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Hell and Gone Murder Line: KK's Corner Part 1 · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

0:46
Speaker 1: School of Humans. Helen Got Murder Line actively investigates cold
0:52
Speaker 1: case murders in an effort to raise public awareness invite
0:55
Speaker 1: witnesses to come forward and present evidence that could potentially
0:58
Speaker 1: be further investigated by law enforcement. While we value insights
1:03
Speaker 1: from family and community members, their statements should not be
1:06
Speaker 1: considered evidence and point to the challenges of verifying facts
1:10
Speaker 1: inherent in cold cases. We remind listeners that everyone has
1:14
Speaker 1: presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
1:17
Speaker 1: Nothing in the podcast is intended to state or imply
1:21
Speaker 1: that anyone who has not been convicted of a crime
1:24
Speaker 1: is guilty of any wrongdoing. Thanks for listening.
1:30
Speaker 2: It was a few minutes before midnight on Saturday, July fifth,
1:33
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety seven. Twenty one year old Marty Lebuff was
1:36
Speaker 2: working behind the counter as a cashier at Kk's Corner
1:40
Speaker 2: Convenience store on Highway fourteen in calcashu Perish, a few
1:44
Speaker 2: miles from Lake Charles, Louisiana. Marty and his coworker, twenty
1:48
Speaker 2: six year old Stacy Reeves, were working together that night.
1:52
Speaker 2: There was someone else there too. Stacy had a friend,
1:54
Speaker 2: fourteen year old Nicole Guidry, there with her. Nicole sometimes
1:59
Speaker 2: babysat for Stacy's twin daughters, who were twenty three months
2:03
Speaker 2: old at the time. She was keeping Stacy company until
2:06
Speaker 2: the store closed. Then the plan was for Nicole to
2:09
Speaker 2: ride home with Stacy and spend the night with Stacy's children.
2:13
Speaker 2: Nicole was about to turn fifteen and about to start
2:16
Speaker 2: the ninth grade. Marty hadn't actually been scheduled to work
2:20
Speaker 2: that night, but one of his co workers named Miles Addison,
2:24
Speaker 2: had called in sick, so Marty stepped in. Marty's father,
2:28
Speaker 2: Ellis Lebuff, later told a local news station that the
2:32
Speaker 2: night seemed completely normal. He said that he had called
2:36
Speaker 2: Kk's that night before Marty got off work to tell
2:39
Speaker 2: Marty that he had left to plate to barbecue out
2:41
Speaker 2: for him at home. Closing time was midnight. That time
2:46
Speaker 2: came and went, and Marty, Stacy, and Nicole never made
2:51
Speaker 2: it home. Around five am on July sixth, one of
2:55
Speaker 2: Marty and Stacy's coworkers showed up to open the store.
2:59
Speaker 2: She immediately noticed that something was very wrong. The cash
3:03
Speaker 2: register was open, money was missing from the drawer, the
3:07
Speaker 2: alarm was off, and Marty and Stacy were nowhere to
3:11
Speaker 2: be found. The employee picked up the phone behind the counter,
3:15
Speaker 2: the only phone that was on a different line and
3:18
Speaker 2: was still working.
3:19
Speaker 3: She called the police.
3:22
Speaker 2: Once the deputy got to the door, he noticed Stacey
3:26
Speaker 2: and Marty's cars in the parking lot. Inside, he found
3:29
Speaker 2: the door to the back office had been kicked in
3:32
Speaker 2: and the safe was open. At first, he thought this
3:35
Speaker 2: had been a robbery and that Stacy and Marty may
3:38
Speaker 2: be restrained in the back of the store, locked in
3:40
Speaker 2: the cooler, But once he opened the door to the cooler,
3:44
Speaker 2: he saw the bloodbath. There were three bodies there, Marty, Stacy,
3:49
Speaker 2: and Nicole lying on the floor. All three had been
3:53
Speaker 2: shot multiple times, execution style. I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the
3:59
Speaker 2: past five years of making my true crime podcast, Helen Gone,
4:03
Speaker 2: I've learned that there is no such thing as a
4:05
Speaker 2: small town where murder never happens. I have received hundreds
4:09
Speaker 2: of messages from people all around the country asking for
4:11
Speaker 2: help with an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families,
4:15
Speaker 2: and their communities. If you have a case you'd like
4:18
Speaker 2: me and my team to look into, you can reach
4:21
Speaker 2: out to us at our Helen Gone Murder line at
4:23
Speaker 2: six seven eight seven four four six one four five,
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Speaker 2: that six seven eight seven, four, four, six, one, four
4:30
Speaker 2: or five, or you can send us a message on
4:33
Speaker 2: Instagram at Helen Gone Pod. This is Helen Gone murder line.
