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- [00:00]
Vanessa Richardson
Foreign.
- [00:06]
Podcast Advertiser/Promoter
This is Crime House.
- [00:11]
Vanessa Richardson
Most of us grow up knowing that there's always someone we can call when things go wrong. Maybe it's a parent, a best friend, or in more extreme situations, the police. But in the mid-2000s, that sense of safety was practically foreign to those living in the small town of Jennings, Louisiana. Local law enforcement had been mired in scant scandal for years, and it only got worse when women started turning up dead. As the number of victims slowly grew, so did the sense of paranoia, until the people of Jennings were forced to ask themselves if their waking nightmare was actually the result of a deadly cover up. The human mind is powerful. It shapes how we think, feel, love and hate. But sometimes it drives people to commit the unthinkable. This is Serial Killers and Murderous Minds A Crime House Original I'm Vanessa Richardson.
- [01:19]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
And I'm forensic psychologist Dr. Tristan Ingalls. Every Monday and Thursday we uncover the darkest minds in history, analyzing what makes a killer.
- [01:30]
Vanessa Richardson
Crime House is made possible by you. Please rate, review and follow Serial Killers and Murderous Minds to enhance your listening experience with ad. Free early access to each two part series. Subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts. Before we get started, be advised this episode contains descriptions of drug use, incest and sexual violence against women. So please listen with care. Today we begin our deep dive into one of the most notorious serial murder cases the Deep south has ever seen, the Jeff Davis Eight, a string of brutal killings targeting vulnerable women in Louisiana. Their deaths were intertwined with a level of law enforcement corruption so staggering, it became nearly impossible to separate the crimes from the system that was meant to stop them.
- [02:20]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
As Vanessa goes through the story, I'll be talking about things like how some offenders carry out their crimes from their positions within law enforcement, the psychology behind exploitative crimes like sex trafficking, and how cycles of poverty and abuse pave the way for deeply embedded corruption.
- [02:39]
Vanessa Richardson
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- [06:07]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
Corruption at this scale usually develops gradually, and it often starts when people begin justifying small ethical compromises until they start to feel normal. And certain personality traits can make that easier. There's a Reason that pre employment psychological evaluations for peace officers, and that includes correctional officers, are required. And that's something I've actually had certification and training to conduct. Individuals who score higher in traits like narcissism, entitlement, or psychopathic deviants may be more comfortable bending rules if they believe they're unlikely to face consequences and when the behavior benefits them personally. But one of the biggest factors to highlight is the environment and the culture. These can matter just as much as individual personality traits and why those who pass their initial pre employment evaluations become corrupt later. So aside from the fact that pre employment evaluations can't predict future moral behavior, in hierarchical systems like law enforcement or corrections, There can be intense pressure to conform to the group. And I saw this firsthand when I worked in corrections. Officers often felt pressure to be quote one of them, if someone refused to participate in questionable behavior or they spoke up about it, they could be quickly seen as a threat to that group. And once someone is labeled a threat, the group may begin pushing, pushing that person out, using tactics like isolation, retaliation, or other forms of threat or pressure. And that kind of environment can normalize unethical behavior, because the people most likely to challenge it are often not the ones who are driven out. It's also why people sometimes say the bad apples spoil the bunch. Even individuals who don't participate in corruption often stay silent about it. And silence can become part of the culture itself. That's why you also hear the term the blue wall in law enforce or the green wall in corrections. It's the expected code of silence. There's a lot of abuse, coercive control tactics, and fear that drives that. And these are examples of how corruption can develop gradually and it becomes deeply embedded in systems like this. And of course, that's not to say that's the case for every single system of law enforcement, but it's frequent enough that most jurisdictions require that their applicants be screened for these personality traits and other factors before hiring.
- [08:34]
Vanessa Richardson
I'm thinking about the victims, too. What kinds of mental or emotional impact can offenses like sexual assault and sex trafficking have on victims, Especially the ones who are actually in jail or prison? How might being incarcerated affect someone's ability to process or overcome this kind of trauma?
- [08:51]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
Well, we know the psychological impact of sexual assault and sex trafficking is profound. I mean, victims often experience symptoms like anxiety, depression, intrusive memories and flashbacks, sleep disruption, trauma, and difficulty trusting others. And there can also be intense feelings of shame, self blame, and a loss of control over their own bodies and safety. A correctional Environment adds another layer to that. It's a highly controlled setting where a person's freedom is already restricted. And in situations like this, the people responsible for their safety are also the ones causing harm. And what makes that especially traumatic is that the victim often has no ability to remove themselves from that situation. They have to see their abuser regularly. They live in the same environment where their abuse occurred, and they cannot safely plan an escape because they are legally required to remain there. That creates an extremely powerless situation. It also makes processing or recovering from that trauma much more difficult. They fear retaliation, stigma from other inmates or simply not being believed, especially because, one, they're going up against someone of hierarchy and authority. But they're incarcerated individuals, and they're often viewed as less credible due to their criminal history or their current legal status.
