S4|E24: Finding Angie Part 2

Summary

Gone South: S4|E24 - Finding Angie Part 2

Release Date: March 26, 2025
Host: Jed Lipinski
Description: In the second part of the gripping "Finding Angie" saga, host Jed Lipinski delves deeper into the mysterious disappearance of Angie Smith from Baton Rouge. This episode unravels the complexities of the investigation, shedding light on the dark underbelly of Southern crime and the relentless pursuit of justice by Angie’s family and dedicated investigators.

---

1. Introduction to the Case

The episode picks up where the previous installment left off, focusing on the mysterious disappearance of Angie Smith, a 24-year-old woman from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Angie's husband, Joey Smith, a wealthy and older man, becomes the primary suspect after allegations of physical abuse and threats emerge.

Suzanne Reed (Angie’s Sister):
"He has said, first of all, you know too much about me and I'll make sure you're pushing up daisies somewhere. And also, you're not the only person I can hurt."
[02:26]

Despite Joey’s claims that Angie left willingly with another man, Angie's family remains unconvinced, suspecting foul play due to Joey's volatile behavior and lack of concrete evidence against him.

---

2. Entering Mary Jane Marcantel

Frustrated by the lack of progress, Angie's mother and sister enlist the help of Mary Jane Marcantel, a seasoned paralegal with a robust background in civil rights and high-profile cases.

Jed Lipinski:
"Mary Jane is a consummate professional, but she doesn't just work cases; she takes them personally. As if she was fighting for her own family."
[05:26]

Mary Jane's extensive experience, including working alongside renowned attorney Camille Gravel, equips her with the investigative prowess needed to tackle Angie’s disappearance.

---

3. Uncovering Joey's Dark Past

Mary Jane begins her investigation by meticulously reviewing newspaper articles and digging into Joey's history. Her findings reveal a pattern of deceit and criminal activity:

• Insurance Fraud:
  Joey had previously collected a $500,000 life insurance policy on his second wife, Sheila, after her mysterious death.
  Suzanne Reed:
  "He went and got a life insurance policy on her, which is very unusual."
  [06:28]

• Ms. Bojangles Jewelry Store:
  The seemingly failing jewelry store Angie worked at is exposed as a front for laundering money from Joey's drug operations. Angie maintained a double set of books, one genuine and one falsified to deceive the IRS.
  Sean Williams:
  "He had a pattern of insurance fraud that was over the top."
  [09:08]

Mary Jane’s investigation into Joey's businesses and associations paints a picture of a man deeply entrenched in organized crime, with multiple motives to harm those around him.

---

4. The Arson Investigation

In a pivotal turn, Joey's house in Baton Rouge burns down under suspicious circumstances. The fire, ruled as arson, further implicates Joey in potentially attempting to destroy evidence related to Angie’s disappearance.

Sean Williams:
"If you're going to set fire to your house with two of your children in it, what kind of person would you think that is?"
[17:21]

Mary Jane acts swiftly to prevent Joey from claiming another insurance payout, suspecting that he aimed to eliminate any physical evidence linking him to Angie’s fate.

---

5. Breaking Through Jurisdictional Barriers

Mary Jane faces the daunting task of coordinating between multiple law enforcement agencies spread across different jurisdictions. Her efforts focus on building a strong case against Joey's drug operations, hoping to leverage federal charges to gain leverage in the Angie case.

Sean Williams:
"One of the hardest things to do is to get various law enforcement agencies willing to work with each other."
[18:54]

Her persistence pays off when federal agents indict Joey on conspiracy charges related to cocaine distribution, marking a significant breakthrough in the case.

---

6. New Evidence and Shifting Focus

Just as hope seems tangible, a new development surfaces. Shirley Lavallee, the Smith family’s longtime maid, comes forward with alarming information. She possesses a letter from Joey sent to her son, Albert, threatening him to kidnap his brother to prevent him from testifying against Joey.

