Murder in the Bayou is a 2019 series about the murder of eight women in Jefferson Davis Parish, Louisiana.
5 out of 10 stars. The first episode was fact-based and informative. The rest was sloppy.
Victim #1 Loretta Chaisson Lewis
On May 20, 2005 the body of Loretta Chaisson Lewis, 28, was found in Jennings, Louisiana in a canal. She had drugs in her system and was a known crack addict and prostitute with two kids. She worked for Frankie Richard, a known violent drug dealer and pimp whose mainstay was teenage girls. She was also an informant for Deputy Terrie Guillory, the Warden of Jefferson Davis Parish’s jail. When she was fourteen years old and arrested on a drug charge, Terrie Guillory was her jailer and forced her to have sex with him in exchange for not being harassed in jail. Terrie Guillory was a known associate of Frankie Richard. Loretta was last seen getting into a car with Frankie Richard. She was never seen alive again. Sheriff Ricky Edwards was put in charge of her case and immediately buried all evidence.
Two weeks before Loretta died, she told a family member that she was going to be testifying against a drug dealer and that’s how she got out of jail early. She was an informant for Terrie Guillory.
Victim #2 Ernestine Daniels Patterson
On June 7, 2005 the body of Ernestine Daniels Patterson, was found less than six miles from the canal where Loretta’s body was found. Her throat was slit and she had defensive wounds.
Victim #3 Kristen Gary Lopez
On March 18, 2007 the body of Kristen Gary Lopez, 21, was found in the Petitjean Canal in Jennings, Louisiana. Like Loretta and Ernestine, she was a crack addict and prostitute who worked for Frankie Richard and an informant for Deputy Terrie Guillory. Kristen was sleeping with her best friend, Hannah Connor’s, dad Billy Connor, Frankie Richard’s brother-in-law. In fact Kristen spent as much time with Billy Connor and Frankie Richard as Billy’s daughter and Frankie’s goddaughter, Hannah. Even though she was considered part of the family, it didn’t stop Frankie Richard from pimping Kristen out at the Boudreaux Inn. Both Billy and Frankie would give crack to Kristen and Hannah, along with the other girls, and have sex with them in Frankie’s trailer. Often, Frankie would pimp them out to other men in exchange for drugs.
After Loretta’s murder Kristen was taken in for questioning by Deputy Terrie Guillory. When she returned she was terrified.
Victim #4 Whitnei Dubois
On May 12, 2007 the body of Whitnei Dubois, 26, was found on Earl Duhon Road. She ran with the same group of girls and was one of Frankie’s prostitutes and crack addicts. Her face was beat up and the man who found her body, Jamie Trahan, was a known associate of Frankie Richard’s. In fact, Jamie Trahan was part of Frankie’s clean-up crew, the group of men who beat women and disposed of the bodies.
Under pressure from the public Sheriff Ricky Edwards finally arrests two people for Kristen’s murder–Hannah Connor and her uncle Frankie Richard. Two weeks later they’re released and the public isn’t told why. Loretta Chaisson’s sister Tracee says that she led the cops to Frankie and Hannah, but she lied and she further refuses to speak about the cases, claiming she knows nothing. It looks suspiciously like Tracee had evidence she gave to the police which made its way to Terrie Guillory who threatened her and made her withdraw her statement.
Victim #5 Laconia “Muggy” Brown
On May 29, 2008 the body of Laconia “Muggy” Brown, 23, was found on East Racca Road in Jennings, Louisiana. Right before she was murdered she asked her mother to raise her son and told her she would be next. She was found with her throat cut, bleach poured over her body, and rolled up in a gray carpet.
After Ernestine’s murder, Muggy was taken in for questioning by Terrie Guillory.
Victim #6 Crystal Shay Benoit Zeno
In September of 2008 the body of Crystal Shay Benoit Zeno was found badly decomposed on LaCour Road, so badly decomposed DNA was used to identify the body. Like the other women, she was a crack addict who worked as a prostitute for Frankie Richard in exchange for crack. Like Kristen, Crystal practically lived at Billy Connor’s and Frankie Richard’s homes and was last seen getting into a truck with Frankie Richard’s clean-up men. Russell Carrier was the witness who saw this and was found dead immediately afterward, his body badly beaten and put under a passing train.
Crystal told Brittney she knew who killed Muggy Brown.
Victim #7 Brittney Gary
On November 4, 2008 the body of Brittney Gary was found beaten to death in Jennings, Louisiana. She was also a crack addict and prostitute for Frankie Richards, but when interviewed, her mother defended Frankie Richard.
Brittney told witnesses that “Uncle Frankie killed Whitnei”.
Victim #8 Necole Jean Guillory
On August 19, 2009 the body of Necole Jean Guillory was found in Acadia Parish, near Jennings, Louisiana. Right before she was killed, she told her family she would be killed next and that she knew who was killing all of these women.