5:13
Speaker 2: A triple homicide in this sleepy little part of southwest
5:16
Speaker 2: Louisiana immediately became a huge story. Everyone in town seemed
5:21
Speaker 2: to have a connection with this case, either their regulars
5:23
Speaker 2: in the store, or they knew one or more than one.
5:26
Speaker 3: Of the victims.
5:29
Speaker 2: The Calcashue Parish Sheriff Wayne mclvin said that the police
5:33
Speaker 2: believed that this had been some kind of robbery gone wrong,
5:36
Speaker 2: and that the killer or killers had botched the robbery
5:39
Speaker 2: because whoever came into the store that night seemed to
5:42
Speaker 2: know the store and possibly the employees. According to KPLC
5:47
Speaker 2: seven News, there was some money taken from the register.
5:51
Speaker 2: It totaled less than one hundred dollars, but someone had
5:54
Speaker 2: gone into the manager's office in the back of the
5:56
Speaker 2: store and taken a lot more money, cash checks and
6:00
Speaker 2: money orders worth over ten thousand dollars. Someone also knew
6:04
Speaker 2: how to cut the phone lines, and they knew how
6:07
Speaker 2: to get into the back of the store and get
6:09
Speaker 2: to the surveillance equipment. There was a camera, but the
6:12
Speaker 2: killer or killers took the tape from the VCR of
6:15
Speaker 2: the surveillance footage. Detectives said they believed that Marty, Nicole,
6:20
Speaker 2: and Stacy had been led into the cooler one at
6:23
Speaker 2: a time and then shot at close range. Marty had
6:27
Speaker 2: been shot three times, Stacy and Nicole had each been
6:30
Speaker 2: shot twice. All of them had been shot in the head.
6:34
Speaker 2: Stacy apparently also had a bullet graze to the side
6:37
Speaker 2: of her head. This led detectives to speculate early on
6:41
Speaker 2: there may have been more than one killer. Because Marty
6:44
Speaker 2: was a big guy. They believed that he would have
6:47
Speaker 2: fought back and that it would have been hard to
6:48
Speaker 2: subdue three people a gunpoint. Whoever it was, they left
6:53
Speaker 2: behind virtually no physical evidence. The detective put in charge
6:58
Speaker 2: of the investigation was Detective Donald Deluche, who went by Lucky.
7:02
Speaker 2: He told the investigation Discovery TV show the killer in
7:05
Speaker 2: question that police knew the murder weapon had been a
7:08
Speaker 2: nine millimeter handgun, but that detectives were not able to
7:12
Speaker 2: get usable fingerprints. Detective Deluge was the director of Calcashu's
7:18
Speaker 2: Violent Crimes Task Force BCTF, which a later lawsuit described
7:23
Speaker 2: as an elite task force. It was made up of
7:26
Speaker 2: law enforcement officers from the Calcashue Sheriff's office, but also
7:30
Speaker 2: Louisiana State Police officers and some officers from other departments.