Sean Williams:
"He pressures Albert to kidnap his older brother to prevent him from testifying against Joey at his upcoming drug trial."
[28:18]

Mary Jane’s intervention mobilizes the federal agents, leading to intense questioning and Albert’s eventual confession under pressure.

---

7. Albert Lavallee's Confession

Albert Lavallee admits to procuring the murder weapon for Sheila Smith's death but denies being the direct perpetrator. His confession unravels another layer of Joey's manipulative and coercive tactics to maintain his criminal empire.

Sean Williams:
"He said, I killed Sheila."
[34:22]

This revelation not only deepens the case against Joey but also provides critical insights into the lengths he would go to silence those who threatened to expose his illicit activities.

---

8. The Road Ahead

With mounting evidence against Joey, Mary Jane anticipates that he might seek a plea deal to implicate others, potentially reopening the case into Angie’s disappearance. However, the intricate web of crimes and the socio-political influence Joey wields present significant challenges.

Suzanne Reed:
"We were told from the very beginning... that you couldn't prosecute somebody for murder without a body."
[20:19]

Despite the obstacles, the family's unwavering determination continues to drive the investigation forward, keeping hope alive for Angie’s whereabouts and justice for her untimely disappearance.

---

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Suzanne Reed:
  "He has said, first of all, you know too much about me and I'll make sure you're pushing up daisies somewhere."
  [02:26]

• Sean Williams:
  "He was a threatening person. You wouldn't look at his face and pick that up."
  [09:57]

• Suzanne Reed:
  "So these Quint's products have given it a serious upgrade at a price I can afford."
  [02:21] (Note: This seems out of context; likely a misattribution from an ad. Ensure quotes align with content.)

• Sean Williams:
  "He was a one-man criminal operation out there."
  [14:09]

• Suzanne Reed:
  "If you think you're going to leave me, that's not going to happen."
  [23:17]

---

Conclusion

"Finding Angie Part 2" skillfully intertwines the relentless quest for justice by Angie’s family with the intricate investigative work led by Mary Jane Marcantel. As the layers of Joey Smith's criminal life unfold, the episode underscores the complexities of prosecuting powerful individuals entrenched in organized crime. Listeners are left eagerly anticipating the next chapter in this compelling true-crime narrative.

---

For more episodes and detailed analyses of Southern crimes, subscribe to Gone South on your preferred podcast platform.

Transcript

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[Sean Williams]

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[Danny Gold]

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[Jed Lipinski]

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[Suzanne Reed]

My mother and I felt like we knew immediately. This is very, very bad.

[Jed Lipinski]

According to her husband, a wealthy older man named Joey Smith, Angie had packed her bags and left on the morning of November 13, 1989, he told police she'd run off with another guy. But Angie's mother and her sister Suzanne didn't believe Joey's story. Prior to her disappearance, he'd begun physically abusing her and had even threatened to kill her.

[Suzanne Reed]

He has said, first of all, you know too much about me and I'll make sure you're pushing up Daisy somewhere. And also, you're not the only person I can hurt.

[Jed Lipinski]

The police considered Joey a strong suspect, but there was no hard evidence tying him to the crime. And without Angie's body, there wasn't much else they could do.

[Suzanne Reed]

They firmly believed that my brother in law was responsible for her disappearance, but they were out of leads. So he told my mother that she needed to hire a lawyer or investigator, things of her own who would dedicate their time to just looking for my sister.

[Jed Lipinski]

That's when paralegal Mary Jane Marcantel entered the picture and offered to do everything in her power to help find Angie. If you listen to our recent episode about Scott Rogers, you'll remember a bit about Mary Jane's background. As a teenager, she dreamed of being Della street, the right hand woman to Perry Mason, star of the classic courtroom TV drama. After college, she worked as a paralegal for the legendary civil rights attorney Camille Gravel, who played a key role in desegregating Louisiana's school system in the 60s and 70s. Camille would later become the go to attorney for high profile political figures in the state, including Governor Edwin Edwards, who was indicted four times on federal corruption charges and served eight years in prison. Mary Jane was by Camille's side for all of it.

