Latest / History Dark / Cold Case of A Body Thrown Into The River Solved After 27 Years _ Homicide_ Hours To Kill

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Cold Case of A Body Thrown Into The River Solved After 27 Years _ Homicide_ Hours To Kill · History Dark

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: This is a case of murder and mystery and intrigue.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: A brutal killing.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: It was the body of a female wrapped in about
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: 200 pounds of chain with a plastic bag over the head.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: A dark mystery with multiple suspects.
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: This person may know something that they're trying to withhold.
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: And they're scared to talk now.
• 0:31
  Speaker 4: She was tricked, threatened, coerced.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: There's an urban legend. There was about $ 500, 000 in cash
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: that went missing.
• 0:45
  Speaker 5: Maybe he got upset, lost his temper, went back over there,
• 0:52
  Speaker 5: and killed her.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: The truth will be revealed.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Level went to these elaborate extremes to make this woman disappear.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Wanted her gone. and never to be seen again.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Every day in North America, dozens of people are murdered.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: The key to solving the toughest of these homicides lies
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: in the final 24 hours of the victim's life. To
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: crack the case, detectives must reconstruct that critical timeline. The
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: minutes and hours containing evidence that can help unlock the
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: mystery and catch the killer. Five miles down the Mississippi
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: River from New Orleans sits the quiet community of St. Bernard, Louisiana.
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: St.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Bernard being so close to New Orleans, being so close
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: proximity to the river and the traffic on the river
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: and just the multi-culture attracts people here.
• 2:01
  Speaker 5: People are friendly and open. You know somebody who knows
• 2:06
  Speaker 5: somebody who knows that person. It is a small community.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: This familiarity can also create a false sense of security.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Some fishermen report they had found a body in one
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: of their lines.
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: Wrapped in some sort of chains. She had, I think,
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: a cord or something wrapped around her neck.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: The body was in an advanced state of decomposition. She
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: was dressed only in a nightshirt. After an extensive check
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: of medical records and some identification of her jewelry, they
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: were able to positively identify her.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: She's named as 61-year-old Dorothy Thompson.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: She'd been missing for about three weeks prior to that.
• 3:23
  Speaker 5: But at the time, police weren't able to go forward
• 3:26
  Speaker 5: with it. They could not continue their investigations.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: Dorothy's murder remains a mystery for 18 years until St.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: Bernard natives, Colonel John Doran and Lieutenant Mark Jackson decide
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: to take it on.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: I remember it so well because it was a big
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: deal for St. Bernard. When I was about 15 years old,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Some friends of mine and I hustled a little job
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: cutting grass at Pet Sematary. And I remembered that lady
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: that owned it. Dorothy was a bit of a recluse,
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: kind of an eccentric type person. I don't think she
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: was particularly in good health. But by all accounts, she
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: was a generous person. of a sweet person.
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: Dorothy's house sat way back off the highway, so you'd
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: have to drive back kind of a secluded driveway to
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: get to her house through some wooded area.
• 4:53
  Speaker 4: They had pet.
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: Tombstones across the whole front of the property.
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: They had birds, cats, dogs.
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: All sorts of animals, any animal you could think of
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: was buried in that pet cemetery. Back when I was young,
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: the word around the community was that it was like
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: a haunted house. People would go down there and say
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: they seen ghosts and stuff like that around the property.
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: It was a strange place, to say the least.
• 5:28
  Speaker 5: Almost everybody in St. Bernard Parish knew about the Pet Cemetery.
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: When we dug through the case file, we didn't have
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: a lot left because when we reopened the case, it
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: was a few years after Hurricane Katrina. St. Bernard was
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Before the storm, they had evidence.
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: They had the chains that she was wrapped in. They
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: had the cord that she had wrapped around her neck.
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: All that was lost.
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: So it was kind of starting from scratch.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: One of the few salvageable documents is Dorothy's autopsy report.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: The coroner ruled that it was a probable asphyxia or suffocation.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: She either died from being strangled or from that plastic
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: bag being placed over her head where she couldn't breathe.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: So it could have been a combination of the two.