- [10:17]
Vanessa Richardson
Unfortunately, many of the women who endured this abuse were caught in a vicious cycle. And that was thanks to a man named Frankie Richard, a local drug dealer and alleged sex trafficker. It should be noted Frankie referred to himself as a strip club owner, but he took advantage of the poverty, substance abuse disorders, and mental health issues of the women who, quote, unquote, worked for him. He often paid them with drugs and sometimes petty cash, although it was never enough for them to actually get by. Frankie mostly operated out of a rundown motel on the edge of town called the Boudreau Inn. Thanks to him, the motel was a known crime hub. It was like Frankie's own little kingdom. He sold drugs there, threw parties, and supposedly rented out rooms for clients to solicit sex. But he never got in trouble for it because many of those people were suspected members of local law enforcement. Even though Frankie was arrested on a few occasions, it never amounted to anything. Police dropped his charges and released him in no time. People believe that the police always let Frankie off because without him, they'd lose access to the drugs and trafficked women, the exact women they should be trying to protect from predators like Frankie.
- [11:33]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
Let's talk about the power dynamics of sex trafficking first. In situations like the one you're describing, it operates through power imbalance and dependency. Traffickers intentionally target people who are already vulnerable. Women dealing with poverty, substance use disorders, unstable housing, and mental health struggles. Like you talked about. By controlling access to drugs, money, or a place to stay, the trafficker creates a system where the person becomes dependent on them for basic survival and for their addiction. Addiction. That multifaceted level of dependency makes it extremely difficult to leave, even when the exploitation is obvious. Psychologically, offenders involved in this kind of exploitation are not Often motivated by sexual interest. They're motivated by power, control and financial gain. Being able to dictate where someone lives, who they interact with, and how they earn money. That's about dominance. And for some, the profit is the primary incentive, but for others, the control itself becomes part of the reward. What makes situations like this especially dangerous is when that control extends beyond the trafficker. If individuals in positions of authority are also participating or they're turning a blind eye, or they're getting kickbacks to allow it to continue, the power imbalance becomes even more extreme because now there is no safe authority figure to report to for the victims, which allows this level of exploitation and harm to continue unchecked. And again, it's worth pointing out that they're in intentionally targeting victims that society already deems less credible. So when someone is struggling with addiction or surviving through sex work, their reports of abuse are more likely to be dismissed easily, even if law enforcement wasn't involved, which further protects the offender and the cycle of exploitation.
- [13:26]
Vanessa Richardson
Do offenders like Frankie tend to stop at drug and sex trafficking, or do those crimes tend to lead to even worse behavior?
- [13:35]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
Crimes like human trafficking involve a high degree of exploitation, like we talked about, and coercive control. So it's not uncommon to see criminal versatility, meaning an offender involved in multiple types of crime. In this case, we're already talking about trafficking, drug sales, and a broader criminal network. Within those environments, violence, threats and witness intimidation are often used as tools to maintain control over their operation or to silence, you know, their victims. All of those are criminal, criminal acts themselves. That doesn't mean that every offender involved in trafficking will go on to commit more severe crimes. But these kinds of criminal environments can create conditions where violence and exploitation escalate, especially when the offender believes that there will be few consequences or when people in positions of authority are participating or looking the other way.
- [14:30]
Vanessa Richardson
No one knew about this power imbalance better than 26 year old Nicole Jean Geary. Like a lot of women in the area, Nicole Cole had been forced to make impossible choices in order to survive. By the early 2000s, she was working for Frankie, and she'd been arrested on numerous prostitution and drug related charges. Those charges sometimes landed her in the parish jail. Nicole had always known that Jeff Davis police officers were corrupt. But from the confines of the jail, she said she witnessed firsthand just how evil those in power could be. Nicole allegedly witnessed deputies selling drugs to inmates and physically and sexually abusing them. And more than once, the jail's employees turned that abuse on her. Nicole was told she'd be granted an early release if she had sex with the jail's warden, Terry Geary, who was also her cousin. Reportedly, she went through with it, likely because she had no other choice, and not just because of what could happen if she said no, but because Nicole was also a police informant. So were many of the women who worked for Frankie. They gave up enough information to the police, so it seemed like they were doing their jobs. In exchange, they were paid in cash. However, there was a downside. Helping the police meant they had an incentive to get Nicole out of jail and back into Frankie's world as quickly as possible. For women like her, it was literally a losing game.
- [16:02]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
Nicole is in a coercive cycle where poverty, addiction and exploitation reinforce one another. It's the same concept that we discussed earlier. The same people exploiting her are also the ones providing the resources that she needs to survive. That makes leaving feel not just emotionally difficult, but practically impossible. There's also a psychological component tied to decision making for survival based needs. When someone's living in chronic instability or poverty, the brain often prioritizes immediate safety or relief over long term consequences. So from the outside, it can be very easy to judge the decisions Nicole is making. They could appear risky or self destructive, but in reality, she's navigating multiple environments where every option carries risks that many people, especially those with more resources or stability in their lives, never have to face. And that's how cycle things like this sustain themselves. The alternatives can feel even more dangerous or uncertain than the exploitation itself.