In 2002, right after Loretta was found dead, she told her family she’d witnessed a murder.
After years of non-movement in the cases, investigative journalist Ethan Brown starts gathering facts for his book, Murder in the Bayou and for a series of newspaper articles. This is what he discovered.
Warren Gary
Warren Gary was a cop in the Jennings Police Department. He bought the pickup that many witnesses had reported to the police was probably the crime scene of Kristen Lopez’s murder. Frankie Richard bragged that Warren bought the pickup to dispose of evidence as Gary cleaned the pickup then resold it so it could no longer be used for evidence collection. He was fined by the state $10,000 and moved to being put in charge of evidence. He’s also a known associate of Frankie Richard.
In March of 2007 two women gave statements to the Jennings Police Department specifically about that truck as a crime scene. Hannah Connor also reported to the police that Warren specifically purchased the truck to dispose of evidence. Deputy Jessie Ewing, who took the statements, was so worried about giving them to the Jennings Police Department that he sent them to the FBI via a local private investigator. He was immediately attacked by the police and demoted.
Byron Chad Jones and Lawrence NIxon
Byron Chad Jones and Lawrence Nixon were arrested and charged with second degree murder for the death of Ernestine Daniels Patterson. Those charges were dropped and they were released. Ernestine was seen being picked up by Jones and Nixon the night she was murdered. Nixon’s girlfriend witnessed them cleaning up a bloody bag after the murder. The police didn’t collect and test evidence from that scene for sixteen months when it was no longer viable as evidence.
Danny Barry
All eight women had been jailed by Deputy Danny Barry who was the Assistant Warden of the Jennings Jail. Barry had a reputation of beating and macing the women in jail if they didn’t give him sex or drugs. He had a crack addiction and was friends with Frankie Richard. He was also a known pedophile. His wife would go to Frankie Richard to get underage girls to go home with her and have sex with her husband. Sometimes he wouldn’t let them go. A room in Danny Barry’s trailer was covered ceiling to floor in plastic with chains and bondage paraphernalia that he used on these young girls. The local prostitutes called it his torture chamber.
On November 2, 2008 Brittney Gary was seen getting into Barry’s car. That was the last time she was seen alive. On November 4, 2008 her body was dumped off on Keystone Road. Deputy Danny Barry was interviewed for less than fifteen minutes and released. Barry died in 2010.
Terrie Guillory
Terrie Guillory is a known pedophile and was named repeatedly by witnesses in the murders of all eight women. He was Warden of the Jennings Jail and Danny Barry’s boss. Victim #8, Necole Guillory, was his cousin. Terrie was in love with victim #1 Loretta Chaisson, and was witnessed having sex with her in jail when she was first arrested at age fourteen. He was a known pedophile to everyone in the area. Terrie had mentioned Loretta being missing long before anyone knew she was missing. Victim #6 Crystal Zeno babysat for Guillory and was witnessed having sex with him when she was underage. Terrie also showed up at Crystal’s home and told her family she was dead long before anyone identified her body. He told them he didn’t kill her, an unprompted confession of sorts.
In 2009 Guilllory and his wife were often seen socializing with Frankie Richard. Guillory and his wife both worked for the Sheriff’s Department and she was on the task force for the murder investigation. All eight women were known informants for Guillory and Guillory was known for having sex with his informants. Paula Guillory, Terrie’s wife, disposed of evidence in the eight murders, but never served any jail time. She said Warren Gary was in charge of the evidence and responsible for its disposal.
In almost every murder, Terrie Guillory brought in subsequent murder victims for “questioning”. They were terrified afterward and many told family members and friends they’d witnessed something.
Sheriff Ricky Edwards
Jennings is a small town, population 11,000. It is on the route between Houston and New Orleans’ drug trade. Huge drug busts take place there, totally hundreds of millions of dollars. These are the kind of drug busts you find in huge cities like New York City or Los Angeles, not a tiny town like Jennings. One car pulled over typically results in a bust of $3 to $18 million in cocaine (one suitcase). These confiscated drugs usually make their way back onto the street and the money into the Jennings Sheriff’s Department’s pockets. In fact, Johnny Lassiter, a cop in the Jennings Sheriff’s Department, was indicted for stealing drugs from the evidence room.
In 1997 Dateline ran an expose on the cops on the Jenning’s Sheriff’s Department. They pull over out of state cars for suspected drug trafficking and rob the motorists under what is called “Civil Asset Forfeiture”. That means they only have to suspect drug trade and can legally rob anyone without any charges or evidence being brought against them. In response to the outcry from the airing of this show, Sheriff Ricky Edwards said he couldn’t comment on any specifics. :0
Over the years, Sheriff Ricky Edwards didn’t use the city’s resources to investigate the eight murders and he intentionally withheld facts. Frankie Richards said that he had paid the Sheriff and the other cops in Jennings and they were greedy, always wanting more. Frankie had 37 arrests and never served any jail time.
