sign up for our newsletter on substack at Gone south with Jed Lipinski Gone south is an Odyssey original podcast. It's created, written and narrated by me, Jed Lipinski. Our executive producers are Jenna Weiss Berman, Maddie Sprung Keyser, Tom Lipinski, Lloyd Lockridge, and me. Our story editors are Tom Lipinski, Maddie Sprung Keyser, and Joel Lovell. Gone south is edited, mixed and mastered by Chris Basil and Andy Jaskowicz. Production support from Ian Mont and Sean Cherry. Special thanks to J.D. crowley, Leah Reese, Dennis, Maura Curran, Josephina Francis, Curt Courtney and Hilary Schoof. If you want to hear more of Gone south, please take a few seconds to rate and review the show. It really helps.

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