- [17:05]
Vanessa Richardson
What would it take for someone in Nicole's position to feel safe enough to speak up in that situation, when the
- [17:11]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
primary thing would be protection from retaliation, but protection they can actually trust? The people harming her hold power and connections. So from her perspective, the risk of speaking out may feel greater than the benefit. That's why it often takes strength in numbers. When multiple people come forward, it can reduce the sense of isolation and increase the feeling that they might actually be believed and taken seriously. Many victims in situations like this have had experiences where their concerns were dismissed or minimized, which makes it much harder to trust that reporting abuse will lead to real change. And another critical factor is stability. When someone is worried about housing, or they're an active addiction, or they have basic survival needs that they can't meet, speaking out can mean risking the only resources that they currently have, even if those resources are coming from harmful environments. So access to support, like safe housing, medical care and treatment, can make it far more realistic for someone to come forward. Someone Like Nicole. But ultimately, trust in the system matters. And it's very difficult to trust the system when you're witnessing corruption within it in real time.
- [18:26]
Vanessa Richardson
Nicole never thought there'd be a way out of this waking nightmare. Until one day in 2002 when she was visited by an FBI agent. The Bureau had been tipped off about the corruption in Jennings. And when the agent asked to speak to her, Nicole told them everything she knew. She wasn't alone. At least five other women came forward as well. Many were also sex workers with ties to Frankie Richard. The allegations were so serious that three jail employees were arrested and put on trial for a slew of charges, including rape and sex trafficking. However, that didn't include the warden, Terry Geary. And in the end, those defendants were only convicted of the more minor offenses, like abuse of public position and criminal mischief. Nicole learned the hard way that if federal authorities couldn't save her, no one could. Even worse, those in power might seek deadly revenge for what had happened.
- [19:25]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
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- [20:00]
Vanessa Richardson
By 2005, the jailhouse sex scandal in Jennings, Louisiana had quietly faded out of public view. And the women who'd come forward were left exactly where they started. Nicole Guery had no choice but to keep working for drug dealer and alleged sex trafficker Frankie Richard. And serving as a police informant, which could have been dangerous because everyone knew she'd spoken to the FBI. But fortunately, she didn't seem to feel any backlash. So even though the federal authorities had failed her, Nicole, at least felt no worse off than before. At the same time, though, Nicole could sense dark clouds closing in. She couldn't quite put her finger on it, but the men she knew to be abusive and corrupt carried an even more sinister air. These days. She probably told herself she was just being paranoid. However, in the spring of 2005, Nicole realized the evil in Jennings had reached new depths. It started when she ran into 28 year old Loretta Chison. Loretta was married and had two young sons. All she wanted was a better life for them. Unfortunately, long term substance abuse issues and other health problems had torn her away from her family. Over the years, she'd been in and out of rehab. But By April of 2005, the strain became too much, and Loretta and her husband separated. She couch surfed for a while. Then, in desperate need of money, Loretta committed theft and check forgery. She was caught and sentenced to 60 days in jail, where she met Terry Gueri. Within no time, Terry coerced her into sex. According to Loretta's cellmate at the time, Terri repeatedly had sex with Loretta in her cell. Despite her health and fragile mental state, however, Loretta allegedly told her cellmate their encounters were consensual and that she and Terry had been physically intimate for years. They first became involved when she was about 13 years old and he was 19 or 20. Under Louisiana State law, this would have been considered statutory rape, but Terry was never investigated.
- [22:08]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
Let's just start with the legal and psychological reality. Consent requires the capacity to give it freely without coercion, power imbalance, or compromised judgment. That is universal across all settings, even marriages or committed relationships. Loretta was incarcerated. She was in poor health, in a fragile mental state, and dependent on the people around her. In that environment, genuine consent isn't meaningfully possible. It's a coercive dynamic. By virtue of her confinement alone, and when Terry is in charge of not just her, but the entire institution, everyone is required to listen to him. That makes free choice essentially impossible. But here's what makes this important to understand psychologically, the fact that Loretta described their encounters as consensual doesn't mean she was lying. But it also doesn't make it true. It means she had been conditioned since she was 13 years old to believe that this relationship with Terri was normal and that she was cared about. That's grooming. What began as abuse likely became framed as intimacy, familiarity, or even affection. And by adulthood, many survivors who have been groomed since adolescence genuinely don't identify those early experiences as abuse if they were never given the framework to do so. Loretta's substance abuse and her mental health struggles add another layer to this. Both can significantly affect a person's ability to accurately assess risk and recognize manipulation and trust their own judgment. And that's the reality of what prolonged trauma can do to someone.
