Original subtitles

I let the shit with the girls eat me up daily.

They didn't deserve what the hell they got.

The girls has...

pretty much been forgotten in this town.

You don't really ever hear anybody speak of 'em.

It's like... they never existed.

Like they never mattered.

Killer could be sitting in front of our face

all day, every day.

'Cause...

...they can kill in this town and get away with it.

This is the Devil's playground...

and they runnin' right along him.

They do what they want when they want, how they want,

and nobody tries...

to stop 'em.

Well, I came out here that morning to go fishing.

And I looked down, and I seen something in the water.

It looked like a mannequin.

Then I seen the flies alighting on it.

And I said, "Flies wouldn't be alighting on a mannequin."

Then I realized it had to be a body.

Loretta Chaisson's body was found on May 20

of 2005.

When deputies first arrived at the scene, the body was

more toward the north side of the bridge,

closer to where the pylons were.

'Cause the body was too far

from the bank to be retrieved,

they brought the body over underneath the bridge

to the south side.

The reaction to the discovery of the body was

very shocking to the community.

It's not something you find every day.

You have homicides-- people are found dead--

but a body in a canal

found dumped,

it's a very tragic, horrible situation,

and people were upset.

They want... they want answers.

But our-our main concern, obviously, is to the victim...

...'cause they need justice.

Sheriff Ricky Edwards comes knocking on my door,

saying that they found my daughter under the bridge.

That was the worst feeling that I ever had.

Yeah, it's been 13 years

since they found my daughter's body,

and...

I miss her so much, you know.

And it still hurts.

We couldn't...

start a funeral until after they did the autopsy.

It was a closed casket.

She had been in there, in the water for a few days,

and the body had started decomposing.

None of us wanted to see her like that.

Loretta was married.

Had two kids.

She was always about her kids.

Always had a smile

on her face and would never hurt nobody.

She'd always try to help somebody before she'd hurt you.

Between me, Loretta and Nick,

me and her were the first two,

and my mom's first two kids, so...

we was close.

I just miss her.

She was living with us,

'because... there were some days

she would be sober,

and some days she'll do her little binges.

Her and her husband were split up.

She felt safe with us.

Safeness at my house,

away from everything she was doing out here.

So whatever she did out here, she didn't bring to my house,

because she was there spending time with her kids.

And when she left there, she did... whatever she did.

She might've did her drugs

and this and that,

but everybody got some kind of...

weakness, you know?

And that was hers.

Couple of days before she went missing,

Loretta asked me to walk to the bar with her.

She looked at the bar.

She-- it looked like she noticed something.

And she looked back at me and she gave me her purse.

She don't ever give me her purse.

She gave me her purse and told me to put her purse

at the top of my mom's closet,

just in case if anything happens.

And that's the last time I seen her.

'Cause she turned me around and made me go home.

One day Loretta

came to the door, and she said, "Roxanne,

I'm tired of living this life.

I want to raise my children.

I'm so tired of this life."

She said, "I'm gonna leave, and I'm not coming back."

Three days later, she was dead.

Before they found

Loretta's body in the canal,

I was walking on the main highway,

and I've seen Loretta at 66.

We sat there and we talked,

and this guy, Frankie Richard,

pulls up in a big, tan car.

She gets in the car with him.

And that was the last time I ever seen her.

I didn't... I didn't know Frankie,

but I heard rumors from my uncles

that he used to supply drugs,

used to go pick up a lot of drugs.

The only thing I'd ever knew was his name,

until all this really started happening.

Then I started hearing

about how he was a pimp in Lafayette

and he liked telling stories about what he did,

and, you know, as far as when it came to violence.

But, you know, Loretta never talked bad about Frankie.

When she got in the car with him, she got in the car

happy with Frankie.

Frankie Richard? Yeah, I heard he had a lot to do with it,

but... that was just hearsay, you know.

Frankie Richard was somebody that was known

to associate with, known prostitutes in the area,

was known to be involved in the drug world

in the Jennings area,

and also had a violent past.

The investigation into Loretta Chaisson's death

was led by then-Sheriff Ricky Edwards.