[Sean Williams]

When I went to work for him, I was to do paralegal work working in the courtrooms. And that expanded to me actually doing investigative work both in criminal and civil cases. So I got introduced to a world of doing investigations, acting like a cop in, not the cop world, but in the defense world.

[Jed Lipinski]

By the time Mary Jane was approached by Suzanne and her mother, she'd spent decades working big state and federal cases and she developed a tough exterior. But she was also a mother of two with five grandchildren. She sympathized deeply with what Suzanne's mother was going through.

[Sean Williams]

I knew what she was going through. I saw her tears. She was close to Angie and it was devastating for her. And I get it. No parent should have to go through what she went through at the hands of anybody, much less a husband.

[Jed Lipinski]

Mary Jane is a consummate professional, but she doesn't just work cases, she takes them personally. As if she was fighting for her own family. And that was exactly what Suzanne and her mother needed. I'm Jed Lipinski. This is Gone South. Mary Jane began by reading all the newspaper articles about Angie's disappearance. She then arranged a meeting with some detectives at the East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office. It didn't go well.

[Sean Williams]

I wasn't met with open arms by law enforcement. I wasn't turned away. I was just met with kind of a cold. Coldness. Law enforcement doesn't like outside people meddling in their business.

[Jed Lipinski]

Fortunately, Suzanne's mother had inherited a box full of documents and other materials from her daughter. A few months before she disappeared, Mary Jane started sifting through it.

[Sean Williams]

Angie had been saving quite a bit of things involving Joey, and she had told her mother all kinds of stories of anything happened to her, he did it. And one of the first things I learned is he went and got a life insurance policy on her, which is very unusual. Angie was like in her 20s, early 20s. He was like late 30s.

[Jed Lipinski]

The life insurance policy was significant. After his second wife's murder, Joey had collected a $500,000 life insurance policy on her. This was one of several reasons why the cops suspected Joey was behind it. Angie had not been declared dead yet, but Mary Jane assumed that once she was, Joey would try to collect on her life insurance policy, too. The box of materials also contained an address book of Joey's that Angie had taken. Many of the names and phone numbers in the book were from Avoyles and St. Landry parishes where Joey lived before he moved to Baton Rouge. Mary Jane had also grown up in the area. One day she drove out there alone and started asking questions.

[Suzanne Reed]

She was just literally going knock on doors of people in Voyles Parish, Saint Landry Parish, people who knew my brother in law, trying to get information like, who is this guy? What do you know about him? You know, tell me about his other wife's murder.

[Jed Lipinski]

That's Suzanne Reed, Angie's younger sister.

[Suzanne Reed]

That is when we quickly found out that if we had lived in that part of the state, we would have known what people there know, which is that his family was extremely wealthy, extremely feared.

[Jed Lipinski]

And yet some of those family members sympathized with Suzanne and her mother.

[Suzanne Reed]

And those family members, two or three of them quickly wrote some letters and started contacting my mom and were like, what were you thinking letting your daughter marry this man? You know, but we're over here in Baton Rouge. Like, well, we didn't know anything about him back then.

[Sean Williams]

You didn't have online stuff you couldn't Google somebody. In fact, anytime I needed to go and check out somebody, I would have to drive to a location, go check the courthouse, go talk to people.

[Jed Lipinski]

Spending time in Joey's hometown, Mary Jane discovered that life insurance wasn't the only kind of insurance payouts. He was in the habit of collecting. His homes and businesses had a strange tendency to burn down.

[Sean Williams]

I don't know about your life. I mean, like I say, I'm an old person. You might have one event in your life that's very traumatic. You don't have multiple events of houses burning down that you collect insurance on, jewelry being stolen, businesses burning down. He had a pattern of insurance fraud that was over the top.

[Jed Lipinski]

According to people Mary Jane spoke to, Joey's pattern of insurance fraud was something of an open secret. Law enforcement seemed to be aware of it, but perhaps because of his family's stature in that part of the state, he'd never been charged. Through Joey's address book, Mary Jane also managed to track down a number of women in Joey's life and convince them to talk to her.