- [23:50]
Vanessa Richardson
Do you think the nature of the town of Jennings itself contributed to Terry's ability to groom Loretta? Like, maybe this kind of thing seemed normal or even relatively safe compared to other things she may have witnessed.
- [24:01]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
Here's the thing. No one starts off as a warden. Positions like that are typically reached over time. Terry began as a deputy with the sheriff's office. He moved into jail administration, and he eventually became the warden of the Jefferson Davis Parish Jail in Jennings. So that means that he had long standing ties within law enforcement, the correctional system, and the culture that existed within it. When someone reaches that level of authority, the behaviors and attitudes that come with it rarely developed in isolation. Behaviors like abuse of power often emerge gradually within environments where those patterns are observed, tolerated, or normalized. They had to have already existed, whether it was in the jails themselves or within Jennings itself, or both. People learn what is acceptable by watching the people around them, especially in institutions where authority is concentrated and oversight may be limited. This is actually something I experienced during my years working in corrections. I'd seen new officers come in on their first shifts. They were kind, they were polite, professional, eager, sometimes nervous. They were definitely rule abiding and almost scared to bend the rules. And then months later, I'd run into them again, and you could see a shift. Many began behaving a lot like their more seasoned peers. They were more dismissive, less polite, or professional, bending the rules and in some cases, more complacent. Institutional culture can be contagious, especially in closed environments where power is concentrated and the norms are defined largely by the people who hold that power. So what that tells me is that the culture there has been deeply ingrained for some time, a time that likely predates Terry, but is influenced by him nonetheless. And when we look at Loretta's situation, environment matters there, too. She grew up in a setting where adult men pursuing young girls may have been normalized, and where institutional protection was unreliable or absent altogether. In environments like those, especially while incarcerated, attention from someone in a position of authority can feel safe. It can feel validating or. Or even consensual, especially if it means survival. And that's one of the most insidious aspects of grooming. In high risk environments, the groomer doesn't always have to work as hard because the environment's already laid much of the groundwork.
- [26:25]
Vanessa Richardson
Do you think it's possible that he pursued a job at the jail specifically so that he could target vulnerable women?
- [26:30]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
It's possible. Some offenders do deliberately place themselves in environments where people are dependent on them. They see it as opportunity and access to vulnerable prey, while others enter those jobs for more ordinary reasons, and they later exploit the authority that they're given. But like you said, in Terry's case, what stands out is that his predatory behavior appears to have begun long before his career in corrections, which started with grooming and the abuse of Loretta. So that suggests the underlying pattern was already there. The job may have simply provided an environment where that behavior could continue with far fewer Barriers or consequences?
- [27:12]
Vanessa Richardson
It's possible that Terry did position himself strategically. And while it's unclear whether he introduced Loretta to Frankie Richard, Once Loretta was out of jail, she fell into Frankie's orbit. On May 17, 2005, Loretta and Frankie went to the Boudreaux Inn together, the motel where Frankie allegedly ran his drug and sex ring. That night, they partied with one of Frankie's male acquaintances, as well as two other female male sex workers, Nicole Geary and a woman named Laconia Brown, who went by the name Muggy. The group was there late into the night, and when Nicole woke up in the morning, Loretta was gone. Nicole didn't think much of it at the time. A few days had passed, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. But then rumors began to swirl when Terry showed up at Loretta's friend's house completely unannounced and said she was missing. Missing? He asked her friend if they knew where she was, but they didn't. Just like Nicole, they didn't think much of it. Loretta sometimes disappeared for a few days, but she always turned back up. However, they had no way of knowing that no missing persons report had actually been filed. It wasn't until a few hours later that anyone started to question Terry's behavior Because a local fisherman found Loretta's body floating in a canal just outside of Jennings. The responding officers didn't see any sign of injury, so it wasn't immediately clear how she'd actually died. Then when the toxicology results came back, they showed that Loretta had cocaine and twice the legal limit of alcohol in her system when she died. It's possible Loretta died of an overdose, but ultimately her cause of death was ruled undetermined. News of her death spread quickly around Jenny, and police confirmed that Loretta was last seen at the motel before she died. When Nicole realized she was one of the last people to see Loretta alive, it was like all the air was sucked out of her lungs. She could tell something bad was happening in Jennings, and she had a sinking feeling that Loretta's death was only the beginning. But then the police stopped investigating. They never questioned Frankie or the other man who was with them that night at the motel. Loretta's ex husband even took issue with the fact that he wasn't questioned either. He knew that when a woman mysteriously died, police always questioned her husband. So why hadn't they talked to him? Even if Loretta had died of an overdose, her family wanted to know how her body ended up in the canal. As more people demanded answers, the authorities simply said there was no evidence of a crime. But people in town felt like the police weren't treating Loretta with the humanity she deserved.
