Real Life Real Crime | The Madam of Baton Rouge: Power, Exploitation, and the Price of Silence

Summary

Real Life Real Crime | The Madam of Baton Rouge: Power, Exploitation, and the Price of Silence

Release Date: June 27, 2025

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Introduction to the Case

In this gripping episode of Real Life Real Crime, host Woody Overton delves into the dark and complex world of Sylvia Landry, infamously known as the Baton Rouge Madam. The episode explores themes of power, exploitation, and the murky lines between consent and coercion in the realm of sex trafficking.

Meeting Ashley: A Prelude to Exploitation

Woody begins by recounting his personal encounter with a young woman he names Ashley. As a former correctional officer, Woody describes his lifestyle in the early '90s—partying, meeting women, and the unexpected turn his relationship with Ashley would take.

Woody Overton [03:15]: "I was a young blood, 22 years old, good looking dude, and physically fit. On our days off, we'd party, go to bars, and meet women."

Woody narrates how Ashley revealed her involvement with an escort agency, shocking him with the revelation that such services existed openly in Baton Rouge.

Woody Overton [07:42]: "She said, 'I'm a call girl.' I was blown away. There was no Internet, no cell phones—just the Yellow Pages."

Sylvia Landry: The Architect of the Operation

Sylvia Landry emerges as the central figure orchestrating the high-end escort services in Baton Rouge. Woody provides insights into how Sylvia managed her businesses under various aliases to evade legal repercussions.

Woody Overton [10:25]: "Sylvia ran three different agencies—Dial Date, Cosmopolitan, and Charlie's Angels—all listed under seemingly legitimate services in the Yellow Pages."

Sylvia's business model catered to affluent clients, promising discretion and exclusivity, which Woody suggests attracted powerful individuals, including doctors, politicians, and law enforcement officers.

Legal Downfall and Federal Charges

The episode transitions to Sylvia Landry's legal troubles, highlighting her arrest in April 1994 and subsequent charges that spanned both state and federal jurisdictions. Woody details the gravity of the charges, including pandering and transporting minors across state lines for illicit purposes.

Woody Overton [22:47]: "She pled no contest to five counts of pandering and three counts of enticing women into prostitution. Later, a federal judge sentenced her to six years for human sex trafficking."

Despite the extensive client list Sylvia maintained, none of the high-profile names were ever publicly prosecuted, leading to rampant speculation and conspiracy theories about possible cover-ups.

Escape and Mysterious Death

One of the most shocking moments recounted by Woody is Sylvia's audacious escape from Bryan, Texas, prison in August 1995. Contrary to dramatic prison breakouts, Sylvia simply walked out during lunchtime.

Woody Overton [35:30]: "She walked out the door during lunch. It took them three days to find her in the woods, scratched up and bitten by mosquitoes."

Tragically, only two days after her escape, Sylvia was found dead in Brazos County Jail, hanging from a bedsheet. While authorities ruled her death a homicide, Woody remains skeptical of the official narrative, drawing parallels to other high-profile cases like Jeffrey Epstein.

Woody Overton [45:10]: "She hung herself. Just like Epstein. But I don't believe it was suicide. She was too savvy, too aware of what was at stake."

Impact and Reflections

Woody reflects on the broader implications of Sylvia Landry's operations, emphasizing the blurred lines between voluntary participation and coercion in sex trafficking.

Woody Overton [50:05]: "Even if Ashley wasn't forced like others, the coercion of financial dependency and opportunity can be powerful drivers into exploitation."

He underscores the importance of organizations like Queens of Digital Marketing by Ms. Tina, which work tirelessly to support and rehabilitate victims of sex trafficking, offering them pathways to education and self-sufficiency.

Conclusion

The episode concludes with Woody advocating for continued support for victims and a deeper understanding of the systemic issues that allow such exploitation to thrive. He invites listeners to engage with Queens of Digital Marketing and participate in efforts to break the cycle of human sex trafficking.

Woody Overton [58:50]: "For every one of the Ashley's out there that voluntarily did it for college money and a nice place to live, there were some who were coerced. It's our duty to support and empower them to break free."

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Key Takeaways

• Sylvia Landry's Operations: Demonstrated the capability to run a high-end escort service under the guise of legitimate businesses, attracting a clientele that included powerful figures.

• Legal Challenges: Landry's arrest and the subsequent legal battles highlighted the complexities of prosecuting high-profile individuals involved in sex trafficking.

• Escaping Justice: Her brief escape and mysterious death left many questions unanswered, fueling conspiracy theories and distrust in official accounts.