The investigators were able to discover a lot of information

about Loretta Chaisson's whereabouts

prior to the time she was found.

But unfortunately, the... the critical time of...

exactly when this incident happened

and how she got to the canal were still questions.

There have been no arrests made

in the death of Loretta Chaisson.

It's an open investigation.

Day after the story breaks

in the Jennings Daily News that a body's been found,

the Jennings Daily News

and the Jeff Davis Parish Sheriff's Office

start getting bombarded with phone calls,

and it's people asking...

if there's a serial killer on the loose.

Now, only one body's been found,

and it-it's being treated as a homicide,

but there's not even a cause of death that's been announced

or anything like that.

It's a very weird situation

to suddenly be getting all these phone calls,

and the sheriff, at this point,

has to issue a statement, saying:

We don't have any information on anything like that.

It's never really known where that rumor came from.

There's one.

Loretta's body was found on May 20, 2005.

June 17...

a group of froggers goes out.

To the right.

Got him.

It's nighttime.

They are out there trying to catch frogs.

Then suddenly...

they start to smell something.

Find another body

six miles away from where Loretta was found.

A man can lose an awful lot of friends in a rainstorm.

God.

The police came here.

Come through that door right... through that door right there,

knocking on the door, and he said, "Ms. Daniels,

some frog... some froggers found a body."

So, he says, he says, "That's Jeff... that's Jeff...

that's Jeff Daniels' daughter."

And I say, "What?"

He told me. He said,

"They were frog... frog fishing,

and they found a body."

They said, "That's Jeff Daniels' daughter."

And I said,

"Lord Jesus."

He said, "The body must have been in there

three or four days."

The coroner came over here saying

that we couldn't see the body

'cause the body was too decomposed.

She was cut in the throat,

and her hand was all bruised right there.

And her face.

And her face... They say, it ain't essentially her face.

Well, not being able to recognize her.

Wouldn't, um, wouldn't be able to recognize her.

Took three months before

they find out it was Ernestine Patterson.

You know... it-it's been hard.

This photo is photo from the...

the sheriff's office.

It's the only photo I have of Ernestine.

And I got...

It's the only thing I have of her...

of a... picture.

I don't have nothing else but this.

When the second body is found,

it's in an advanced state of decomposition.

It takes about two months

before they can identify this body,

and they've got to use

bone samples to do it,

before they announce that the second body is

Ernestine Marie Daniels Patterson.

When the investigation began

with Ernestine, the second female,

there was some concern in law enforcement,

because you had two female bodies

that were basically found dumped,

you know, in-in a waterway,

which is unusual.

There's always a thought. I mean,

it-it'd be a legitimate thought

that it could be a serial killer.

But the injuries

to the bodies were different.

In the case with Loretta Chaisson, there is not

obvious type injuries that you would sometimes find

that lead you to determine that a homicide occurred.

With Ernestine Daniels-- she had sustained

some incised wounds.

The type of injuries that you'd find in some homicides.

One day,

Sheriff Ricky Edwards came over here wanting...

wanting me to go up there and talk.

I'm not going up there and talk... talk to nobody

'cause they ain't found out who murdered her.

They ain't found out nothing.

I feel like they don't care.

They don't care.

I don't have no closure, no peace.

I can't rest at night.

I don't have no closure, no peace.

Jennings is

just your typical small town.

Lot of the families here are second,

third, fourth generation.

They...

Lot of hardworking people.

Just, good, old country folks mostly.

Lot of farmers, ranchers

that, grow rice, soybeans,

raise cattle.

Everybody over here's related to somebody.

That's how usually they start off a conversation

is trying to identify what family you're related to

or... or married into.

People like to live

in the area because it's away

from the... lot of hustle and bustle of a bigger city.

Here it's a little quieter, little slower pace,

and people tend to enjoy that.

Any town...

has, you know, their issues.

We have a lot of issues with,

burglaries and thefts.

Unfortunately,

for better or for worse,

you're a small Southern town whose economy is tied

to volatile sources-- agriculture and oil--

so that, when you get a crash, it just wipes everything out.

Then, on top of all that,

there's a pronounced economic split in Jennings

that runs along the railroad tracks which bisects the town.