• 6:34
  Speaker 5: Asphyxiation is a method to inflict your anger and frustration
• 6:41
  Speaker 5: at this person while they're dying. That indicates that there's
• 6:49
  Speaker 5: some personal involvement and that there was some anger by
• 6:57
  Speaker 5: the alleged perpetrator.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: To me, that was a premeditated, deliberate act. Whoever went
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: to these elaborate extremes to make this woman disappear wanted
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: her gone and never to be seen again.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: As detectives unravel the past, they learn this isn't the
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: first death police have investigated on this property.
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: We discovered that Dorothy's first husband died of a gunshot wound.
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: The story was that it was a self-defense, that he
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: was beating Dorothy and Dorothy shot him. And her second
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: husband committed suicide on the back porch of the house.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: The gruesome nature of these incidents leave police wondering if
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: there's a connection.
• 8:03
  Speaker 5: When you have some history in the family of someone
• 8:08
  Speaker 5: else that may have been murdered, you start thinking that
• 8:13
  Speaker 5: maybe there's something going on in this family. Are there
• 8:18
  Speaker 5: family issues? Are there control issues? Are there property issues?
• 8:26
  Speaker 6: If you think there's something suspicious here, you have to
• 8:30
  Speaker 6: do an awful lot of research into learning your victim.
• 8:37
  Speaker 6: You're often looking for the one person you can ask
• 8:39
  Speaker 6: questions of that gives context or gives information that's relatively unbiased.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: They begin to reconstruct Dorothy's timeline, aiming to identify the
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: people she interacted with. in her final 24 hours.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: The first thing we did when we reopened it is
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: establish the timeline. That's the very first thing I had
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: to do to piece it back together. You have to
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: find out when was the last time this person was
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: seen or heard from and who were they with.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: They tracked down the woman who originally reported Dorothy missing.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: Patricia Newman, she was in her early 30s. She did
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: a lot of volunteer work in the community, particularly at hospitals,
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: helping elderly people. She befriended Dorothy and started to take
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: care of her.
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: Dorothy was in deep depression because of the passing of
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: her mother. She was on several different kinds of medication.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: They almost had sort of like a mother-daughter relationship. Patricia
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: Newman had spoken to Dorothy around 9 PM on the
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: 13th of April. She was to pick her up Sunday
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: morning to run errands and maybe the pharmacy or something
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: of that nature. When she tried to contact her that
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: following morning at 9, she got no answer. She drove
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: down there to check on Dorothy, thinking maybe she was
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: sick or something else had happened. When she realized she
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: wasn't there, I think she was immediately worried because Patricia
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: knew that she did not have the wherewithal or the
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: means to travel anywhere. And at that point, Patricia began
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: to think that she may have met with foul play.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: She called the police. Police got there and searched the
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: house with no signs of Dorothy being there. They found
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: a half a glass of wine, not much else really
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: to go on other than no Dorothy. She was missing.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: It vanished into thin air.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: Between their conversation the previous evening and Patricia's 911 call,
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: there's a 12-hour window for the murder.
• 11:30
  Speaker 5: You can start then making your timeline as to somewhere
• 11:35
  Speaker 5: right after she last talked with Patricia.
• 11:39
  Speaker 4: That starts the clock running.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: They press Patricia for other details about Dorothy's final day.
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: It looks like she went to a bank to cash
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: a check.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: They discover she was not alone.
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: She was with a handyman.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: We learned Dorothy was hiring these transient types. She seemed
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: to gravitate toward these people, or they gravitated toward her.
• 12:20
  Speaker 5: People would learn about the Pet Sematary, learn about her,
• 12:24
  Speaker 5: befriend her, and offer to do something for a few dollars.
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: The timeline shows that he may have been the last
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: person that was with Dorothy Thompson before she disappeared.
• 12:42
  Speaker 6: Locating the last person to see the deceased alive is necessary.
• 12:48
  Speaker 6: Because at that point, you can establish things like where
• 12:52
  Speaker 6: she was last seen, when she was last seen, what
• 12:55
  Speaker 6: was going on in her world at the time.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: A key detail about her transaction at the bank stands out.