7:35
Speaker 2: That meant that Detective Deluche ran all of the high
7:38
Speaker 2: profile investigations in that parish. Police started interviewing people in
7:42
Speaker 2: the area and tracking down leeds. They teamed up with
7:45
Speaker 2: crime stoppers to offer rewards. Kal Kashu Perrish's reward was
7:49
Speaker 2: one hundred thousand dollars. Crime Stoppers put in an additional
7:53
Speaker 2: ten thousand dollars. The FBI also got involved in the investigation. Meanwhile,
8:00
Speaker 2: rumors were flying all over town about people who could
8:03
Speaker 2: have been involved, and yet at the same time, no
8:06
Speaker 2: one seemed to have seen what happened. Police did talk
8:10
Speaker 2: to a couple of people who said they had come
8:12
Speaker 2: to kk's corner earlier that night. They saw Stacy, Marty,
8:16
Speaker 2: and Nicole. They said that everything seemed normal. One hour
8:20
Speaker 2: after closing, at around one am, the store alarm went off.
8:24
Speaker 2: The alarm company called the store and no one answered,
8:27
Speaker 2: so the alarm company called the store's owner. The store's
8:31
Speaker 2: owner apparently said forgetting to set the alarm, would be
8:34
Speaker 2: a little bit unusual, so they suggested that the alarm
8:37
Speaker 2: company called nine to one one to get them to
8:39
Speaker 2: dispatch a unit to the store, just in case. The
8:42
Speaker 2: alarm company did contact the dispatcher. The dispatcher said they
8:47
Speaker 2: would send a unit to Kk's Corners, but that never happened.
8:52
Speaker 2: Everyone wondered how could three murders happen right in the
8:55
Speaker 2: middle of a small town and no one seemed to
8:58
Speaker 2: know anything or see anything. For a while, it seemed
9:01
Speaker 2: true that, as Sheriff Wayne Mcalvin said, there were no witnesses,
9:06
Speaker 2: but it turned out there was someone who knew something,
9:09
Speaker 2: a woman who stopped by at around eleven forty five
9:11
Speaker 2: pm to get some gas. They talked to this witness,
9:15
Speaker 2: Virginia Johnson, about a week after the murders. She said
9:19
Speaker 2: that she got to Kk's just as Stacey was closing
9:21
Speaker 2: the door, but Stacy led her into the store so
9:24
Speaker 2: she could get her gas. Virginia came in and paid
9:28
Speaker 2: ten dollars for the gas. She told police that at
9:31
Speaker 2: that time she saw Marty, Stacy, and Nicole, and all
9:33
Speaker 2: of them were alive. Then she saw two men who
9:37
Speaker 2: drove up in a black car. She told police. While
9:40
Speaker 2: she was inside paying for the gas, the first man
9:43
Speaker 2: came inside the gas station and headed.
9:45
Speaker 3: For the beer cooler.
9:47
Speaker 2: Then as she was leaving, she bumped into the second
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Speaker 2: man as he came inside the door. Now she got
9:53
Speaker 2: a pretty good look at this guy because she ran
9:55
Speaker 2: right into him. She told the police that something wasn't right.