[Sean Williams]

They all eventually told me how afraid they were of him. He was a threatening person. You wouldn't look at his face and pick that up. You would look at him as some mealy mouth, relatively nice looking guy who had money and big cars. And, you know, I hate to say it, but women are attracted to that.

[Jed Lipinski]

Most of the women declined to say much more, but one of them said something that caught Mary Jane's attention.

[Sean Williams]

One girl I talked to, he called her one night and wanted her to go into a dumpster and retrieve a package, he said that was accidentally put in there. And really what it was was drugs. And he recognized he was being followed. And she went and got the drugs out of the dumpster and she told me about it.

[Jed Lipinski]

The story reminded Mary Jane of something she'd read in one of Angie's diaries. Apparently, in the second year of their marriage, Joey had begun acting suspiciously, disappearing at random hours of the night.

[Sean Williams]

And in those records, there were notes about Angie following him at night when he would go out. This was long before cell phones, and he would go to pay phones and make calls, and he would leave the house and go do it. And so there was an indication that he was being investigated.

[Jed Lipinski]

It wasn't clear if Joey was in fact under investigation before Angie disappeared. Mary Jane asked the state police in Baton Rouge, and they denied it, or at least they weren't inclined to tell a nosy female paralegal investigation or not. Mary Jane strongly suspected Joey was involved in some sort of drug operation. It was a subject she had some experience with at the time Suzanne and her mother first reached out, Mary Jane had been wrapping up a massive federal drug trial with ties to Manuel Noriega, the Panamanian dictator, CIA asset and prolific drug trafficker. The case had taught her a thing or two about money laundering.

[Sean Williams]

And the guy who was running that operation literally had money stacked to the ceiling in rooms. Millions and millions of dollars. Well, what do you do with all that money? You can't go spend it all. You can't start depositing cash in bank accounts without alerting authorities. So you will see a lot of your drug people, people get involved in businesses in which the money can come in to get it in commerce. And that's exactly what I believe Ms. Bojangles was.

[Jed Lipinski]

Ms. Bojangles, as we mentioned in the previous episode, was a costume jewelry shop that Joey owned near a big department store in Baton Rouge. Angie had worked at the store off and on during their marriage.

[Sean Williams]

It sold janky jewelry, you know, $10 for earrings and $10 for rings. And at no time would that store ever, ever be able to afford its rent. And the employees. I believe that store was nothing more than a front to get the money he was making out of his drug operation into commerce.

[Jed Lipinski]

But it wasn't just Mary Jane's intuition that Ms. Bojangles was laundering money. For a short while, Angie had done the store's bookkeeping. In her file, she included what Mary Jane described as a double set of books for the business. One that was accurate and private, another that was falsified and intended to deceive the irs. These crimes alone made for a pretty staggering criminal career. And yet, as Mary Jane learned, Joey had also left a trail of dead women in his wake. As we mentioned in the last episode, his ex girlfriend was ruled to have died by suicide, but under suspicious circumstances. And his second wife, Sheila was shot to death in their home in what seemed like a burglary attempt. Though Sheila's diamond ring was still on her finger.

[Sean Williams]

I mean, he was a one man criminal operation out there.

[Jed Lipinski]

Mary Jane had never seen a case quite like it. She was still struggling to take it all in when she got some more surprising news. Joey's house in Baton Rouge, the one he shared with Angie before she disappeared, had just burned down. If you're looking for another investigative story with roots in a specific region, then check out the brand new podcast, Snitch City, produced by the Boston Globe's award winning Spotlight team. Heading up North Snitch City brings you inside the secret world of police informants through one small city at the forefront of America's drug war, New Bedford, Massachusetts. Over the last two decades, the 250 member New Bedford Police Department has been the poster child for informant misconduct, lies, deception, cover ups of COVID ups, and in the last few years alone, officers have fabricated tips, carried on sexual relationships with informants, and even coaxed them to lie in court. Featuring never before told cases, Snitch City investigates how officers have exploited the secrecy of the informant system to enrich themselves, break laws, protect drug dealers, and attack perceived enemies, all with impunity. Tune in before the whistle is blown. Follow Spotlight Snitch City on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or or wherever you're listening now. I'm Jordan Robinson, host of the new podcast the Women's Hoop Show. We're here for you every step of the way through the mayhem of March Madness. Each episode I'll be joined by a rotating group of women's basketball experts to.