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: She paid him $ 100.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: In 1985, $ 100 would have been a lot of money.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: I don't think we made that for cutting grass the
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: entire summer over there.
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: She was willing to pay him $ 100 to do handiwork.
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: So it could give motive. It could give an indication
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: that she has plenty of money.
• 13:24
  Speaker 7: Employing transients is a dangerous game because you have no
• 13:29
  Speaker 7: idea what those people have done in their past. They
• 13:33
  Speaker 7: may be convicted killers. And now they're working in your
• 13:36
  Speaker 7: backyard and they're potentially casing your house out.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: She had hired a handyman on the 12th. The day
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: after she hires him, she disappears. So immediately, he became
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: a person of interest.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: Detectives are looking for an unknown handyman who received $ 100
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: from murder victim Dorothea Thompson within hours of her disappearance.
• 14:20
  Speaker 5: St.
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: Bernard was very open.
• 14:23
  Speaker 5: And it's an easy place for transients to come in,
• 14:27
  Speaker 5: maybe do a little odd job here and there, make
• 14:31
  Speaker 5: a few dollars.
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: It made the case very difficult because you had a
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: lot of people that was on that property at different
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: times doing different things.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: A discovery in her home gives them a potential lead.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: They found him known in the house and they came
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: up with the name Kenny Pommier. They found out where
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: he lived and they were able to find him and
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: brought him in for an interview. He was cooperative. He
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: was forthcoming.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: Kenny admits to being the man Dorothy paid $ 100.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: He told him that he had answered an ad in
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: the paper about cutting the grass and doing some repairs
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: around that house. He said he had gone to the
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: bank with her. He brought her to, I think, a
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: grocery store, then brought her home around 4 p.m. And
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: that was it. That's the last time he saw her.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: and they knew that Patricia Newman had called Dorothy around
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: 9 p.m. at that night.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: For Pommier to be the killer, he must have returned
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: to the house after that phone call.
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: But it was kind of hard to track down where
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: he was at at the time that Dorothy disappeared.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: Unable to confirm any alibi, they looked deeper into the
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: robbery motive.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: They never could really establish that there was anything of
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: real value that she had there other than some jewelry.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: So to go to that extreme, to dispose of this body,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: to me was something more sinister. There's only a few
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: reasons people murder, and it's, you know, money, greed, revenge.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: To me, it's always motive. Motive, then means, then opportunity.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: But in this case, my first instinct was the motive
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: had to be there. You kind of get that gut
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: feeling about who you're dealing with. They didn't necessarily rule
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: him out, but I think they were satisfied with what
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: he told them.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: Police identify another individual who may have had opportunity in
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: the timeframe Dorothy was killed.
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: Elton Childress was another handyman that worked on Dorothy's property.
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: I think they was in the hospital together. And she
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: kind of befriended him. And Childress wound up working for him.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: When you look at his criminal background, he had some
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: violence there. Armed robbery, driving while intoxicated, and drunk in public,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: and things of that nature. He was a bit of
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: a shady character. a bit of a mysterious kind of person.
• 17:39
  Speaker 8: People with criminal records, the police would definitely pursue those
• 17:42
  Speaker 8: individuals more aggressively and more rapidly.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Because of his background, he had the way she was killed.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: You know, somebody wanted her to disappear off the face
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: of the earth. They didn't want her to be found.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: Somebody that had to have the means and wherewithal to
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: do this.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: Brought in for questioning, Childress claims he was nowhere near
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: the house the night Dorothy went missing.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: He really had no solid alibis.
• 18:21
  Speaker 5: So you want to investigate how is he connected to her?
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: Did he have any motives?
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: His explanation is tied to a lingering mystery. that has
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: surrounded the Pet Sematary for decades.
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: Childress told the investigators that he was looking for hidden
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: treasure on Dorothy's property.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: He had heard the rumors from the local people down
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: there that there was treasure buried. There's an urban legend,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: I guess, Apparently, Dorothy's mother had murdered her ex-husband's new
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: wife in Kansas City. She fled here and basically found
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: this spot in St. Bernard, which is about the farthest
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: place you could go from Kansas City, and opened this
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: pet cemetery and essentially hid out the rest of her
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: life there and was never extradited back to Kansas City
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: to stand charges.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: Her ex-husband... A casino owner with alleged ties to the
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: mafia is rumored to have amassed a small fortune.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: There was about $ 500, 000 in cash that went missing, and
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: then he mysteriously died. And that's the treasure that they
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: talk about.