• Victim Support: Emphasized the critical role of support systems in helping victims of sex trafficking regain control of their lives and avoid exploitation.

Notable Quotes

• Woody Overton: "Sylvia ran three different agencies—all listed under seemingly legitimate services in the Yellow Pages." [10:25]

• Woody Overton: "She walked out the door during lunch. It took them three days to find her in the woods, scratched up and bitten by mosquitoes." [35:30]

• Woody Overton: "Even if Ashley wasn't forced like others, the coercion of financial dependency and opportunity can be powerful drivers into exploitation." [50:05]

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For those interested in further exploring this case and understanding the intricate dynamics of sex trafficking, this episode offers a compelling and personal perspective that underscores the importance of vigilance and support in combating such heinous crimes.

Transcript

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[Tina]

Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have to write to an attorney prior to or during any question. If you can't afford one, the court appoint one for you.

[Woody Overton]

Do you understand your rights? And the wolf is at your door.

[Tina]

Oh.

[Woody Overton]

You running over that's for sure Already knows all about you Cut you down no matter about you now you better walk alive. Warning this episode of Real Life Real Crime. The podcast may contain descriptions of acts of violence or that of a sexual nature and should be for people that are 18 years or older. He my warning people. I do not get the facts of these cases off of the Internet or for some television show. The facts I'm retelling you were presented to me by the victims of the crimes or the perpetrators who committed the crimes against the victims. My descriptions of the crime scenes, what I saw with my own two eyes. If you're gonna get offended, please turn this podcast off now. Thank you. Hello everybody and welcome to this episode of Real Life Real Crime. The podcast. As always, I'm your host Woody Overton and today I'm going to be doing a human trafficking, I guess sex traffic, definitely sex trafficking story. Continuing on along the lines of the queens of digital marketing which is a 501C Ms. Tina is set up for sex trafficking victims in It's a non profit y' all. So if you want to go donate to it, please do. And I think it takes like $3,000 per female for them to train them and give them the equipment and set them up in business. It's a lot to it. Go back and listen to the queens of digital marketing episodes. And yeah, unfortunately the. For 99% of these, these ladies that are, or kids that are sex trafficked, I mean they've been groomed. It's not, it's not their choice. It's, it's, it's the lifestyle and everything else. So. But it's a very important cause and it got me to thinking about people I've known over the years, etc. So I'm going to tell you a story today and going way, way, way, way back to early 90s. And I mean early 90s, like 91, 92, 93. Somewhere in that time frame, it was definitely before 94 because that's when this lady got arrested. And I'll explain it to you in a minute, but I think it's like 1992. So I'm working in for Louisiana Department of Corrections. Right. I'm a correctional officer working a cell block. The but what I do on my off days. Because you work two days on, two days off, three days on, two days off, 3 days off. Right. Basically 14 days a month or 15 days a month, you're working. Well, you know, I was a young blood, I'm like 22 years old and you know, good looking dude and physically fit and. And on our days off, you know what we did, we partied. I wasn't married, wasn't even anywhere close to any of that. But we'd go to bar rooms and we chased women and drank beer and you know, hunted and fished and lived a good bachelor lifestyle. Well, you know, the whole goal going out is, is to meet somebody, right? To pick somebody up, you know, whether it's, you know, have sex or, or date them or maybe your future wife who, you know, it's what you do when you're a kid like that. And I can remember where I met this girl and I'm gonna call her Ashley. The. It was at, I think it's called the Triple A's. It's down off of College Boulevard. It was a bar across the street from where they ended up putting the first strip club in Baton Rouge on this side of the river. It was the Gold Club or something's time when they first opened. I think they open right around the same time too. But the, the I met, we're in the bar with my friends and, and you know, hanging out, drinking, and he always, you know, try to find a pretty girl to dance with, etc. And I did. There was a, there was a group of girls and I told my buddies, watch this. They're at a table, I go up, pick the prettiest one and say, hey, you know, come dance with me, right? And they get up, we start dancing and yeah, then I buy a drink and we're talking and end up hitting it off. Good time, right? And then one thing led to another and we spent, let's say we spent some time together and then, yeah, probably dated her for just a little bit. But what I remember distinctly was some days after the initial meeting, we were together and, and I asked her, I said, what do you do? And she said, well, I gotta, I got an lsu. And I'm like, okay. But, oh, I was at her place and it was a pretty nice place for a young person. And she was, she was my age. And I said, and I said, what do you do? She said well, I go to lsu. And that apartment was close to lsu. And I said, and she said, but I also, you know, have work at wheel job. And I was like, but what do you mean? She said, well, I don't want to tell you because if, if you're going to just get freaked out and run off or whatever. I'm like, I'm not. I don't get freaked off and run out about, you know, freaked out and run off about anything. She said, well, you work in corrections, so what the, the, I mean, you know, tell me what you do. I don't care, right? And I truly I didn't. And, but I was kind of shocked when she told me that she worked as an escort. Now I didn't know really what the term escort meant at that time. I knew what prostitution was, but I knew what an escort was. And she said, I said, what do you mean? She said, I'm a call girl. Well, I knew what I was. And I was like, in Baton Rouge, you know, I never even dreamed it existed in Baton Rouge. And she said, yeah. She said, I do that. Do you think bad of me? And I'm like, now, I mean, you got to make your living, right? It is what it is. Look, this is a very attractive, clean cut, all American girl, right? Now. Am I a little shocked that basically she's a prostitute? Yeah, but, yeah, but I'm listening to her and so I asked her, I saw, I mean, how does that even work? What do you do? And you Know how, how do you find people? Remember this? There's no Internet, there's no cell phones. I think pagers were just the prominent thing at the time. And she told me, she said, I work for an escort agency. I