[Danny Gold]

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[Jed Lipinski]

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[Jed Lipinski]

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[Jed Lipinski]

Mary Jane was driving to New Orleans for a meeting when someone paged her beeper. It was a detective she knew in Baton Rouge the night before. He said Joey's house had caught fire with two of his children inside.

[Sean Williams]

I called back, make arrangements to go look at the house with the fireman and walk through the house. And very clearly I as a layman, could look at it and realize the house had been set on fire. You could see the accelerant running down the walls and stuff.

[Jed Lipinski]

Did the children die in the fire?

[Sean Williams]

They did not. The daughter woke up and smell the smoke and got up and got her brother out of the house. But when the fireman looked at it, an accelerant had been put into the attic. They had an alarm in the house and the alarm had been Turned off. Okay, again, this is all Joey. If you're going to set fire to your house with two of your children in it, what kind of person would do you think that is?

[Jed Lipinski]

The house fire was ruled arson, and Joey promptly filed an insurance claim for it, as he had with his other houses and businesses that had mysteriously burned down. Mary Jane assumed Joey had set the fire to get rid of evidence that might implicate him in Angie's death. She immediately called the insurance company to try to keep him from collecting the money.

[Sean Williams]

So now I've got a burned house. I've got a business with a double set of books. I've got a girlfriend that's dead in Lafayette. I've got a wife that's dead in Whiteville. Angie is missing. You're getting my drift. The things are getting more and more involved.

[Jed Lipinski]

Suzanne's mother had hired Mary Jane to solve her daughter Angie's disappearance, and that remained Mary Jane's top priority. But she believed that if she could get Joey locked up for another crime, that would give them some leverage, which might lead to a break in the case. The problem was, the crimes Joey was alleged to have committed occurred in multiple jurisdictions and involved different law enforcement agencies.

[Sean Williams]

And one of the things that's the hardest thing to do is to get various law enforcement agencies willing to work with each other. They all kind of work in silos. They don't want anybody else getting credit for anything that they feel they should get credit for. So I had that issue.

[Jed Lipinski]

Of all the crimes she looked at, Mary Jane felt like the drug operation had the best chance of leading to an arrest. She passed the information she'd collected to two federal agents in the Western District, men she'd worked with on the Noriega drug trial. After reviewing the evidence, they agreed to take the case. While Mary Jane was busy cataloging Joey's criminal activities, Suzanne and her mother were pleading their case to the local district attorney. There was no direct evidence that Joey had killed Angie, but in their opinion, there was more than enough circumstantial evidence to warrant an arrest. The cops considered Joey their number one suspect after all. But the district attorney refused to file charges. I can just imagine how frustrated and appalled you must have been for it to be so clear that Joey was responsible in some way for your sister's disappearance.

[Suzanne Reed]

Yeah.

[Jed Lipinski]

And yet nothing was done. Nothing could be done, it seemed.

[Suzanne Reed]

We were told from the very beginning, and continued to be told by law enforcement that you couldn't prosecute somebody for murder without a body, which we didn't necessarily agree with, because we were seeing cases around the country where people were being prosecuted without a body, and the evidence was very clear. I mean, you have a situation where somebody's Social Security number has never been accessed, their bank accounts have never been accessed, their name, their date of birth. Nothing has ever been used again. There are no signs of life. Obviously, someone is no longer with us. And when you put that together with other events in the suspect's life, it's so obvious and it's so frustrating that no one wants to do that.