10:00
Speaker 2: She said, quote, he didn't even say excuse me, and
10:03
Speaker 2: that's when I just got a bad feeling. She went
10:06
Speaker 2: outside and while she pumped her gas, she said that
10:09
Speaker 2: she saw the two men in front of the beer cooler. Now,
10:13
Speaker 2: at this point something seemed to happen, something that spooked her,
10:17
Speaker 2: and it scared her enough to cause her to drive
10:20
Speaker 2: off without pumping the rest of her gas. After that,
10:24
Speaker 2: Virginia picked her boyfriend up from work, but later she
10:27
Speaker 2: drove by Kk's corner again. She said when she did,
10:30
Speaker 2: she saw the black car again and that the trunk
10:33
Speaker 2: was open this time, and she noticed there was a
10:36
Speaker 2: red pickup truck with a driver's side door open park
10:39
Speaker 2: next to the black car. From the witness description of
10:42
Speaker 2: the man she bumped into, a police sketch artist created
10:45
Speaker 2: a composite drawing. She didn't really get a good look
10:49
Speaker 2: at the second man. The only thing she remembered when
10:52
Speaker 2: she first talked to police was that he had a
10:54
Speaker 2: Marlborough keychain hanging from a front pocket. On July sixteenth,
10:59
Speaker 2: the Task Force released the complete sketch. They said they
11:01
Speaker 2: were looking for the man in the drawing, who was
11:03
Speaker 2: seen in Kk's Corner with a second man at around
11:06
Speaker 2: eleven to fifty pm on July fifth. At the time,
11:10
Speaker 2: police said the man they were looking for was around
11:12
Speaker 2: six feet tall and in his twenties or thirties. Detective
11:16
Speaker 2: Deluge said at a press conference police were investigating a
11:20
Speaker 2: possible drug connection and they simply said this man was
11:24
Speaker 2: wanted for questioning that he might have information. A lot
11:27
Speaker 2: of people started calling police and said they recognized the
11:30
Speaker 2: man in the photo. They said that he was a
11:32
Speaker 2: dead ringer for twenty seven year old Richard mcalvin, the
11:36
Speaker 2: son of the Calcashu Parish Sheriff Wayne mccelvin. After the
11:43
Speaker 2: poset drawing was released, people in town were calling police
11:46
Speaker 2: and telling law enforcement that that drawing looked a lot
11:50
Speaker 2: like Richard mcalvin, the twenty seven year old son of
11:53
Speaker 2: the sheriff, Wayne mclvin. And this was not the first
11:56
Speaker 2: time that Richard Mcalvin's name had been mentioned by people
12:00
Speaker 2: in town as potentially connected to a possible homicide. Richard
12:04
Speaker 2: Mcalvin has never been arrested or charged in connection with
12:07
Speaker 2: these murders. In fact, as we'll get into, according to
12:10
Speaker 2: local law enforcement, he has been cleared. I'm mentioning this
12:14
Speaker 2: because we're trying to understand the series of events that
12:17
Speaker 2: led to his name coming into the picture, and because
12:20
Speaker 2: many people, including members of Stacy Ruf's family, still believe
12:24
Speaker 2: Richard was somehow involved. We need to find out why.
12:29
Speaker 2: Let's go back to nineteen ninety one. Back in nineteen
12:33
Speaker 2: ninety one, there was another infamous double homicide in the area,
12:36
Speaker 2: known locally as the Ellender murders. On Marty Grass February twelfth,
12:42
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety one, in soul For, Louisiana, also in Calcashue Parish,
12:46
Speaker 2: right down the road from kk's corner. The bodies of
12:49
Speaker 2: twenty seven year old Eric Ellender and his wife, twenty
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Speaker 2: five year old Pam Ellender were found in their home.
12:55
Speaker 2: Pam was a stay at home mom. Eric was an
12:57
Speaker 2: insurance adjuster. Eric worked at his father in law, Huey
13:01
Speaker 2: Littlden's business. The couple had been shot to death in
13:04
Speaker 2: their bed with a sowd off shotgun, one that police
13:07
Speaker 2: later said belonged to Eric. Their eighteen month old daughter
13:10
Speaker 2: was found in the home unharmed. Pam and Eric's Toyota
13:14
Speaker 2: four Runner had been stolen. Police found the stolen car
13:17
Speaker 2: the next day. Four young men, Chris Prudom, Robert Adkins,
13:22
Speaker 2: Philip Ladeux and Kurt Reese, had been seen in the
13:24
Speaker 2: car riding around Baton Rouge. Chris Prudom later confessed that
13:29
Speaker 2: he had committed the murders alone. He was charged with
13:32
Speaker 2: the killings, but there was a strange series of events
13:36
Speaker 2: following this case. Seventeen days later, Chris took his own
13:40
Speaker 2: life by hanging himself in the shower stall of the
13:42
Speaker 2: Calcashue Parish Jay. Rumors spread that other people had been
13:46
Speaker 2: involved in the murders, though that was never proven. Pam's father,
13:51
Speaker 2: Huey Littlden, believed that Chris did not act alone. He
13:55
Speaker 2: spent years with private investigators, conducting hundreds of interviews. Eventually
14:00
Speaker 2: he came to believe that Chris was a member of
14:02
Speaker 2: a group called Skater. Skat Er supposedly stood for Satan's kids,
14:08
Speaker 2: against the establishment. Huey Littelton also believed there had been
14:11
Speaker 2: a cover up. He believed that there was a party
14:14
Speaker 2: inside the house after the couple was murdered, and that
14:17
Speaker 2: Pam and Eric's dead bodies had been sexually molested. He
14:21
Speaker 2: believed there had been a videotape of the sexual assault
14:24
Speaker 2: shown at that party. It's worth mentioning these murders happened
14:28
Speaker 2: right at the height of the Satanic Panic era.