work for one lady. And she said she runs three different agencies in Baton Rouge and they advertise in the Yellow Pages. I'm like, what? Back then, for you lifers who don't know, again, there was no Internet. And unless you had a commercial on TV or the radio, the only way you went and found anything that you wanted was in the Yellow Pages. The businesses took out ads, right? And I said, is that fucking legal? How do they get away with that? She said that the businesses were under different names, like, because I actually have it, one of them was some type of cleaning service. And I guess if you get your shit clean and you really get it clean. But the, the names of the businesses were. Because I, I did, I went and looked them up in, in the Yellow Pages. But until the queens of digital market, I hadn't even remembered about this. The, it was Dial Date, okay. And, and Dial A Date was one. The other one was called Cosmopolitan. And the other company was Charlie's Angels. Now this is under, under, under Dating Services, I think, I think it was under Dating Services or in the Yellow Pages. I don't think that. I know they didn't have a section called Prostitution. It wasn't like Back Page or Craigslist and shit like that when none of that shit existed. So they, that you called in these legitimate businesses and they would, you know, somebody would answer and, and you, you had asked for a girl and they said, what are you looking for? And you give them the size and color of the hair and whatever. Yeah, I don't think that really mattered. I think they probably just sent you whoever they had available. And the, the. It was like three or four hundred bucks and they would come to your location and they'd have sex with you, right? And so I was kind of blown away. And what really blew me away was the fact that this is a well put together. This girl was going to school for nursing or pre med, something, something in the medical field. I can't remember what it was. And she was like, you're gonna leave and you're not gonna want to see me anymore. I'm thinking, I don't really want to date prostitute, right? And, and that's not really cool with me. I, but I said, but I'm gonna be cool with you. But, but yeah. Anyway, I saw probably a Couple more times after that. But she turns out. And she told me that she worked for. I asked about pimps. I said, well, you have like a pimp or something. These agencies are pimps. And she said, no, no, no, no. She said, I work for one lady, and her name is Sylvia Landry. And I'm like, okay. And she said she actually was an escort herself. And then she went out and started her own businesses. And evidently I'll. You know, I say high end. They were making some jack. And there's been all kinds of stories about Sylvia Landry, the Baton Rouge madam and all that, that it's been on tv. And I don't know if there's been movies, but I know there's been true crime episodes. But she told me she. And she said, I work for a lady named Sylvia. She used to be an escort. And then she didn't like the way it was run. I don't know if it was pimps or whatever it was. So she opened her own. And I said, how did she get you? She said. She said, I met her at the same bar I met you at. And she said she'd come in. And she met me and offered me a job. And then. And told me what it was. And I was like. She said this. How much money you can make? And she was like, shit, you know, I'm gonna have sex anyway. Well, I might as well get paid for it. And I was thinking, what about the nasty motherfuckers, right? But they were priced so high, I would think. But yeah, $400 back then was a lot of money. It's like $4,000 now. And they were priced so high, I guess it cut out some of 90% of the riff raff. So she told me that basically Sylvia or the businesses took a percentage of what she made. And they handled the money. It was credit cards. They didn't take cash. It was credit cards over the phone. And they got paid before they went. And when she would get to a room with a client, she would call the service and say, okay, I'm here. And they would start a clock. And I think it was like an hour minimum or something, she said. And they would start the clock, and when she got done, she would call them and say, okay, I'm done. I'm leaving, right? And so they kept tabs on the. On the. The girls that. Away from safety reasons. I'm sure they probably. She didn't. She said she'd never had a bad experience and. But she was making a ton of money. And you Know, thousands dollars a week, and that's like. Yes. Not even working like four or five times. And I just, you know, it just blew me away. And I. I ended up, you know, not seeing anymore or whatever. But of course, I didn't judge her. I mean, you know, you do what you do, and it is what it is. Talking in. In the Queens of Digital Marketing series, the human sex trafficking series, I was thinking about it, and Ms. Tina talks about the victims being groomed and everything like that. And I get that idea. And then I think about people like this, and I guess in a way, Sylvia Landry groomed Ashley too. You know, sees a pretty young college student at a bar, promises her all this stuff, and. And. But Ashley had to make that decision. It's not like these other people. Not like Tina was when she was 11 or 12 years old and was forced into it by our biker gang. But she still made a decision. But the money was the influence over it. The trafficking part, I mean, I, you know, it's a lot of money for a young person that's putting themselves through college. And of course. And she said she knew she was going to quit when she got her degree and what have you. Well, like I said, we parted ways, you know, friendly terms. I just didn't see her anymore. But I know her business came to an end because Sylvia Landry got busted. And so I'm going to tell you a little bit about that now. So Sylvia Landry and I knew would have been really, really interesting had she ever released her black books or had she actually kept black books, which she didn't. She only kept receipts and stuff. But it's been really, really interesting to see the people. And she, you know, supposedly had clients from all walks of life, from doctors to politicians to police officers, whatever. But they. When they arrested her, they called her the. The media loves to give people titles, right? They called her the Bad Marriage Madam. I read some stuff online, and I don't really agree with all this because of my personal knowledge. They said that she ran it from 1992 to 1994. I think it was probably longer than that, or at least Sylvia was doing it before then. But when she got arrested, y' all, it made national headlines and she was known as the Baton Rouge Madam. And it says she's making, like half a million dollars a year in the escort business and is under the COVID of cleaning and escort services now. I can remember the Yellow Pages, and not that I ever looked maids up or whatever, but I don't. If you look up a maid. I would think that you're getting a maid, not an escort. But anyway.