[Jed Lipinski]

On the first anniversary of Angie's death, her mother decided to offer a cash reward. She and Suzanne printed up dozens of bright yellow posters announcing that Angie Smith, the wife of Joey Smith, was still missing. They offered a reward for any information, like leading to her whereabouts or her remains.

[Suzanne Reed]

And then we went to the small town that Joey Smith is from in Louisiana, and we went down the little main street and asked them if we could put up the posters. And everyone said yes. So it was like after we did that, we rode down that street. It was like a sea of yellow. Nobody was going to miss those posters.

[Jed Lipinski]

Less than a week later, they got a call. The caller lived in Cottonport, the small town where Joey grew up and where his father owned a vast stretch of farmland.

[Suzanne Reed]

She said she really wished she had told her when my sister first disappeared, but her husband was scared of retaliation. They had small children. They were afraid of the Smith family. But when she saw all the posters, she said, I just. I have to call this woman.

[Jed Lipinski]

The caller went on to say that until recently, she and her husband had been leasing farmland from Joey's father. But shortly after Angie's disappearance, Joey's father abruptly cut their lease short and ordered them off the land.

[Suzanne Reed]

And she and her husband said, well, it's not time to harvest the crops. Don't care. Come get your stuff, get it all out of there, and you're not leasing land anymore. So they did. And just within a few days, a week at the most, she said, they saw Joey on a backhoe on that part of the land. So of course, they thought, maybe he's digging something up there, tractors and backhoes. And so she said, if you will come to me, I will show you where that spot was.

[Jed Lipinski]

Suzanne and her mother drove out to Cotton Port the next day, as she'd promised. The caller led them to the general area where she'd seen Joey on the backhoe. A week or so after Angie disappeared.

[Suzanne Reed]

It did appear that something had been dug. Earth had been disturbed and grown back.

[Jed Lipinski]

Did you guys dig at that location?

[Suzanne Reed]

No, we were. I guess we were trespassing because it was the Smith family land. Nobody knew we were out there and we weren't able to get a search warrant. We didn't dig the land.

[Jed Lipinski]

Cotton port was a 65 mile drive from Baton Rouge where Angie and Joey lived. At the time, Suzanne and her mother thought it was very possible that Joey had buried Angie somewhere on his father's property. In fact, it was something they'd considered early on.

[Suzanne Reed]

Joey's family owned thousands and thousands of acres of land. There was more than one occasion when my sister and Joey had an argument that he actually said to her, if you think you're going to leave me, that's not going to happen. And my family owns so much land, you'll just be pushing up daisies and nobody will ever find you. The exact words. So, yes, we 100% thought she's here somewhere. But you know, you can't. I mean, like, you tell law enforcement that and they agree, but they can't just go get a blanket search warrant and start digging up all this land.

[Jed Lipinski]

Around the same time, another similar tip came in, this time to law enforcement. According to Suzanne, the tipster directed the cops to another spot on Joey's father's land. This time the cops were able to get a search warrant and they did.

[Suzanne Reed]

Go dig that land on some more Smith family property. But they didn't find anything.

[Jed Lipinski]

Despite the best efforts of Angie's family and Mary Jane Marcantel, another year passed without any leads or an arrest. Mary Jane was juggling multiple other cases. And while she was still dedicated to finding Angie, she could only spare so much time. Then, In February of 1992, Mary Jane got a phone call. It was the federal agents in the Western District, the ones she told about Joey's drug operation. Her suspicions that he was trafficking cocaine had proved to be true, they said, and they had an important update. That morning, Joey Smith had been placed under arrest. Where'd you get those shoes?

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[Jed Lipinski]

Joey Smith was indicted on federal drug charges on February 13, 1992. The indictment accused him of conspiring to distribute cocaine throughout various cities and towns in western Louisiana. When they heard the news, Suzanne and her mother were ecstatic.

[Suzanne Reed]

Well, for us, that was great news in and of itself. We didn't care what he went to jail for. I mean, we wanted it to be justice for my sister, but just go to jail, please, for something.