This area here in North

Jennings-- they're, you know, doctors

and lawyers and rich people.

This is one of the newest and probably the most expensive

neighborhoods in the parish.

From...

from the railroad tracks south, it's mostly of lower income--

people that are unemployed, or...

individuals involved in...

drug activity.

Where our job comes in is, we have a lot of issues

where, you know,

addicts take things to try to...

get money to... to buy more drugs, you know?

North side is more like...

upper-class snobs.

South side?

The fucking ghetto.

You got the white ghetto, and you got the black ghetto.

Then you got Zoo Street, where everything pops off.

When I mean everything, everything.

The cops look

at the south side like...

...trash.

Like we don't matter.

Two years goes by,

and the sheriff's department was still investigating

Loretta and Ernestine's murders.

I think a lot of people think,

these first two murders were this unrelated thing,

and now they're-they're done.

Things kind of get back to normal,

and people just think it's over.

And they were wrong.

March 18, 2007,

a third body is found.

This time, a lot further out.

We're-we're now south of Welsh

and the Petitjean Canal,

and it's such similar circumstances.

I think everybody in town is just like,

"What on earth is going on here?"

Police find very similar hallmarks

to the first two girls,

but this body has been in the water for much longer, however,

and has had more

trauma from marine predators.

And she's found

mostly nude.

The sheriff's office had

to use dental records to identify the third body...

Kristen Gary Lopez.

Age 21.

Before they had found her,

Kristen was officially reported missing,

which was so odd.

Everybody that I knew just thought she was on a bender.

You know, it wasn't uncommon for her to... be gone

for a couple of days at a time, a week at a time.

Maybe that's why it rubbed...

it was so odd to me that there was an actual

missing persons report out on her

when this wasn't uncommon for her to be gone.

First thing I did when I found that out--

I went to the cops.

I wanted to be a part of it. You know, I wanted to help.

You know, this is a friend of mine, my childhood friend.

I wanted to... help find her.

So, I threw myself... kinda in the middle.

You know, calling the detectives,

asking, "Is there anything I can do?"

I don't know.

Like, everything surrounding her death just seemed odd.

I knew Kristen.

My mom basically pretty much raised her.

She was always at the house.

Kristen and I were walking

to her grandmother's house one day.

And you can look on her face and look in her eyes--

something was wrong.

She's doing like this.

Every time she hear a car, she turned.

I never seen her that paranoid before.

I said, "Kristen, you can talk to me."

She said, "But you're not gonna understand."

The closer it came to her coming up missing,

the less she started coming around.

The last time I seen her,

she was in her room sleeping.

I woke her up, handed her some food.

She said, "I'll be back, tootie,"

and I ain't seen her since.

Next time I seen...

her face was on the news.

Dead.

Just gone.

Something I can't never replace.

Something I can't ever get back.

Kristen was a beautiful girl.

You know?

I don't know exactly

who started her...

her on... on-on the crack.

Now, towards the end,

I smoked crack with her, you know?

I know it's not really...

It's a shame that I-I... you know?

But they were telling me,

"Why you don't tell her to quit?"

You know?

I said, "Well, it's kind of hard

for one crackhead to try and tell another crackhead

not to smoke."

When I'm sitting here smoking.

She got murdered when she was 21.

Of course at that time there, I was already incarcerated.

I was locked up.

And she came to visit with my mom and daddy

on a Saturday.

And...

I can remember telling her

before she left the jail that day...

to s-slow her...

"You know, slow down, Kristen.

Do Daddy a favor.

Get off of that crack.

Quit it."

I can still see her...

waving in my daddy's...

You know, back seat of the car, waving bye.

I grew up with Kristen.

We were close as kids.

Our parents were real good friends.

My father, he loved Kristen.

You know, Kristen called him Uncle Billy.

We kinda grew apart as we grew older.

She was in a...

drug scene and hanging out with people

that I hadn't advanced to yet, I guess you could say.

I was still just smoking weed and drinking.

I didn't know until I was 18

that my dad and Kristen's relationship

was more than just her calling him "Uncle."