[Tina]

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[Tina]

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[Woody Overton]

See terms for details. Hey lifers.

[Tina]

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[Woody Overton]

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[Tina]

Now, I can't speak from personal experience on this one, but I seen it firsthand with Cindy. There were days she'd be feeling drained.

[Woody Overton]

Overwhelmed, even a little off.

[Tina]

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[Woody Overton]

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[Tina]

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[Woody Overton]

That was a wake up call.

[Tina]

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[Woody Overton]

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[Tina]

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[Woody Overton]

See Mint Mobile for details. So, you know, years later you get Epstein and P. Diddy and all these people that are the sex trafficking. Well, this, this might be the most voluntary form of sex trafficking being that this girl agreed to do it. She wasn't forced into it, she wasn't a drug head or anything like that. But still the coercion is there. You know, I think that that is still. If it had not been presented to her, she would have been paying student loans. Right? Sylvie Lander was doing it right here in our backyard forever. Long time before Epstein and anybody else was. And I told you, she had three companies dialedate, Cosmopolitan and Charlie's Angels and she was rolling y' all netting over a half million dollars a year. And they said her clientele extended from the governor's mansion to politicians in Washington D.C. yeah, you think about that? You think that's a little far fetched? I don't. They. I think that on a service like this where it' high end, you're paying top dollar, you're getting, you know, unfortunately still a prostitute, but you're getting high end escort. You're. I think what you're really paying for is anonymity, right? That you know this, you're getting this class act coming in. You're not picking up a street walker, you're getting a class act that comes in, not doing drugs and, and you're having sex. The, I mean everybody that you look at today and for the rest of your life, that person that you're looking at, they are here. And you're here because two people had sex, right? I mean sex makes the world go around basically. And Sylvia was cashing in on it. But she got arrested by the Baton Rouge PD in April of 1994. And I remember this because back then I used to read the paper every day and I thought, holy fuck, are they going to get personnel records, is actually going to get arrested, etc. And I never did find out if she was one of the ones that actually got arrested because they didn't list her names. But now when she got arrested, she got arrested on and charged on with both state and federal crimes. She got charged with pandering, enticing women in the prostitution, which I know she did that for a fact, and transporting minors across state lines for illicit purposes. Now the back then in Louisiana. Louisiana was the last state to change the law and you only had to be 18 to drink. I don't think that that age had changed yet. But this, I know nothing about transport miners across state lines, but I can tell you that at that time, Biloxi, Mississippi had just legalized gambling and the first casinos were popping up on the coast. Now I can imagine that, you know, that's not that far. Hour and a half and maybe two hours from Baton Rouge. And maybe she would get calls and you know, from people that wanted it and she would ship her girls across the state lines. As far as them being minors, I don't know anything about that. But that would still. If you're sending a person, even if it was Ashley, she's going across State lines at 19 years old to, to have sex for money. Yeah, that's illegal. So the, Anyway, the whole, the whole time this was going on, it was like, it was national news. I think CNN had just started. This is when there was no Fox News or none of that. And HBO actually played. Not hbo. HBO only played movies, but MTV only played music videos. That's how the cable TV was in its infancy, still like six or seven years old. The so but it was big news. And nothing, I always say, nothing sells in the headlines like sex and drugs and, and whatever. Do I believe that she thought she was going to get off? Probably so. Because if she truly had all these high end clients, and certainly some of them would have had some stroke. Right. And certainly Louisiana especially back then was known for. It's not what you know, it's who you know. And if I'm the governor or some high ranking official and I was one of her clients and I know my name might be written down somewhere. You hope it's not. I know my name might be written down somewhere. I certainly would have done anything I could to influence the investigation to get her off so my name wouldn't come out. And, But I don't know the. So they go on with it and this is how they got her out. They, they got several of employees to testify against her and that they said they were doing under pressure. And I guess the pressure was a threat of, well, you know what, we know you work for. We know you're a prostitute, we're going to charge you with prostitution. I don't know. One of the women that testified at the trial said, you know, that Sylvia could be mean and vengeful, but she worked harder as a prostitute than any of her employees. So I guess Sylvia got so popular she Getting so many calls, she's like, oh, shit, I can't do them all. And that's when she started hiring people like Ashley. So. But they said she was also fun and she was very generous and, oh, she had a 16 year old son and that she thought the world of him and treated him like a king. Right. So during her prostitution years, I said Landry had quit drinking. But after she got arrested in 1994 and she made, she made bail, they said she drank a lot. And then she started taking over the counter stimulants and would stay up for days at a time. Y' all, back then, many things, I don't know if you knew what they are, but that was the drug that you buy over the counter. It was basically speed. It's ephedrine speed. And so she would stay up hours at a time and not hours for days at a time and was pretty strung