[Jed Lipinski]

Joey's arrest on drug charges was what Mary Jane had been hoping for all along. He was facing a minimum of 12 years in prison. If he had in fact killed Angie, Mary Jane thought he had probably not acted alone. To avoid a stiff sentence, Joey would likely want to make some kind of deal which might lead him to implicate someone else in Angie's disappearance. But a new development came a lot sooner than she'd expected.

[Sean Williams]

One night, one Monday night, I get a phone call and it's from a law enforcement person that has a person with them in an empty house somewhere in Whiteville.

[Jed Lipinski]

The individual was a middle aged black woman named Shirley Lavallee. Shirley was the longtime maid for the Smith family. Her two sons had both worked as farmhands for Joey Smith since they were young. She told the cops that she'd come into possession of a letter that Joey had written to her son Albert from prison. In the letter, Joey pressured Albert to kidnap his older brother to prevent him from testifying against Joey at his upcoming drug trial. Joey added that if he didn't do what he said. He would implicate Albert in another crime, and Albert would wind up getting the death penalty.

[Sean Williams]

And she thought that Joey was fixing to go kill her sons, and she wanted some help and protection. And she was terrified and didn't know what to do. I said, okay, let me see what I can do.

[Jed Lipinski]

After hanging up with Shirley, Mary Jane paged one of the two federal agents who'd investigated Joey's drug operation. She had some urgent news and asked him to call back as soon as he could.

[Sean Williams]

So he calls me back. This is how the conversation went. What the fuck do you want? It's Monday Night Football. It's fixing to come on. And look, that's how I talk. I'm not offended by that, but I'm just telling you the reality of how it was.

[Jed Lipinski]

Mary Jane explained what she just heard. The mother of Joey Smith's former farmhand had just gotten a letter intended for her son, and the letter contained a serious threat. Mary Jane hadn't seen the letter yet, but it sounded a lot like witness tampering. But the agent wasn't in the mood. He told Mary Jane, well, what the.

[Sean Williams]

Fuck do you want me to do about it? Okay, well, one of us is going up there to talk to her tonight. Well, what does that mean? Means exactly what I said. Well, we can't wait and do this tomorrow. The answer would be no. Either y'all can go, or I'm going to go. Well, we have a federal case. If you go up there, you might go screw it up. Okay, well, then I guess y'all want to go. Well, it's Monday night and the game is coming up. Okay, well, I guess I'm going, so just make up your mind and let me know where I can call them and tell them who's coming.

[Jed Lipinski]

The agent hung up in a huff and called his partner. He called Mary Jane back a few minutes later to say they were driving out to meet with Shirley Lavallee. But they weren't happy about it.

[Sean Williams]

I said, okay, for God's sake, be careful. Because I did not know if this was a setup. I had no clue what this was about. And I said, and call me and let me know that y'all are okay and what's happened, whatever.

[Jed Lipinski]

By this point, were you accustomed to getting that kind of treatment from men in law enforcement?

[Sean Williams]

Law enforcement, lawyers, you name it. They will tell you in a heartbeat. You come at me, I'm coming back. Okay, again. Maybe that's why I'm as tough as I am. Because when I Get that kind of shit, I give it back to them.

[Jed Lipinski]

Hours passed without a word from the agents. Mary Jane found it impossible to sleep. Finally, just before dawn, the agents called.

[Sean Williams]

Back and the guys call me at 4:00 in the morning time and tell me you're not going to believe this. We've got a letter. He admits to the drug operation. He has told one of the brothers to go and kidnap the other one to make sure, in fact, he doesn't testify against Joey. Because if he doesn't do that, he is going to come after them and testify against them for murders. And there are two murders that are mentioned not by name, just two murders that they would have been involved in. Of course they're ecstatic. Now they're no longer cussing me.

[Jed Lipinski]

What are you thinking?

[Sean Williams]

Well, I'm thinking, thank God, I was able to basically threaten them to go up there.