- [29:56]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
The reality is, as many people know, not all victims are treated equally, and that disparity tends to be predictable. Women like Loretta who are marginalized or disenfranchised tend to fall low on the victim hierarchy. They saw that she was a substance abuser with a history of mental health treatment and seemingly filtered the investigation through a biased lens. Assumptions about the ambiguity of her death made them less likely to treat it as a crime worth solving and more likely to project blame onto her lifestyle rather than ask harder questions. It's as if they treated the substances found in her system as an explanation rather than details requiring further investigation. And they didn't explore how she ended up in that canal in the first place. The failure to question her husband may be one of the most telling details here. Questioning a spouse in a suspicious death is standard protocol, at least as I understand it, though I'm not an investigator. But to me, skipping that step suggests that they reached a conclusion before the investigation even began. And the conclusion in Loretta's case appears to have been that her life and death simply didn't require the same effort as someone else's. If that's the case, then that's a value judgment, and Loretta deserved better than that.
- [31:19]
Vanessa Richardson
I'm curious these days, how are members of law enforcement taught to overcome certain biases?
- [31:25]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
Now, I'd like to say that this has improved completely and things like this no longer happen, but that's simply not true. Everyone carries biases, and that said, it has evolved significantly. Modern law enforcement training does include implicit bias training, which teaches officers to identify the assumptions that they bring into their work. I taught this myself when I delivered suicide prevention training to correctional officers, and I saw the biases there. Too many of them held the blanket assumption that incarcerated individuals were feigning suicidal ideation, meaning faking it. And while that does happen often because they're seeking secondary gain, the risks of applying that broadly is very grave because it can cost a life and it can cost a career. And from what I understand, there has also been a meaningful push toward victim centered and trauma informed frameworks in investigator training. But the thing is, thing is, we can give officers education and every appropriate foundation, but if we place them back into an institutional culture that operates against everything that we just taught them, then essentially we are just covering our bases. And in my experience, at least in correctional settings, when an officer was terminated for misconduct, the institution was protected from liability because that officer had received the required training, teaching them not to do the very thing that they were terminated for. But the institution never held the culture accountable, and research consistently shows that training alone, without structural accountability, has limited impact on the actual behavioral changes we need to see. And real change requires a complete system overhaul with that regard and consequences that are consistent regardless of who is involved.
- [33:23]
Vanessa Richardson
As Loretta's family mourned her, the rest of Jennings tried to make sense of her bizarre death. But they barely had time to process things before tragedy struck again. About a month later, a group of people found another woman's body floating in a canal. It was a different canal than the one Loretta's body had been found in. And unlike Loretta, the woman's throat had been slit. She was soon identified as 30 year old Ernestine Path Patterson. Before she died, Ernestine was a sex worker and police informant who suffered from drug addiction. However, she didn't work for Frankie Richard, but she was connected to him. One of the last people to see Ernestine alive was her friend Muggy Brown, who was also at the motel party where Loretta was last seen alive. And now Muggy was one of the last people to see Ernestine alive, too. On the night of June 16, about a month after Loretta died, the two women had met up with Muggy's cousin Lawrence Nixon, and his friend Byron Jones. It's unclear exactly what they got up to, but by the following morning, Ernestine had vanished. Her body was found a couple of days later. Because of the severe knife wound, her death was labeled a homicide. Which meant now people in Jennings were becoming more convinced there was a killer on the list, loose, perhaps even multiple killers. This time, the police couldn't ignore it. So they interviewed the person closely linked to both deaths, Muggy Brown. And she told them something shocking. According to Muggy, Byron had paid Ernestine for sex that night. And later she had witnessed Byron murder Ernestine with a hunting knife.
- [35:08]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
Muggy's silence until she was questioned was about survival. Survival in a community where law enforcement isn't trusted for obvious reasons, coming forward willingly would feel threatening, especially after witnessing how they seemingly dismissed the investigation into Loretta's death. If she came forward, she'd be putting herself at risk for an investigation she likely didn't believe would be taken seriously, especially initially without a body at the time. There's also the reality of witness intimidation and the psychological weight of what she had just seen happen to Ernestine. And the real fear of being implicated because she was the last person to see her alive and Loretta before they died. And witnessing a traumatic event can take time to process. And most people immediately compartmentalize something that extreme in order to manage the overwhelming discomfort. But now that Ernestine's body had been found and police had come to Muggy seeking answers, that changes risk calculus. That may have made her feel like they were genuinely investigating her death, and more so than they had. Loretta's mugging may have felt safe enough now to speak, or she may have felt that staying silent was no longer the safe option. Either because she feared she'd be implicated if she didn't speak up, she did another risk appraisal, I think, in that moment, and she made a decision based on that.