out. And it says she could handle more tricks than any other woman that worked for her. And she was her own number one girl now. Number one girl. I know those terms throughout my years in law enforcement. A lot of pimps. Yeah, I think Ms. Tina even mentioned it on the show last week. A lot of pimps have like their stall, their stable of girls, right? The girls are actively recruiting the girls that have been working for them. And then they have what they call their bottom bitch, meaning that's their number one that takes care of everything. So it might be top bitch, which I think it's bottom bitch. It refers to they actually can be underneath them when they're having sex and they just don't do it from behind or whatever and rough them up so that they said she was her own number one girl. Now the girls testifying under pressure or the girls that testified against her, Sylvia wasn't really expecting that. She also wasn't expecting that she was ever going to go to trial because she had made threats. And I remember this in the papers she made. She made threats that she had records and names and dates and times and credit cards and whatever, and she would release it all. And, well, I don't know. Guess what? She had. She had some stuff. And I'm gonna tell you about it in a second. So the back to the client list. The feds wanted her to give it up and she would, she would refuse. She didn't cooperate with him for dick. Right. She followed them all the way. But In July of 1995, she was in state court, not the federal. And she actually pled guilty. No, she pled no contest. And Y' all, no contest is a guilty plea. It just means you can't come back and be sued for it in civil court. But she pled no contest in state court to five counts of pandering and three counts of enticing women in the prostitution. Well, I know at least she was guilty for one of them. I don't know how many women she had working for, but I can assure you it was more than just one. When she pled guilty in state court today, I'm sure they would look, they had her for a fucking shit list of charges. And so she takes a plea deal, and I get that in state court. But she still had her federal cases open, shipping across state lines and whatever else the charges were. And a federal judge sentenced her to six. Six years in prison on 10 counts related to what I was telling you about the sending girls across the state line. And that is human trafficking. It's human sex trafficking. Whether they agreed to it or didn't or were on drugs or not, it's still sex trafficking. Shipping a female from one place to another to get them to have sex for money, so for profits. And that's the very definition of it. But let's talk about. Pandering is legally defined as recruiting or arranging situations for someone to engage in prostitution. And that's. I guarantee you, that's what she did. They said it's often considered a specific intent crime, meaning there must be clear intent to encourage or persuade another into the act. Well, I can tell you for a fact, I know that Ashley told me that she recruited her for that. And hey, you know, you do this, you're pretty. You can make a lot of money. You do this, I'm gonna pay you. I'll set up the clients. That's a fucking slam dunk, right? And so there you have it, the court record shawl. That little black book that she threatened to release never was released because there wasn't a little black book. There were actually 11 books, but they only contained phone messages which listed the client's names and appointment times. And these logs, these 11 books held more than 1900 dates is what they're called, or sessions for prostitution, which were arranged through her businesses between 1992 and 1994. 1900, y' all, 300 to 400 a pop. I'm sure some people had kinks and they charged more for. That's a lot of money. And here's the thing. I. I know she was doing it before that. So, I mean, she was in her 20s. I think she maybe was in her young 30s, if I remember correctly. So they, you know, everybody was worried about the names of the politicians and the high profile figures and coming out. But it never did because Sylvia was smart enough that she used a coding system where some of the clients went only by their first names. And it never showed any evidence to link prominent figures to a regular Joe Blow. Right? So she, you know, she knew who they were. She had their first names and the date and times of appointments and she didn't have to test fire against herself, right, to incriminate. So I'm sure they, they were there, but it never came out. So after her conviction, those Message books, the 11 books I was telling you about, they were made available for anybody to go view them, but in the U.S. district Court Clerk's office. But you could go view them, but the access to them was superly supervised, meaning you had it, you had to set up with the federal Clerk, Richard Martin staff. If you were going in to view the books, they're a matter of public record. You had to have a staff member there watching you. I don't know what the fucking legality of that is. The case has already been adjudicated. But maybe that's an intimidation thing, I don't know. So they know who's got the names and maybe make them go away, I don't know. But Martin said no one will be able to look at them without one of my people standing over them. He said it was because he was worried about tampering. Well, motherfucker, the case is already over. But he said there is no way of knowing whether a page is missing. But it appears that the books might interest somebody, might interest you if you. Governor of Louisiana. They said one person particularly interested was the Assistant District Attorney, Tom Walsh, who led the state's case against Sylvia. And they said he wants to use those message books, the 11 books in court. And he was warning that any clients listed who purchased sex could face prosecution. I think that's a scare tactic, right? I mean, what, you're going to go out, you're going to say, oh, your name was in a book, you paid $400 to Charlie's Angels Cleaning Service. And how the fuck are you going to prove you can't? I mean, probable cause, yes. Beyond a reasonable doubt, no. So, and to go and have a jury trial or a judge trial on this in Louisiana for buying sex from a prostitute is only a misdemeanor, y' all, and you can only get up to six months in jail or $500 fine or both. That's. That's less than a DWI, right?