I walked into my dad's house one day--

I was about 18 or 19--

and Kristen's running from his bedroom

to the bathroom in a T-shirt and underwear.

Did that anger you

that your father was having sex with Kristen?

No.

It was just-- they're two consenting adults.

It didn't bother-- You know, it didn't bother me

at all that they were having sex.

That was just another thing.

I think she was just embarrassed at it,

'cause I used to pick on her.

I used to tell her... "What do you call him?

Do you say 'Ooh, Uncle Billy'?"

My dad.

My dad was an amazing man.

Always happy, always trying to make people laugh.

Always cutting up.

He was always my safe... my safe spot.

You know, I was a daddy's girl.

He was always a safe place for me to go.

And I believe that

a lot of these girls that...

went to his house felt the same way, too, you know.

I know many of the girls were in and out of his camper,

partying, you know,

come and hang out, getting free drugs,

because that's what the camper was known for.

If you're a woman, you can go sit in my dad's camper

and get all the free drugs you wanted.

Just come and go as you please.

Hang out in my dad's camper and Frankie'd be around.

Frankie is my uncle and my godfather.

Uncle Frankie was, like,

the guy you didn't mess with.

You know,

he took care of business,

he was-- he was a badass back in his day.

A lot of the times,

it was mostly family in there: me, Frankie.

You know, we'd all be hanging out in there.

People come and go.

Did you ever think

that was odd that you were smoking crack with your dad?

Yes, I did.

I always-- I thought it was...

It was odd that I was smoking crack with my father.

He, um...

He was a good guy.

I'd like to think my father was a good guy.

So now we're dealing with

three unsolved murders.

All of these murders being very similar,

having a lot of similar characteristics.

Ricky Edwards...

starts to-to link these girls

as-as having run with some of the same crowd.

But something kind of happens here

that-that goes a little further.

Where before Loretta and Ernestine

were definitely linked with drugs,

Ricky Edwards goes a little bit further

to talk about prostitution.

This article comes out in the Jennings Daily News.

And Ricky Edwards made a statement saying

that these girls were living a "high-risk" lifestyle

and that this lifestyle, contributed to their deaths.

And matter of fact, he said,

"If you're in this lifestyle, it's time to get out."

And at the time, when the, when the term

"high-risk lifestyle" comes out,

there's all of these connotations

that suddenly spring to mind.

E-especially the idea that-that these women

have chosen this sort of lifestyle.

The connotation is that they chose for this to happen.

You know, I tried to take

Kristen off the street several times.

But drugs controlled this little girl.

Ricky Edwards telling the news that it's...

their lifestyle's prostitution.

Well, yeah, let's just say that.

That way the upper-scale people,

you know, can look at you and say,

"Well, it's their fault."

It's sad.

And that's no heart, you know, that's-that's no heart,

except for-for yourself and your people,

but who cares about everybody else?

There were girls again, south side of the track.

Whores and prostitutes and crackheads.

That's how they look at us.

What did they do so wrong, so bad,

for them to be murdered?

We used to, on Sundays, we used to come right here

while my mom and Loretta and them was passed out,

and I used to sneak my little sister

and them to church right here.

Come on, Sophia.

This is the house we was living in

the night I walked Loretta to the bar

and she gave me her purse and she--

I never seen her again.

She knew something was about to happen.

You know, something wasn't right.

You know.

Every one of these houses right here,

I guarantee you, the girls partied

in every single one of them.

I dream about the girls sometimes.

Mainly Kristen.

Just them telling me that they're okay.

The girls telling me that they're okay.

Kristen came to me in a dream, told me she was okay,

that everything was fine, and not to worry.

It's hard not to worry.

You don't know what to do in this town.

Jennings...

...basically, puts a curse on you.

You can't never leave.

Y-You leave, and when you leave,

you come back.

I always said I wasn't coming back.

I done came back 12 times.

For real.

Either you're gonna make it,

or you're gonna fall into that grave.

On May the 12th of 2007,

another body was located within Jeff Davis Parish.

That victim was later identified as Whitnei Dubois.

Whitnei's body was located in this general area

on Earl Duhon Road, which is just south of Bobby Road.