- [36:36]
Vanessa Richardson
Regardless of how long it took Muggy to come forward, investigators now had a promising lead, especially because after speaking to Muggy, they heard from other witnesses who claimed to have seen Byron and Lawrence carrying a bloody bag the night Ernestine was killed. But even with these statements, six months passed before the police confronted the men. Then, in January 2006, Byron and Lawrence were finally arrested in connection with Ernestine's murder. At that time, police also searched their homes for DNA evidence, which. But they didn't find anything. Byron and Lawrence's charges were dropped, and they were let go. Despite two women being dead in Jennings, no one was held responsible. And people soon realized that justice may never come because the man at the center of the mayhem was too powerful to bring down.
- [37:32]
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- [38:20]
Vanessa Richardson
By the spring of 2007, two female sex workers in Jennings, Louisiana, had mysteriously died. Loretta Chison and Ernestine Patterson. Loretta's cause of death was undetermined, but Ernestine's was ruled a homicide. Still, no one was being held responsible. As public fear mounted, women who ran in similar circles as Loretta and Ernestine started getting paranoid. Even though many of these women continued to act as police informants, they knew that one wrong move could put their lives at risk. And pretty soon, the anxiety became too much to be bear. In March of 2007, 21 year old Kristen Lopez was staying in a budget motel room which was being paid for by none other than Frankie Richard. He booked it so he could spend time with her and another woman, Tracy Chison, who was cousins with the first victim, Loretta Chison. Kristen and Frankie seemed to have a close relationship. She called him Uncle Frankie and he took her in whenever her parents struggles with drug addiction forced her out of her own home. But that month, everything changed because Frankie learned that Kristen had talked to the police about Loretta's death a couple years earlier. It's unclear exactly what she had said to them, but when Frankie found out, he was furious. And pretty soon, Kristen was telling people she feared for her life. Some people brushed it off as paranoia, especially since Kristen reportedly had a drug problem of her own. However, Kristin was telling the truth about her problems with Frankie, which became clear when he kicked her out of the motel room.
- [39:59]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
This is a trauma bond where the same person who creates the danger also becomes the perceived solution to it. The person who causes harm, but also provides shelter, money and protection. When someone grows up without reliable protection, their model of safety is skewed and consistency, shelter and attention from someone who is powerful or authoritative can register as protection because their fulfilling needs and roles they otherwise never had. When that disappears suddenly like this, it's very destabilizing because it's the loss of their entire sense of safety, which in this case, they've become dependent and reliant on. Losing that often produces panic, impaired judgment, and a desperate search for a replacement source of security. It also leaves them feeling acutely vulnerable because the skills required to navigate the world independently likely never have fully developed in the first first place. Krista knew something had shifted. She said so out loud. And the people around her filtered that through her drug use rather than taking it at face value. And that's worth acknowledging because discrediting someone's fear based on their circumstances rather than their words is exactly how credible warnings get ignored.
- [41:12]
Vanessa Richardson
If Frankie's anger was related to Kristen speaking to police about Loretta, what might this suggest about his feelings surrounding the investigation? Frankie usually benefited from the women he controlled cooperating with police. So why would he lash out now?
- [41:27]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
I mean, it's possible that this likely threatened him personally rather than protected him, like it potentially put him at risk. In a way that his current connections with law enforcement Couldn't protect him from. He's been working closely with law enforcement, as it's been alleged. So to get this worked up over that Is very telling. But I think what's more telling Is how frankie understood his own position. People who manage others through control and dependency don't typically panic Unless they perceive a genuine threat to that control. I think what happened here Was exposure anxiety, and exposure anxiety that extreme in a man with that much to lose Is worth taking seriously As a behavioral indicator. Also.
- [42:11]
Vanessa Richardson
With nowhere to go, Kristen walked a few blocks to a nearby house that one of frankie's acquaintances owned. The house was widely known as a local hotspot for drugs and prostitute institution. There, Kristen and tracy chison started meeting with clients. At some point that night, Tracy left, But kristen stayed. And that night was the last time anyone saw her alive. As the days passed, Tracy grew concerned. She didn't hear from kristen, so she contacted her mother, and together, they filed a missing person report. But the police couldn't do anything to help them, because three days later, on March 18, 2007, Kristen's body was found floating in a canal in jennings. Kristen was now the third sex worker in the small town to be found dead under unusual circumstances. An autopsy later revealed drugs in her system, but by the time her body was recovered, Several days had passed. Decomposition prevented the medical examiner from determining a definitive cause of death. Investigators considered several possibilities. Maybe kristen overdosed. Maybe she drowned accidentally. Maybe she took her own life. But to kristen's family and friends, none of those explanations made sense. They believed her death was not random, and they insisted she hadn't simply died on her own. Their pressure forced investigators to take another look at kristen's final days. They soon learned about kristen's falling out with fred frankie, so they decided to speak with him. Frankie said the last time he saw kristen Was when he kicked her out of the motel room he'd rented for her, and officers believed him. After that, they stopped looking into frankie As a possible murder suspect. They claimed there wasn't enough evidence to suggest he had anything to do with kristen's death. To many and jennings, it seemed like police were offering frankie A level of protection the victims never received. And they couldn't help but wonder why. Some suspected he knew damaging information about members of the jeff davis sheriff's department. Others thought the police were simply letting their friend slide.