[Tina]

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[Unnamed Mother]

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[Unnamed Mother]

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[Tina]

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But on August 4, 1995, Sylvia is locked down in a woman's prison in Bryan, Texas. And guess what? One day she was like, I don't think I want to be here anymore. And though there was no dramatic escape like in New Orleans where they cut the hole in the wall behind the sink and everybody ran da da da da. She didn't have to climb a barbed wire fence. You know what she did? She walked out, walked out the door during lunch time and they said she would always flirt with guards and stuff, but she just walked out. So I guess it was minimum security federal prison and she just walk the out the door. Well, at some point they were oh, and they started looking for and it took them three days, y' all, three days to find her and capture her. Now you think maybe this madam is gonna have somebody that's gonna pick her up and maybe she's got millions of dollars hidden away and she's gonna abscond to Belize or wherever. Well, no, this one ends, unfortunately, just like so many other other ones do. You know, it takes money to go on the lam. And three days later, they called her, y' all in the woods less than two miles away from the prison. And she was all scratched up from the briars and. And are torn up from mosquitoes and. And bug bites and. And all that. There you have it. I mean, they called her. She didn't get away. And two days later, on August 6, 1995, the Baton Rouge madam was in the Brazos County Jail. I guess she's waiting. You know, you escape from prison, they ship you to the local jurisdiction that you're in, and you got to go stand trial for the skate, right, because you're going to get more time. It says she was in the Brazos County Jail and somebody, some correctional officer walking down, making rounds on the cells. And guess what they found? They found Sylvia hanging from a bed sheet, dead af. Right. And they did an autopsy, they did an investigation. They ruled it as a homicide. But just like in Epstein's case, and the rumors ran rampant, right? This lady has all this knowledge and of all these powerful people, and they. They had her killed and all that. I don't believe that y' all. I think that she lived fast, probably hard at one point for. But she lived the life that she chose, and she lived fast and she lived fat, and, you know, she's successful and it was good times until it wasn't, and she got busted and she got locked up and didn't like it. And after being on the run for three days and then you're back in a jail cell for a lot of people, it's just too much. And she hung herself. That's what I. I don't believe it was. There's, you know, somebody with the powers that be had her killed, but I mean, she was dead as fuck hanging in her cell. And y' all one of the reasons that. That the rumors ran rampant is because she was going to be transferred in just a couple more days from the Brazos County Jail where they captured her in the woods, like I told you about. She was going to be transferred from there to a maximum security prison in Kansas, right? You know, federal prisons, you have minimum, medium, and maximum. Now they're called shoes. Secure housing units. But if you run, you go into maximum, right? And that's to me, for her, you know, being able to flirt with the guards and her minimum security prison and walk out the front door, she probably had it pretty good. Right. They call them club Feds run. And. And then she knows now she's going to be shipped to maximum security prison to start about the rest of time, and she's going to get another 10 years on top of that. She'd have probably been my age, but she got out and so she. She hung herself. Just like Epstein. I mean, you know, Landry and Epstein both hung themselves using a makeshift noose from the items in their cell. Epstein used a shirt. Landry used a bed sheet. Y' all, I worked a lot of hangings. It. You don't need a bed sheet to hang yourself. I know I've told the story before about the one guy, and he had escaped and then. And they put him in the first lockdown cell on the tier, and he had nothing in the cell that they had him on suicide watch. It was concrete bunk. And he shook down your cell every time when you come on to work. And he had a paper gown, naked. And I shook him down when we came to work. And later on that night, John Barlow was hollering at me to come down there, and he was dead. But he had gotten sheet string, it's like a size of a kite string that the inmates used to tie up the sheet bundles. And somebody had passed it to them. They call it kiting it down the tier. They'll pass it from cell to cell. That's like entertainment for us guys on tier, like, fuck you. You want to kill yourself, use this. And they had screens in the cells, not bars. And he took that little bitty string, tied it around the screen and tied it around his neck. And he leaned forward, and ultimately the string broke and he was on the floor, but he had already passed out and his face was black and he was dead. Carvel Sims, who's one of Sylvia Lander's attorneys, said Sylvia suicide was an act of desperation and defiance and. But when authorities had recaptured Landry, she was covered in poison ivy and insect bites. She knew she would have to serve extra time for her escape in a more secure facility than the one she had fled from. Just like I just told you. And her death was ruled suicide. But in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, many believe otherwise. Some insisted she had