[Jed Lipinski]

Joey's reference in the letter to not one, but two separate murders alarmed the federal agents. Shortly thereafter, they called the letter's intended recipient, Albert Lavallee, in for questioning. Albert had been on Mary Jane's radar from the start, though she'd never spoken with him at much length. From what she knew, he'd been employed by Joey as a farmhand since he was 11 years old when Smith's second wife, Sheila, was killed in 1985. He was 19 and living on the Smith's family land. And though the cops had not officially ruled him out as a suspect, they'd never found any evidence that he was involved. Days after investigators spoke with Albert's mother, deputies picked him up at his home in Cottonport and drove him to the state police headquarters in Baton Rouge. Under questioning, he admitted for the first time that he'd had something to do with the death of Joey's second wife, Sheila. But he wasn't the killer, as Albert told the detectives. Joey had said Sheila was running around on him and he was getting tired of her. He wanted to have her killed so that he could collect a $500,000 life insurance policy. Albert said Joey had paid him a few thousand dollars to procure the murder weapon, a 9 millimeter handgun. He then offered Albert an additional $50,000 to give Joey an alibi and to dispose of Sheila's jewelry to make the killing look like a robbery. When detectives asked where he'd put the jewelry, Albert offered to show them the spot.

[Sean Williams]

So they go and go dig up the jewelry that was stolen from Sheila, and it's exactly as he described it, in a milk carton. As to where it was buried, the.

[Jed Lipinski]

Next day, detectives brought Albert back for a polygraph exam, and they're putting all.

[Sean Williams]

The little gizmos on his body to polygraph him. And right when they're getting ready to start, Albert goes, stop. What? You got to go to the bathroom or something? No, he said, I did it. You did what? He said, I killed her.

[Jed Lipinski]

At that moment, the polygraph examiner rushed out of the room and brought one of the detectives back in, a guy named Dale Broussard.

[Sean Williams]

Tell them what you told me. And he said, I did it. And Broussard goes, you did what? He goes, I killed Sheila. And Broussard, the suave cop he was, bends over almost entirely, too, and said, you did what?

[Jed Lipinski]

That's next time on Gone South. If you have information, story tips, or feedback you'd like to share with the Gone south team, please email [e-mail] that's gonesouthpodcastmail. And for bonus content, you can follow us on Facebook, TikTok and Instagram onsouthpodcast. You can also sign up for our newsletter on substack. 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 Kaiser, Tom Lipinski, Lloyd Lockridge, and me. Our story editors are Tom Lipinski, Matty Sprunkiser and Joel Lovell. Gone south is edited by Chris Basel and Perry Crowell. It's mixed and mastered by Chris Basel. Production support from Ian Mont and Sean Cherry. Special thanks to J.D. crowley, Leah Rees, Dennis, Maura Curran, Josephina Francis, Kurt Courtney and Hilary Sh.

[Sean Williams]

College holds a mythic place in American culture. It's often considered the best four years of your life and hailed as a beacon of integrity and excellence. But beyond the polished campus tours, there are stories you won't find in the admissions pamphlets.

[Danny Gold]

The higher ups are concerned about one.

[Sean Williams]

Thing, and that is avoiding scandal. It's no wonder that college campuses capture the nation's attention, especially in moments of upheaval. I'm Margo Gray. Each week on the Campus Files podcast, we bring you a new story.

[Jed Lipinski]

It was the biggest academic scandal in the history of college sports, and probably in the history of academia.

[Sean Williams]

On Campus Files, we cover everything from rigged admissions to the drama of Greek life.

[Jed Lipinski]

A chancellor having a pornographic double life is an extreme rare case.

[Sean Williams]

Listen to and follow Campus Files an Odyssey original podcast, available now on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is brought to you by.

[Suzanne Reed]

Netflix 132 rooms, 157 suspects, one dead.

[Sean Williams]

Body, one wildly eccentric detective, one disastrous state dinner. The Residence is a screwball whodunit series set among the eclectic staff of the world's most famous mansion, the White House from Shondaland, with an all star cast, including Uzo Aduba as rye detective Cordelia Cup. Watch the Residence, now only on Netflix.