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: I remember crying.
• 19:50
  Speaker 5: Over the years, you would hear stories of kids going
• 19:54
  Speaker 5: in at Pet Sematary at nighttime.
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: Back when we was young, we believed it. Everybody in
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: the community believed it.
• 20:09
  Speaker 7: Rumors have a way of growing. And a rumor of
• 20:13
  Speaker 7: buried treasure in a pet cemetery, you're going to attract
• 20:17
  Speaker 7: a crowd of people who are going.
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: To want to take it.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: It seemed like Childress spent most of his time searching
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: for the treasure. Digging up the pet craves and not
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: doing much work at all.
• 20:39
  Speaker 5: His motive could have been that he just got frustrated,
• 20:43
  Speaker 5: he got upset, that he couldn't find the hidden treasure anywhere,
• 20:50
  Speaker 5: and went back over there and lost his temper.
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: And killed her. It throws up a.
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: Red flag, but then also you gotta wade through it
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: and ask, why would Childress tell an investigator that he
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: was looking for a hidden treasure?
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: So you got to look at it both ways.
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: Is he being honest or did he just slip up
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: and tell you something?
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: Remaining adamant, Childress goes on to accuse Dorothy's caregiver.
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: When Childress was interviewed, he said that Patricia Newman had
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: motive to do this. That she befriended Dorothy because she
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: was trying to take her property away.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: It's choice land down there. By 1985 standards, it was
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: worth a lot of money, probably quarter of a million
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: to half a million dollars.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: Detectives take a harder look at the woman who reported
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: Dorothy missing.
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: It's common for suspects to try to establish themselves and
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: get on the good side of an investigator and try
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: to be forthcoming with plenty of information and showing that
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: they have a big interest in this case.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: They found out that Dorothy had had some children that
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: lived out in California that she was estranged from since
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: they were babies. Dorothy had bequeathed the power of attorney
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: over to Patricia and that left her in the will.
• 22:29
  Speaker 5: She was with her. She was close to her. She
• 22:35
  Speaker 5: was one of the individuals who could have benefited from
• 22:39
  Speaker 5: If Miss Thompson passed away, Miss Newman may have had
• 22:46
  Speaker 5: some motive for Miss Thompson's death.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: Detectives consider if Dorothy Thompson's closest friend, Patricia Newman, killed
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: her to inherit her property.
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: Patricia could have benefited a lot from Dorothy's passing.
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: She befriended Dorothy.
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: Dorothy had all the trust in her, and she knew
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: a lot about Dorothy and what Dorothy owned at the time.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: They revisit Patricia's story regarding Dorothy's disappearance.
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: With Patricia calling the sheriff's office and asking the sheriff's
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: office to go check the well-being of Dorothy, Patricia possibly
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: was trying to establish an alibi.
• 23:43
  Speaker 7: Her calling the police might very well be her way
• 23:46
  Speaker 7: of trying to cast suspicion on somebody else and to
• 23:51
  Speaker 7: clear herself.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: This, in turn, raises questions about the crime scene.
• 24:00
  Speaker 7: The manner of the death was extremely violent. But when
• 24:03
  Speaker 7: you see the house itself, that doesn't look like anything
• 24:06
  Speaker 7: had happened. It's difficult to marry those two ideas.
• 24:12
  Speaker 5: I think the first theory you would assume when you
• 24:16
  Speaker 5: get to the residence and she's not there is that
• 24:21
  Speaker 5: she was maybe killed someplace else. Maybe she was kidnapped.
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: But it's a common thing for a perpetrator to stage
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: a scene to make it seem like nothing happened.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: So I think you have to consider all possibilities. You
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: have to look at everything and everybody that was involved
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: with this woman.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: Patricia insists she didn't see or speak to Dorothy after
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: their 9 PM call.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: Her intentions were genuine toward Dorothy. She said she didn't
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: even want the land. She was just trying to do
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: the right thing for Dorothy Thompson.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: The one thing left to consider is if Patricia was
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: physically capable of the crime.