The difference that was noticed at first

was the fact that, with the other victims,

they had been placed

in water,

and Whitnei had been placed on a roadway,

totally nude and in a location

that obviously would be located by somebody.

Whitnei Dubois was like the other victims.

Also somebody known to the area and was local,

also had association

with other girls in this circle.

Also known to some degree

to have some connection to prostitution and drug usage.

The day...

that we found out

Whitnei was dead,

I guess I thought, um, maybe it's not true.

Maybe...

um, maybe it's a mistake.

And I said,

"We-we need to find out what's going on."

Um, where was she?

Um, who did this?

W-We don't know a whole lot.

I think I knew

that Whitnei...

would have sold her body, I guess.

But...

she was a kid to me.

She was my little cousin.

She wa-- I don't want

to think of her that way.

Whitnei was...

beat up.

Her face wasn't recognizable.

She was found nude in the middle of the road.

It was s-some drug head that found her.

Jamie Trahan.

The day Whitnei was found, I remember

him being here, and him hugging me.

And me thinking, "W-W-Who is this guy?

And what does... And why is he here?"

W-Why would I want him at my house?

But at the time, you want all the information you can.

But he didn't give us,

apparently, enough information, and I don't think

he gave e-enough information to the cops.

Jamie Trahan claimed

that he had found the body that morning.

But Jamie didn't find that body right when he did.

His-his story was false.

I saw Whitnei's body that night.

My ex-wife and I

were celebrating our anniversary.

We had rented a motel room and we were doing drugs.

Jamie Trahan shows up

at-at the hotel,

which is my ex-wife's brother.

And we smoked some more with him.

Jamie did a lot of things for Frankie Richard

to get drugs, to get dope.

Later, we take a ride.

And Jamie started acting funny. It's like he had

something on his mind, and he had a mission.

As we're taking a ride, we turn

off of Highway 102 onto Bobby Road.

And when we turn, Jamie makes a big, long, wide turn.

I looked out, and I could see what appeared to be

a body in the road, and I told him.

I said, "Jamie." I said, "There's a body.

We need to stop." He said, "No."

He said, "That's a deer."

The body shone

off the h-headlights of the truck

as he turned.

It was in a... in a curled up position.

Like, her back was up,

and you could see, like, a sheen of wet.

And that's why I knew it wasn't a deer,

'cause a deer has hair.

This was not a deer. It-it was a shiny body.

And-and I argued with him for quite some time,

and we just continued forward.

Later, he went back to the body,

called the law, and told them he had just found it.

Which was-- this was false.

Jamie put that body there,

if you ask me.

Now, I don't know that for a fact,

but he automatically turned wide

and went almost into the ditch to miss that body.

He knew that body was there

before he ever turned on that road.

We have been able to identify

through the investigation over the years

a few people that... we have concerns about

connected to this death.

And we would consider them persons of interest,

but we haven't publicly named anybody.

There have been no arrests made

connected to the death of Whitnei Dubois.

So, with four bodies being found,

I mean, obviously, this is...

We'd never seen anything

like this sort of situation.

It's to the point now where I'm-I'm in the store,

people are stopping me, asking me questions about it.

People were scared.

People were scared because

the girls were being killed.

They was just being thrown away like they was nothing.

It was fucking crazy.

When the bodies started...

"Here's another one.

Okay, here's another body.

My God, there's another body?"

It's fucking crazy.

It's like...

What the fuck is really going on in this town?

Is there just one person killing all these people?

We didn't let our kids walk

to the grocery store anymore.

We didn't let our kids ride around the block

on their bicycles anymore.

It got to where you didn't trust anyone

because you didn't know

if-if the person sitting next to you was a serial killer.

Nobody in law enforcement

wanted to say "serial killer" at the time.

And we couldn't get callbacks from the cops.

They-they wouldn't answer our questions.

Did she get in a car with somebody?

How was she killed?

We never... we never saw her body.

It's like they didn't want us to know anything.

At-at first,

I figured, you know, they would do what was right

and that they were gonna do the, you know, investigation.

Do everything that they were supposed to do

the right way, you know.