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Speaker 3: Back in the eighties and nineties.
14:33
Speaker 2: There were a lot of allegations making news, things like
14:36
Speaker 2: ritual sacrifice. A lot of instances were happening around the US,
14:40
Speaker 2: and they were all later found to be unsubstantiated. But
14:44
Speaker 2: I'm old enough to remember the media hysteria around cases
14:47
Speaker 2: like the West Memphis three in Arkansas and the Martin
14:50
Speaker 2: Preschool trial in Los Angeles, California. Some of the stories
14:54
Speaker 2: that people told were pretty out there, but there were
14:57
Speaker 2: a lot of hard facts that Huey Littlden gathered that
15:01
Speaker 2: did seem to indicate that there was more than one
15:03
Speaker 2: person at least present on the day of these murders,
15:06
Speaker 2: and Huey Littleton got results.
15:08
Speaker 3: I'm not sure if I've ever heard of this.
15:10
Speaker 2: Happening, but police agreed to let Huey Littlden present his
15:14
Speaker 2: evidence to the grand jury. He found out that Robert
15:17
Speaker 2: Adkins had told a friend that he was there during
15:19
Speaker 2: the murders and that Chris didn't actually kill the islanders.
15:23
Speaker 2: There was also another woman, someone who said that she
15:26
Speaker 2: was there and helped with the murders. There were actually
15:28
Speaker 2: murder charges filed against her at one point, but the
15:31
Speaker 2: charges were later dropped. One of the people who some
15:35
Speaker 2: people mentioned as being at the home was Richard Mcalvin,
15:39
Speaker 2: and Hughey Lyttleton believed that this lead wasn't pursued because
15:43
Speaker 2: Richard was the sh a son. This is something Sheriff
15:46
Speaker 2: Wayne Mcalvin always completely denied. In the end, Robert Adkins
15:53
Speaker 2: pled guilty to two counts of manslaughter.
15:55
Speaker 3: He got probation.
15:56
Speaker 2: Philip Leadeux and Kurt Reese pled guilty to being an
15:59
Speaker 2: accessory after the fact. Philip was sentenced to four years
16:02
Speaker 2: in prison, Kurt got two years, and after that police
16:06
Speaker 2: closed the case. Richard Mcalvin was never connected in any
16:10
Speaker 2: way with these murders, but according to the book Murdering
16:14
Speaker 2: the Bayeux, the rumors about Richard Mcalvin being seen at
16:18
Speaker 2: the Ellanders and not properly investigated, refused to die. And
16:22
Speaker 2: then after kk's Corner, the rumors started up again, and
16:26
Speaker 2: again some people believed Richard was involved. Some of Stacy's
16:32
Speaker 2: family members believed that kk's Corner was not just a
16:35
Speaker 2: robbery gone wrong. They believed that Stacy was the original target.