• 25:15
  Speaker 5: When the body was found in the river in black
• 25:19
  Speaker 5: plastic or when pounds and pounds of change wrapped around her,
• 25:23
  Speaker 5: I don't know that Patricia would have had the ability
• 25:30
  Speaker 5: to do that.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: We're talking about being transported miles away from her residence
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: and then dumped in the river. So Patricia was completely
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: ruled out.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: She goes on to suggest yet another potential culprit.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: Patricia Newman believed that the Nodiers were involved in Dorothy's
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: disappearance and subsequent deaths. They were a couple named Brandon
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: Nodier and Bonnie Nodier, who lived there. and also caretaker
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: slash groundskeeper.
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: Brandon was a handyman. He would cut the grass and
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: stuff like that around the residence.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: They run Nodier's name through the system.
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: Nodier had a violent past. He had several run-ins with
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: the law. He had some aggravated offenses against him.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: As Brandon lived on the property, he is automatically on
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: Dorothy's timeline for the window of her disappearance.
• 26:49
  Speaker 5: You want to investigate, did he have any motives? Patricia
• 26:56
  Speaker 5: Newman has said that Mr. Nodier was constantly trying to
• 27:01
  Speaker 5: get Miss Thompson to sign over the property to him.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: Brandon ODA wanted that land. He had told people he
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: wanted that land. We learned at some point, Brandon decides
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: that he wants Dorothy to sign a long-term lease for
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: him to operate the property and live there. And apparently
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: she agrees to that.
• 27:35
  Speaker 7: The elderly are prey to many criminals. And they are
• 27:42
  Speaker 7: easily manipulated into signing away their assets or their fortunes.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: For Nodier, the lease isn't enough.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: From that point, Brandon Nodier decides that he wants to
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: buy the land.
• 27:59
  Speaker 5: Maybe he was one of those people looking for the
• 28:02
  Speaker 5: hidden treasures.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Brandon and Bonnie convince her to drive up to an
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: attorney's office in New Orleans who represented Brandon Nodier, and
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: signed her property over to them in an act of sale. Supposedly,
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: they were gonna pay her $ 20, 000, pay off an existing
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: loan that was on the property, and give her use
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: of the house, which means she could live there for
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: the rest of her life. Patricia said Dorothy, by all accounts,
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: was not lucid when this happened. She was coerced. At
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: one point, Dorothy realizes that she had been duped because
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: there was no $ 20, 000 in her account. The loan was
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: never paid off, and they were kicking her out of
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: the property. And that's when Patricia Newman becomes involved to
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: help her.
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: What happened was Patricia Newman found out about the property
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: being signed over to Brandon, and she kind of convinced
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: Dorothy to hire an attorney and bring this case to
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: civil court.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: So Dorothy immediately files a lawsuit against the Nody A's
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: for fraud and illegal act of sale. It looks like
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: it's a good case for Dorothy because she basically had
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: been ripped off. I mean, she was swindled out of
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: the land.
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: So they got a court date set up for a
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: judge to hear the case. But a week prior to
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: the case coming up, that's when Dorothy went missing.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: So that turned the case on its head once that
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: was found out.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: Brandon Nodier has become the latest suspect in the murder
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: of his employer, Dorothy Thompson.
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: When Brandon was interviewed, he said that Patricia Newman had
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: motive to do this. He said she befriended Dorothy because
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: she was trying to take her property.
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: We didn't believe it.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: The circumstantial details are also against him.
• 30:32
  Speaker 7: The proximity of the lawsuit to the murder is very suspicious.
• 30:36
  Speaker 7: And it would lead investigators to potentially believe that the
• 30:40
  Speaker 7: person who's involved in the lawsuit is involved in the murder.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: The challenge for detectives is they have no physical evidence
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: tying Brandon to Dorothy's disappearance.