been silenced to protect the reputations of high power clients. And despite the scale of the case, no clients or associates were ever publicly named or prosecuted. Sylvia Landrieu became emblematic of high profile prostitution rings with alleged political connections, which sparked a shit ton of controversy and conspiracy theories and discussions on the intersection of power, morality, or justice in Louisiana. Interesting. The I Don't know whatever happened to Ashley and y' all, her real name wasn't Ashley just in case you could guess. Whatever. Maybe she's a nurse. I don't know. They never saw her again in look back then, if you picked up a girl in the bar or you were going to pick her up, you asked for a date or whatever, you had to get the digits right. And then. And you would get the bartender to give you a pen and they would write their phone number down on a napkin because we only had landlines and it's not like you could look them up on Facebook and I can't. I can't remember this girl's last name anyway. The you, you know, it's not like you could look them up on Facebook and see how they're doing now, so. But it's still sex trafficking and got indicted for it and pled guilty in both state and federal court for it. And you know, for every one of the Ashley's out there that voluntarily did it for college money and a nice place to live and pay her bills and all that so she would become a nurse, that I guarantee you there were some especially they the feds, they don't accuse you anything unless they come correct. And the feds charging with underage girls going across state lines have sex. Yeah, that's bad. And I would think at some point Sylvia Lanyard is just like everybody else in greed overtook her. That's why she started her own business. She couldn't do them all. And she enticed young girls or young women into prostitution. And whether I never knew anything about drugs being involved, but you entice them in otherwise probably never would have been a prostitute. But if you got underage kids or even I guess Ashley was a victim in her own way too. She wouldn't have been a prostitute had Sylvia Landrie not enticed her into doing. And it all boils back to sex trafficking. So I can assure you some of the women Sylvia Landrieu had in her stable were there due to more coercion than Ashley had to put up. So that's it, y' all check out the queens of digital marketing. We're going to post the links, if you will, to the nonprofit. They're survivor strivers. They, you know, this program is really something. And we're going to play some some of their stories, audio clips of their stories of these women who are who were sex trafficked, forced into prostitution, beaten, you know, on a daily basis, groomed, made into be a prostitute and they get out and for Ms. Tina's program, Queens of digital marketing, they have to be out and straight for a year and they have to have a place to live. So it's not like they're picking them up off the street and doing it. And they have to want they have to be showing the desire to get straight. And then she brings them in through this nonprofit, trains them and gives them skills to pay the bills and to thrive and to become a productive member of society and to break the cycle of human sex trafficking. I think that's pretty cool. So I'm Woody Overton. You host the Real Life Real Crime, the podcast. Oh, y' all look Saturday, July 19 Southeastern Louisiana University My next live show. Alcohol sales ahead of time. We got a discount for lifers that come from all over the United states at the Home2 Suites Hilton in Hammond do have some tickets still for sale at $50 general admission, $100 VIP going to be well worth it. I can ass walk on sports bar and bistro. The Hammond location sponsoring at least part of the VIP. They're sponsoring it. And that Friday, July 18, I'm going to be bartending there for a couple hours. Celebrity bartending. And all the money we make, all the tips they make or I make are going to Lopa, the Louisiana Oregon Procurement Agency. You know, it's my jam the and you don't have to they save lives every day. You don't have to be life or from Louisiana to sign up to be an organ donor with Lopa. You could be a lifer from Alabama. Just go to lopa.org take two minutes, fill out the the information the answer the questions and they will help get you signed up as an organ donor and hashtag just for Bradley, y' all. Go follow Real Life Real Crime on TikTok. Go follow Real Life real crime on YouTube. Of course we have the Real Life Real Crime community app. You can download it free and list all the episodes and everything is in there in one place. But the tick tock is the new angle for us and that's because Morgan, Brad Morgan, Bradley, Morgan Baggott, who is the mother of Bradley Strayster's child is has a large following on TikTok and they're the ones that reached out to me and hounded me into got me interested enough into taking Bradley's case. So I'm doing a lot on TikTok so they can get it because a lot of tick tockers don't listen to podcasts just the way it is and we proved that years ago would buy you brandy. And the. The. They just. They don't transfer back and forth. But anyway, go. Go. I'm posting a video, at least one every day on Tick Tock under Real Life Real Crime. We are. Except for this episode. We have every episode we've done in the last several weeks recorded on video that's published on YouTube. So go check it out. And Lopa, Louisiana, Oregon, pyramid agency saving lives. And I'm Woody Overton. You host a Real Life Real Crime the podcast. Until next time or ever. Don't let me catch you, Ellen. Murder by you. Peace. You have the right to remain silent.