16:40
Speaker 2: This was because of another mysterious death, one that happened
16:44
Speaker 2: just a few weeks before kk's Corner of Stacy's friend,
16:47
Speaker 2: Kevin Abel. Stacy and Kevin were friends. Her family says
16:51
Speaker 2: they were dating at the time of his death. Now, officially,
16:54
Speaker 2: Kevin Abel's death was considered a suicide, but Stacy told
16:58
Speaker 2: people she thought that Kevin was murdered and that his
17:01
Speaker 2: murder was drug related. A few weeks before the kk's
17:04
Speaker 2: Corner murders, Kevin Abel was found in his home lying
17:08
Speaker 2: on the floor with a gunshot wounded the head. There
17:11
Speaker 2: was a suicide note found near his body, and there
17:14
Speaker 2: was a witness present, someone who apparently said they heard
17:17
Speaker 2: a gunshot and went into the room where Kevin had
17:19
Speaker 2: been and found Kevin lying there. According to a police report,
17:23
Speaker 2: investigators stated Abel's hands tested positive for gunpowder residue, but
17:28
Speaker 2: some members of Stacy's family believed that the circumstances around
17:32
Speaker 2: the suicide were odd, including the fact that a TV
17:36
Speaker 2: was found on top of Kevin on his chest. Some
17:40
Speaker 2: of Stacy's family members said Stacy was scared in the
17:42
Speaker 2: weeks before the murder because she had been talking to
17:45
Speaker 2: police about drug dealing that was allegedly going on in
17:48
Speaker 2: and around Kk's Corner. Her family also believes that some
17:52
Speaker 2: members of law enforcement may have been involved in some
17:55
Speaker 2: of that drug dealing, but the police report stated Kevin
17:59
Speaker 2: fell backward onto a TV stand That's how the TV
18:02
Speaker 2: ended up on top of his chest. The task force,
18:05
Speaker 2: led by Detective Deluge, found that kevin Abel suicide was
18:09
Speaker 2: not connected in any way to the Kk's Corner murders,
18:13
Speaker 2: but Stacy's uncle, Robert T. Bob Rogers, said that Stacy
18:18
Speaker 2: had been talking to a deputy who was a friend
18:20
Speaker 2: of hers before the murders, talking about drug dealing that
18:23
Speaker 2: was allegedly going on in the store and about being
18:25
Speaker 2: afraid for her life. Robert wondered why that deputy did
18:29
Speaker 2: not come forward with that information immediately after the killings.
18:33
Speaker 2: Detective Deluge told ID that he questioned that deputy friend
18:37
Speaker 2: of Stacy's, about why he hadn't come forward. He said
18:41
Speaker 2: the deputy told him there was nothing that he and
18:43
Speaker 2: Stacey had been discussing that he believed would have been relevant
18:46
Speaker 2: to the murders. The deputy also told Detective Deluge that
18:50
Speaker 2: he had no sexual involvement with Stacy and that Stacy
18:53
Speaker 2: did not work for him or for the Narcotic Division
18:56
Speaker 2: as an informant. Detective deLuce said the deputy was polygraphed
19:00
Speaker 2: that he passed the law detector test, and because the
19:03
Speaker 2: deputy carried a nine millimeter handgun, the same caliber as
19:07
Speaker 2: the murder weapon, they did send the gun in for testing.
19:10
Speaker 2: They found that the shell casings did not match the
19:13
Speaker 2: shell casings at the scene at kk's corner. But Stacy's
19:17
Speaker 2: family members believed that Kevin was murdered and the police
19:21
Speaker 2: were somehow involved in the cover up, and that they
19:24
Speaker 2: were also covering up something at Kk's corner. So I
19:30
Speaker 2: want to back up for a minute and say, for
19:32
Speaker 2: people looking at this from the outside, it may seem
19:35
Speaker 2: far fetched that someone could believe that anyone working in
19:39
Speaker 2: law enforcement could be intimately connected to crime or to
19:41
Speaker 2: drug activities, but there have been a lot of allegations
19:45
Speaker 2: over the years against law enforcement in this area and
19:48
Speaker 2: criticisms of some of their practices. During the eighties and nineties,
19:51
Speaker 2: the police in Sulfur, right down the Itan Highway made
19:55
Speaker 2: headlines because they became the number one area in the
19:59
Speaker 2: United States for civil forfeitures. For anyone not familiar with
20:03
Speaker 2: civil forfeitures, what those laws allowed police to do was
20:07
Speaker 2: to confiscate and keep anything that was suspected of being
20:11
Speaker 2: connected to a crime. They could keep cars or boats
20:14
Speaker 2: or cash they found during traffic stops, even if the
20:17
Speaker 2: people they stopped were not ultimately charged with some of
20:20
Speaker 2: those crimes. By the nineteen nineties, the New York Times
20:24
Speaker 2: reported that the police department down there had seized five
20:28
Speaker 2: million dollars, mostly in cash, in these civil seizures. And
20:32
Speaker 2: in the book Murder in the Bayou, Ethan Brown talked
20:35
Speaker 2: about how in some areas of Louisiana, the confiscated property,
20:40
Speaker 2: including drugs, had a habit of sometimes disappearing from the
20:43
Speaker 2: evidence room. He said, quote local hustlers call this phenomenon
20:48
Speaker 2: dope on the table, dope on the streets, meaning drugs
20:51
Speaker 2: or sees form my tent proudly displayed for the press
20:54
Speaker 2: and then resold by the cops.