• 30:56
  Speaker 6: When you have no evidence, it's a real challenge. You
• 30:59
  Speaker 6: keep going back at, what am I missing? Let's find
• 31:02
  Speaker 6: another way. Think outside the box. Let's get from A
• 31:04
  Speaker 6: to B where we have to get to. And oftentimes,
• 31:08
  Speaker 6: it's frustrating.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: We were in the process at that time of piecing
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: back some of the information. When in 2009, we received
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: an ominous call from a guy that says he has
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: information about an old murder. So I start talking to
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: this guy, and he says, you know, I know about
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: an old murder, and I can help you all solve it.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: Which murder? And he says, the Pet Sematary murder.
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: So we asked him if we could meet with him,
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: and he was very reluctant at first to meet with us.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: Detectives convince the caller, Juan Garcia, to talk.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: I pick him up, and he's a tough guy from
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: the street. I mean, he's not some shrinking violet. He
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: was scared to death. He said he was a friend
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: of Brandon Odie. And Brandon admitted to him that he
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: had killed her, and he was glad that he did
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: it because she deserved it. He said he never told
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: anyone because he was afraid of Brandon, and they were friends.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: Though his story sounds convincing, the timing is suspicious.
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: We asked him in the interview, what's making you come
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: forward now to talk about this case? And he said
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: he had a premonition that this lady showed up at
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: his bed while he was sleeping and she had chains on.
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: And it was Miss Thompson. And he said, Miss Thompson,
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: and asked him to get her justice. And that's why
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: he was there.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: He said all sorts of crazy things. But in addition,
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: he knew things about the case that really, some of
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: it was reported in the paper, but not all of it.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: But it wasn't quite enough. You have to do the job,
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: and you have to investigate every case, regardless of what
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: it looks like on the surface. She was a helpless woman, really.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: Somebody has to speak for the dead It's our duty.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: I felt like I was compelled to solve it. This one,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: this was mine. So we had to do a lot more.
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: We came up with the idea that we was going
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: to go try to talk to Bonnie Nodier. We figured
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: that she would be the one to talk to about this.
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: Many years have gone by, and she may need to
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: get this off her chest.
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: They speak to Bonnie while Brandon is away.
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: I told her we had a witness that came forward,
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: and we need to talk to her about it.
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: I said, talk to her attorney.
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: They have nothing to say.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: We wanted her to go back and tell him that
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: we were close. We're coming for you, buddy. Our intentions
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: were to force him to make a mistake. That was
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: our only shot at it.
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: A few weeks go by. We get a call in
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: the office from a female who said her husband's in
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: jail in St. Tammany Parish, and he wants to talk
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: about a homicide. So myself and Colonel Dorian went over
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: to St.
• 34:58
  Speaker 5: Tammany.
• 34:59
  Speaker 4: And met with an individual in the jail.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: James Traggler had a long criminal history of bombings and
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: all sorts of crazy things. As it turns out, he
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: was a close friend of Brandon, and he worked at
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: the Pet Cemetery with Brandon. He hasn't seen Brandon in
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: 25 years. He says Brandon pays him a visit at
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: the jail after we talked to Brandon's wife. Brandon says
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: the detectives are snooping around. So whatever happened between you
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: and me a long time ago needs to stay between
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: you and I.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: Brandon's visit brings back memories Tregler has been trying to forget.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: He said back in 1985, he was working with Brandon
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: at the pet cemetery. One night, Brandon calls him up
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: out of the blue. He tells him, would you take
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: a ride with me? I need your help or something.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: So he says they go down to the pet cemetery.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: And he tells James to stay in the truck. So
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: James does. He said, while he's out in the truck,
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: Brandon goes inside of the house.
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: Then a few minutes go by, he hears Miss Thompson
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: inside the house screaming.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: He gets out of the truck and he looks in
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: the door when he sees Brandon on top of Dorothy
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: choking her with her legs flailing. So he yells at Brandon, hey,
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: what are you doing? Stop. Brandon gets up. He tells
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: James to go back in the truck and wait. But
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: during this time, Dorothy comes back to life. She's not dead.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: And she starts screaming, and No-Day jumps back on her
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: and begins to choke her again. A little while later,
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: Brandon comes out, says, look, you need to help me
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: move the body.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: Tregla explains Brandon's visit to the prison decades later was
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: no social call.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: Brandon gives him an ominous message. I know where your
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: wife lives, and I know what kind of car she drives.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: And Brandon told Tregla, if you ever say anything, I'll
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: kill you and your whole family.