- [44:21]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
So there are legitimate reasons why a lead doesn't turn into a suspect. Investigators need sufficient evidence, Witnesses, or alibis that have not been corroborated to formally name a suspect because the case needs to be strong enough for the district attorney to bring about charges. There are certain thresholds of evidence they need to meet first. But the issue is law enforcement is the one who is gathering the evidence to bring to the prosecutor in the first place. And when the potential suspect has close ties to them, those evidentiary thresholds can stop being neutral and start being personal. It can then become about loyalty, self interest, and institutional protection. Investigators are the ones who can quietly shape what gets pursued and what doesn't, or skew which way the evidence points. And in small communities, we have to also consider the confirmation bias that can occur even in the absence of corruption, when there are existing personal relationships or previous law enforcement encounters with the victim, and they know them personally, or they know their criminal history or their substance abuse history, and they can make snap judgments about what likely happened rather than objectively considering alternatives with new information. And if she's an informant, that adds another complexity to the case. For example, and this is purely hypothetical, if Kristen had been acting as an informant and was providing information to law enforcement about Frankie, aggressively pursuing him immediately as a suspect could have complicated those existing investigative relationships. Informant arrangements are often sensitive, and exposing them too early can disrupt ongoing investigations or reveal who has been cooperating with police. That doesn't mean someone should be ruled out as a suspect because of that dynamic, but it can create a situation where investigators move more cautiously because they're balancing the possibility of a crime with the potential impact that that investigation can have on other cases they're investigating or sources that they have for those other cases. That doesn't mean someone should be ruled out as a suspect because of that dynamic, but it can create a situation where investigators move more cautious because they're balancing the possibility of a crime with the potential impact that has on other cases and other investigations or other sources of information that they have. They don't want that crime to expose all of those. Now, whether that's ethically or legally appropriate is a different question. But from a public safety standpoint, no one should be shielded from scrutiny if they are potentially involved in in a crime, and a violent one at that. But operationally, those dynamics can still influence how investigators approach a case, especially when informants, suspects, and ongoing investigations are all intersecting in the same network. And I've unfortunately heard of this happening with investigations that were ongoing in correctional systems as well.
- [47:30]
Vanessa Richardson
What about the fact that law enforcement seemed hesitant to openly acknowledge the possibility of murder? Murder in all but one of the cases, do you think this was kind of shady or do you think it was tactful on their part?
- [47:42]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
All right, let's be objective. First, from what we know currently, Loretta and Kristin's deaths did not have obvious signs of homicide. Kristen's death was under unusual circumstances that we know because she had been so badly decomposed, the medical examiner was unable to determine the cause of death. As a result, if the cause of death is listed as undetermined, investigators are going to be hesitant to publicly describe it as a homicide because that has legal implications and it shapes the direction of the investigation. But when you have multiple deaths connected to the same community and the victims are all connected to each other or the same social network and authorities appear reluctant to even consider the possibility of foul play, that can understandably raise concerns. I mean, it raises concerns for me just hearing this and seeing the patterns for families and community members, that can definitely feel like dismissal. And it's invalidating the concern and it's invalidating the fears regarding safety for the community as well.
- [48:46]
Vanessa Richardson
After Kristen's body was found, pressure on law enforcement intensified. Rumors about a serial killer spread throughout Jennings. Families demanded answers and residents wanted reassurance, assurance they were safe. Sheriff Ricky Edwards attempted to calm things down with a public statement, but he ended up doing the opposite. During his speech, Edwards emphasized the victims, quote unquote high risk lifestyles, which only drew outrage from the victims families and others who felt like he was victim blaming. Now people wondered if the police even cared about solving the mysteries. Those doubts only intensified as the the Nightmare continued. On May 10, 2007, two months after Kristin's death, another body surfaced. This time it belonged to 26 year old Whitney Charlene Dubois. Her body had been found on the side of a dirt road. While her remains weren't as badly decomposed as previous victims, the coroner wasn't able to establish a cause of death. When word got out, no one was surprised to learn that Whitney had also also worked for Frankie Richard and acted as a police informant. Now the death toll was at 4, and public trust in police was fading rapidly. Investigators finally ramped up their efforts, beginning with Kristen Lopez. Part of the reason they started there was because Tracy Chassan was one of the last people to see Kristen alive. And since Tracy was a known sex worker with a prior marijuana conviction, they easily tried tracked her down. During her interview, Tracy reiterated Frankie's claim that the last time Frankie and Kristen saw each other was when he kicked her out of the motel. But the police hadn't asked about when they last saw each other. They'd asked about when Kristen was last seen alive. And days had passed between those two events. Feeling a little skeptical, investigators brought Tracy back in for a second interview. She must have sensed they were suspicious of her, because this time, her story changed. Tracy said that she, Frankie and Frankie's niece, Hannah Connor, had all been driving around with Kristen the night she died. According to Tracy, the group was in the middle of a drug binge when Frankie and Hannah suddenly turned on Kristen and beat her severely. Tracy claimed they then drove to the Petit Jean canal and drowned her. Investigators thought the story was credible, especially because a female inmate at the Jeff Davis jail was later came forward and said that Hannah had described the murder in the same way to her as well. The police knew that these revelations would travel through the grapevine, and if they didn't act fast, the public outrage might reach a breaking point. So on May 16, 2007, they arrested Frankie and Hannah in connection to Kristen's death. People in Jennings were shocked. Maybe the police were going to put a stop to the violence.