20:56
Speaker 3: End quote.
21:00
Speaker 2: And again, I'm not suggesting that these traffic stops were
21:03
Speaker 2: connected to the killings at Kk's Corner. I'm bringing this
21:08
Speaker 2: up because we're trying to figure out why so many
21:12
Speaker 2: people in this small town seem to believe that there
21:15
Speaker 2: could have been a cover up with multiple people involved.
21:18
Speaker 2: I think it's important to understand the history in order
21:21
Speaker 2: to understand people's thought processes. Back to Kk's Corner, rumors
21:27
Speaker 2: were flying about Richard Mcalvin's potential involvement in the case.
21:31
Speaker 2: So in February of nineteen ninety eight, the Sheriff Wayne
21:34
Speaker 2: Mcalvin held a press conference, and during that press conference,
21:38
Speaker 2: he directly addressed people in the area who he believed
21:42
Speaker 2: were spreading rumors about his son, Richard.
21:44
Speaker 4: So, if I have to in the name of my son,
21:47
Speaker 4: I'll work with him and we will file suits if
21:49
Speaker 4: this does not stop. So, if these rumors people still
21:53
Speaker 4: believe them, let them say them. But they all say
21:55
Speaker 4: them to you, and if they do, I'm sure lawsuits
21:57
Speaker 4: will follow. I'm asking now for any law abiding citizen,
22:00
Speaker 4: and here's these people making false accusations in Roman to
22:04
Speaker 4: please call the sheriff's department and give us names, dates
22:08
Speaker 4: and places.
22:09
Speaker 2: Sheriff macalvin said at the time that Detective de Luce
22:12
Speaker 2: had talked to him about people calling the police station
22:15
Speaker 2: and saying that composite photo looked a lot like Richard.
22:18
Speaker 2: The sheriff seemed to be trying to quiet down the
22:21
Speaker 2: rumors with this press conference, but honestly, the plan seemed
22:25
Speaker 2: to backfire. In my opinion, the whole tone of this
22:28
Speaker 2: press conference is weird. I get that the sheriff is
22:32
Speaker 2: concerned about his son, but he comes across as being
22:35
Speaker 2: much more concerned about finding people who were spreading rumors
22:39
Speaker 2: than he is about finding the actual killer. A few
22:44
Speaker 2: days later, an attorney named Hunter Lundy said the sheriff's
22:47
Speaker 2: statements were dangerous for free speech, that again the press
22:50
Speaker 2: conference had put the focus on Wayne mccealvin's son instead
22:54
Speaker 2: of on the victims of the triple homicide. Cheryl Reeves,
22:57
Speaker 2: Stacy Reeves's mom, told the news station, quote Wayne mcalvin
23:02
Speaker 2: doesn't know pain and he will never know pain compared
23:04
Speaker 2: to this end quote.
23:06
Speaker 3: But again, as it was.