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: James Tregla's jailhouse confession has police convinced Brandon Nodier is
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: guilty of killing Dorothy Thompson.
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: Tregler maintained all along that he was an unwitting participant
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: in this crime, that he had no idea what Brandon
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: O'Day was going to do, that he only participated because
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: he was scared to death of Brandon.
• 38:10
  Speaker 8: The word of a convicted criminal is always suspicious. It's
• 38:14
  Speaker 8: always something that police have to check the hard facts
• 38:17
  Speaker 8: and make sure that they validate what the person has said.
• 38:22
  Speaker 7: So you've got motive, you've got opportunity, you've got them
• 38:25
  Speaker 7: both in spades, but you don't have enough to get
• 38:28
  Speaker 7: a conviction.
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: They need to corroborate Tregla's story.
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: Tregla gave us some facts that never was published, some
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: things that nobody else would have known about unless they was.
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: At that scene.
• 38:45
  Speaker 5: Particularly with the plastic, the chains, that information was ever
• 38:51
  Speaker 5: publicized back in 85.
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: So everything that he said was verified. Well, the Stapenow
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: Parish District Attorney's Office put it in front of a
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: grand jury, and they indicted Brandon on a second degree
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: murder charge. So the next time we seen Brandon, we
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: had an arrest warrant for him.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: The timeline. shows how the events of Dorothy's last day
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: culminated in her violent death. Dorothy hires Kenneth Pull.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: To do some work. He brings her to the bank.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: She pays him, runs some errands. She goes back home
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: at about 9 PM. She talks to Patricia Newman. That night,
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: maybe around midnight or so, Nody arrives at the house.
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: With James Tregler, probably forces his way in. He may
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: still have had a key.
• 40:09
  Speaker 5: Nodier was probably upset that he wasn't getting the property.
• 40:15
  Speaker 5: He was probably upset that there were proceedings in court
• 40:20
  Speaker 5: which may have.
• 40:21
  Speaker 4: Prevented him from even trying to steal the property.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: He goes in and he attacks Dorothy. A little while later,
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: they wrapped her in the chains. They put her in
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: the back of his pickup truck. And they drove to
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: the Belle Chase Ferry Landing, which is several miles from
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: the Pet Sematary. And they simply threw her in the river.
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: On April 12, 2012, almost 27 years after the crime,
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: Brandon Nodier awaits his fate.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: At the end of the day, the district attorney made
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: a plea bargain. He pled guilty to manslaughter, which is
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: a lesser charge. But he got up in front of court,
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: admitted what he had done.
• 41:20
  Speaker 5: To the question of, are you pleading guilty? Because in fact,
• 41:23
  Speaker 5: you are guilty to the killing of Dorothy Thompson. He
• 41:26
  Speaker 5: stood before the judge and said, Yes, sir, Your Honor.
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: The play agreement clearly identifies Nodier as being solely responsible.
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: Treglup had a lawyer, and with his testimony, he was
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: given immunity, and he was never prosecuted.
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: Brandon Nodier is sentenced to 10 years in prison.
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: I don't think he had a guilty conscience. I don't
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: think it weighed on Brandon at all. Because looking at
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: him in court when he pled, he was still really cold.
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: He didn't show no remorse, no nothing.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: I had mixed feelings because I thought we were happy
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: that we were able to solve it. I was disappointed
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: that he didn't get more time. I would have preferred
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: to go to trial. He should be in prison for
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: the rest of his life. But we did the best
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: we could. It's just unfortunate that it took so long
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: to get to it, but I felt good about it.
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: One element of Dorothy's story remains a mystery.
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: The hidden treasure. No one's ever found anything in there.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: People still search for that money down there. More than likely,
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: the money had been spent. That's just my guess. Or
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: someone found it. Well, we'll never know now. Thank you.