And the people that we spoke to,

you know, they sounded...

like they were, you know, headstrong on figuring this out.

But then they were all already trying

to pass the buck off on their lifestyles.

Well, every time we'd try to call,

we'd call the-the sheriff, Ricky Edwards.

He'd say, "We working on it.

We working on it. Don't have no answers yet."

As a homicide investigator,

it's really hard not to have answers for family members.

And they call you,

and you don't have answers for 'em.

Lot of stuff that people have no idea

how much work was done and what was done.

We can't discuss all that.

When I was incarcerated,

well, when they all come in,

they tell me to come to the office back there,

I knew... they was there to tell me somethin'.

Well, it would happen

they think they know who did it.

Bam! Arrest her.

Suddenly,

right on the heels of Whitnei's body being discovered,

the sheriff's department arrests two people

for Kristen's murder.

I remember that day.

It was...

the scariest...

most insane part of my life.

I called one of the detectives to let him know,

"Hey, look, I'm going out of state

to my boyfriend's grandma's house.

We're going on a little vacation.

May not have service up there,

but, would it be okay if I called y'all

when I get service to see if y'all have any updates?"

And he was like, "Yeah, that's fine. Whatever."

And next thing I knew, that same night,

he calls me on my cell phone.

He's like, "Hannah, we're here.

Can you please come outside?"

Sorry. -That's okay.

It's okay.

They arrested me for second-degree murder.

The sheriff's department

arrests Hannah Conner

and her uncle,

Frankie Richard.

Frankie Richard was somebody

that most people knew to be involved in drugs,

and had a very...

violent past.

Thirty years ago,

Frankie owned a lot of strip joints.

He had all these strippers working for him,

prostitutes, and he would bring them home

and brag about how he would trick them out for dope.

Frankie took pleasure in telling the stories

of the things that he did to the people he did it to.

No, there was no remorse in Frankie.

H-He, at one time,

seemed to be involved

in harming people if they need, you know, to be harmed.

He would do it for a fee.

He's a... he's a person

that we had dealings with a lot

in law enforcement.

Frankie said himself in interviews that he was...

knew all of 'em, you know.

Partied with them.

Basically,

Kristen, Loretta, Whitnei, they all

hung around with Frankie.

Frankie sold drugs.

If they couldn't get it from somebody,

they got it from him.

They would party together.

They would hit licks together.

Kristen would go with him numerous times to hit licks.

As in tricks

at the Budget Inn.

Frankie's scary.

He's a very intimidating man.

Police didn't immediately link Frankie

to the-- any of the other murders,

though, even at that point,

you were starting to hear rumors on the street

that Frankie had killed all these girls.

Guilty for-- if not for all of them, for some.

My sister. He put my sister in there.

I know he did.

I want to get him to be locked up

in that pen, that cell

and let him do day for day for day.

I think the quick arrest of Frankie and Hannah

went a long way to sort of quelling

some of the fears in town.

People think that this is over, and the general idea of fear,

whatever there was,

just sort of subsides.

And then, suddenly, a couple of weeks later,

Frankie and Hannah are cleared

of any criminal charges in the case.

But this is not something that was publicly known.

It wasn't like a press release came out.

Like, it happened very quietly.

They arrested him, had him in custody already,

pinned the charge on him for murder,

and then all charges are dropped.

No one could understand why they did that.

It just looked real bad.

It doesn't make any sense.

Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name.

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done

on Earth as it is in Heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread

and forgive us our trespasses

as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil. Amen.

We want to see justice.

We want peace to be brought to the families.

To finally know

that they do care about what happens in this town.

Took my baby girl away.

He killed her like an animal.

Sheriff Ricky Edwards didn't step up to the plate

when he should've stepped up to the plate.

You had him locked up.

But they turned him loose.

But his name keeps coming back.

Frankie Richard, Frankie Richard.

To this day, he's still a free man.

You still see him around town.

Head up, he-he don't look like he's sorry for nothing,

but I know he's guilty.

Lord, promise me, when they die,

they going to hell.

I did not...

have anything to do

with any of them girls' death.

These girls lost their lives

because they seen something,

heard something,

knew something that they was not supposed to know.