[Tina]

Anything you say can and will be.

[Woody Overton]

Used against you in a court of law.

[Tina]

You gotta write to an attorney prior to it during any question. If you can't afford one, the court will want one for you.

[Woody Overton]

Do you understand? Your right Lights and the wolf is at your door you running over that's for sure Already knows all about you Cut you down no matter by you.

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Hi, Zoe Saldana. Welcome to T Mobile. Here's your new iPhone 16 Pro on us.

[Unnamed Mother]

Thanks. And here's my old phone to trade in.

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You don't need a trade in. When you switch to T Mobile, we'll give you a new iPhone 16 Pro. Plus we'll help you pay off your old Phone up to 800 bucks and you still get to keep it.

[Unnamed Mother]

There's always a trade in.

[Zoe Saldana]

Not right now. @ T Mobile.

[Unnamed Mother]

I feel like I have to give you something in return for karma.

[Zoe Saldana]

That's okay.

[Unnamed Mother]

I don't really have much in my purse. Oh, let's see. Hand sanitizer. It's lavender.

[Zoe Saldana]

I'm good. Seriously.

[Unnamed Mother]

Let me check this pocket. Oh, mints.

[Zoe Saldana]

Really, I'm fine.

[Unnamed Mother]

Oh, I have raisins. I'm a mom. Wait, wait one sec. I've got cupcakes in the car.

[Woody Overton]

It's our best iPhone offer ever.

[Tina]

Switch to T Mobile.

[Woody Overton]

Get a new iPhone 16 Pro with Apple intelligence on us. No trade in needed. We'll even pay off your Phone up to 800 bucks with 24 monthly bill credits. New line $100 plus a month on experience beyond finance agreement. $999.99 and qualifying. Ported for well qualified plus tax and 10 connection charge. Payout via virtual prepaid card below 15 days. Credits end in balance due if you pay off early or Cancel.

[Unnamed Mother]

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