- [51:43]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
And after all, an arrest like this can send two different messages depending on the person receiving it. For those who want to believe that the system can still work as intended, it can feel like a turning point, like a way to restore institutional trust. But for those who have been seeing the patterns over the years, it can actually cause more suspicion instead of relief. They're asking, why now? And rightfully so. There are now three. Three deaths. There is public outrage, and law enforcement has to relieve that pressure somehow. A high profile arrest can do that. That doesn't mean that's what happened here, but it's a pattern worth mentioning. What's also worth mentioning is the timing. The arrest came after the story began spreading publicly. Whether that timing was coincidental or deliberate is something we don't really know from the outside. But what we do know is that Kristin's family had been asking questions for months, and they were putting on the pressure, and they deserved that same urgency from the very beginning. But so did Loretta and so did Ernestine.
- [52:44]
Vanessa Richardson
Unfortunately, just as quickly as people started to gain faith in the system, they lost it. Because within no time, Frankie and Hannah's charges were dropped and they were released. Frankie returned to his shadowy life, and all the women connected to him lived in. In fear of when they'd be next. In what may have been a last ditch effort to get a killer off the streets, Tracy shared even more about Frankie. This time, she accused him of killing Whitney. According to Tracy, Whitney had refused to have sex with Frankie, so he retaliated by taking her life. However, police didn't seem to take Tracy's story seriously, but they did use Tracy's testimony to dig deeper into Kristen's death. During her first interview, Tracy had told investigators that Kristen had been brutally assaulted inside a truck before being drowned. She said the truck belonged to a woman named Connie Seiler, another woman Frankie had been trafficking. After Kristen died, Connie was arrested on unrelated charges. So when Tracy told investigators this story, Connie's truck was actually in police custody. However, she wanted to get rid of it before it was replaced possessed. So the jail warden, Terry Geary, helped her sell it to a Jeff Davis sheriff's deputy. According to other inmates at the jail, the deputy had the vehicle deep cleaned after buying it. This raised a disturbing possibility that potential DNA evidence connected to Kristen's murder may have been destroyed by a law enforcement officer. One man inside the the department took the allegations seriously. Sergeant Jesse Ewing recorded interviews about the incident and sent the audio directly to the FBI. He feared corruption within his own department might cause the evidence to disappear if he reported it internally. But the information didn't trigger a federal investigation. Instead, the FBI routed the issue back to Ewing's supervisors. It's possible that because of their fate failed attempt to end corruption in Jeff Davis two years earlier, they were afraid to ruffle feathers again. Instead, Sergeant Ewing took the fall. Shortly after the FBI routed the evidence back to Ewing's supervisors, he was fired and the truth remained buried, which may be why the violence continued. The next time a woman wound up dead, her proximity to law enforcement enforcement forced people to wonder if the police weren't just apathetic, but if they'd been behind the deaths all along. Thanks so much for listening listening. Come back next time for the conclusion of our deep dive on the Jeff
- [55:44]
Dr. Tristan Ingalls
Davis eight Serial Killers and Murderous Minds as a Crime House Original Powered by Pave Studios Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on Instagram at Crime House and don't forget to rate, review and follow Serial Killers and Murderous Minds wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback truly means makes a difference
- [56:07]
Vanessa Richardson
and to enhance your listening experience, subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts. You'll get every episode of Serial Killers and Murderous Minds ad free along with early access to each thrilling two part series. Serial Killers and Murderous Minds is hosted by me, Vanessa Richardson and forensic psychologist Dr. Tristan Engels and is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. This episode was brought to life by the Serial Killers and Murderous Minds team. Max Cutler, Ron Shapiro, Alex Benedon, Lori Marinelli, Natalie Pertovsky, Sarah Camp, Sarah Batchelor, Markie Lee, Sarah Tardiff, and Carrie Murphy. Thank you for listening. Thanks for listening to today's episode. Not sure what to listen to? To next, check out America's Most Infamous Crimes hosted by Katie Ring. From serial killers to unsolved mysteries and game changing investigations, each week Katie takes on a notorious criminal case in American history. Listen to and follow America's Most Infamous Crimes now Wherever you listen to podcasts.