Drug informant murders were high in Jennings and Sheriff Edwards has done nothing about protecting informants. On February 14, 1998 Sheila Comeaux was found beaten almost to death. She spent a year in the hospital before she died. Witnesses made statements that she was an informant and was wired to make a drug buy and was killed during that drug buy. She was also afraid of the police.
On June 9, 2007, Steve Gunter, an informant for and friend of Terrie Guillory’s got into an argument with his girlfriend at his home. Police showed up and the couple explained it was just a fight and the fight was over. But the police wouldn’t leave and sent in Terrie. He shot and killed Steve. The autopsy showed more than thirty wounds from a shotgun including more than a dozen in both of Steve’s hands. He could not have held a gun and yet that was Terrie’s excuse for killing him. Evidence revealed that the bullets that supposedly hit Guillory were from his own gun. The coroner, Richard DuPont, said Steve had no gun residue on his hands. The evidence in Steve’s murder completely vanished, making it impossible to prosecute Guillory for Steve’s murder.
Boudreaux Inn
When Ethan Brown pulled the arrest reports for the eight women he found the same address on each one, 15189 Hwy 26, the address for the Boudreaux Inn. Many of the citizens of Jennings had warned Ethan to stay away from the Boudreax Inn but that vague warning made him curious. It was the location of a drug and prostitution ring run by Frankie Richard. Victim #2, Ernestine, was a maid there. Steve Gunter was a frequent guest and partied there.
Sheriff Ivy Woods
By 2011 Ricky Edwards was no longer liked in Jennings and was replaced by Ivy Woods who was elected on the promise of finding the eight women’s murderer. He didn’t. In fact he buried most of the evidence and then claimed there wasn’t any. Actually he had statements from multiple witnesses, enough to arrest several individuals and at the very least Frankie Richard and Terrie Guillory.
Frankie had confessed to killing Whitnei Dubois and Kristin Gary Lopez to multiple people while he was in jail. The day after the statement was taken, Frankie was released and no charges were ever brought against him.
Jennings Sheriff’s Department Raping Prisoners in Jail
Bucky Millet and Tanny DeVillier are both retired Louisiana State Troopers who began investigating the case in 2013. Terrie Guillory’s name kept coming up as a suspect in almost every witness statement. Everyone knew Terrie raped women in jail. In fact, there was a history of cops raping prisoners in the jail going back to 2002. One of the women raped in the Jennings Jail sued her rapist, Deputy Mark Ivery. He committed suicide before the suit could come to trial.
In 2002, Necole was questioned by Terrie Guillory about deputies raping inmates. She gave a statement.
Ku Klux Klan
In January 2014, Ethan’s article was published and tips started pouring in. Among them were the names of KKK members in the Jennings Sheriff’s Department, including Terrie Guillory. When Deputy Raymond Mott went undercover to expose Terrie as a dirty cop, a photo of Mott at a KKK rally surfaced to discredit him. He had given the FBI evidence against the KKK. Mott was fired. While working in Jennings and making numerous drug busts, Terrie Guillory ordered Mott to stop making drug busts in Jennings.
Victim #6 Crystal Zeno told Mott that Terrie had killed her sister. Mott confronted Terrie with this statement and Terrie told him he could believe 95% of what he was told. Terrie also told him there wasn’t one killer who murdered the eight women, but many.
Congressman Charles Boustany
The Boudreaux Inn had a gambling license which is very hard to acquire and over the years their license was never pulled for underage drinking or prostitution on the premises as it should’ve been. That’s because it was owned and operated by Martin Guillory, Big “G”, who worked for Congressman Charles Boustany. Boustany frequented the Boudreaux Inn and several of the victims had stated they’d had sex with him in exchange for drugs. In fact, Nicole and Loretta had repeatedly stated they’d had sex with Boustany at the Boudreaux Inn.
Frankie Richard
Frankie Richard is a local pedophile in Jennings known for getting thirteen and fourteen year old girls hooked on crack then having sex with them. When he’s done with them he pimps them out as prostitutes in exchange for crack. He’s been allowed to do this for thirty years because Deputy Terrie Guillory is his partner. He gives him money, drugs, and underage girls. And the two of them had a hand in the murders of eight young women. Frankie got them all hooked on drugs and pimped them out for sex while Terrie arrested them so he could rape them in jail then used them as informants. These two men were never arrested because of Congressman Charles Boustany who made a ton of money and had sex with young teenage girls in exchange for pulling strings to keep Frankie and Terrie out of prison.
5 out of 10 stars. This was a really sloppy documentary. Over the course of five hours facts were revealed out of sequence and often out of context which made for a confusing documentary. These women deserved much better.
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