23:08
Speaker 2: For so many things in the parish, it was complicated
23:11
Speaker 2: because Hunter Lundy's wife was running for sheriff at the time,
23:14
Speaker 2: so the sheriff said Hunter's comments about him were politically motivated,
23:17
Speaker 2: which Hunter completely denied. Richard mcealvin spoke briefly at the
23:22
Speaker 2: press conference. He said that people had underestimated the strength
23:26
Speaker 2: of the mcalvin family.
23:29
Speaker 3: Now I can't imagine.
23:31
Speaker 2: What it must be like to be falsely accused of murder,
23:34
Speaker 2: but a lot of people were outraged again that the
23:37
Speaker 2: mcelvins seemed to be making the press conference about what
23:40
Speaker 2: their family had suffered, not the victims. In fact, many
23:44
Speaker 2: members of victim's families told reporters that the sheriff had
23:48
Speaker 2: asked them to wait outside and not attend the press conference,
23:51
Speaker 2: and they were outraged by that. Detective Deluge said Richard
23:55
Speaker 2: voluntarily turned himself in, that he agreed to have blood taken,
23:59
Speaker 2: and he agreed to take a lie detector test, which
24:02
Speaker 2: he passed. Detectives also checked out Richard's alibi, Apparently he
24:06
Speaker 2: was camping out at Big Lake at a party and
24:09
Speaker 2: seen by several people, including his girlfriend, Amber Weatherford. Richard
24:13
Speaker 2: was cleared by police, but Stacy's family members continued to
24:17
Speaker 2: believe the sheriff's department was covering something up. The district attorney,
24:21
Speaker 2: Rick Bryant, talked about the press conference. He said on
24:24
Speaker 2: the ID show, quote, if you want to believe that,
24:27
Speaker 2: you would have to believe that the entire sheriff's office is.
24:30
Speaker 3: Corrupt end quote.
24:32
Speaker 2: But some people in Lake Charles seemed to believe that
24:35
Speaker 2: that was the case. After the sheriff's press conference and
24:43
Speaker 2: after Richard, Detective Deluge and the vice squad continued their investigations.
24:48
Speaker 3: They followed the money.
24:49
Speaker 2: They tried to see if any of the stolen checks
24:51
Speaker 2: had been cashed. Don Dixon, the FBI assistant who was
24:55
Speaker 2: helping to handle the case, did a public appeal for information.
24:59
Speaker 2: He said they were looking for people who may have
25:01
Speaker 2: driven by a kk's corner on the night of the
25:03
Speaker 2: murders between midnight and one thirty am. But after several months,
25:08
Speaker 2: with no real suspect and no new witnesses, detectives were
25:12
Speaker 2: ready to branch out and try more unconventional methods. They
25:17
Speaker 2: hired a hypnotist, someone you had a national reputation, and,
25:20
Speaker 2: according to court documents, costs between one thy and twelve
25:23
Speaker 2: hundred dollars to hypnotize Virginia Johnson, the witness who had
25:27
Speaker 2: been at kk's Corner at eleven forty five, the one
25:30
Speaker 2: who contributed to the composite sketch. Under hypnosis, Virginia was
25:35
Speaker 2: apparently able to remember new details.
25:38
Speaker 3: This time.
25:39
Speaker 2: She said that the second man had a key chain
25:41
Speaker 2: with a rabbit's head on it. Police then reached out
25:45
Speaker 2: to the TV show America's Most Wanted. On January twenty fourth,
25:49
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety eight, America's Most Wanted aired an episode on
25:52
Speaker 2: the Kk's Corner killings.
25:54
Speaker 3: On that show, some new facts were made public.
25:57
Speaker 2: There was an updated composite drawing with more details, including
26:01
Speaker 2: the fact that one of the men had a key
26:03
Speaker 2: chain in his pocket. But in the segment they showed
26:07
Speaker 2: a rabbit's foot, not a rabbit head, as the witness mentioned.
26:11
Speaker 2: We're going to get a lot more into this next week.
26:14
Speaker 2: When did the rabbit's head become a rabbit's foot, because
26:16
Speaker 2: that is one of those little details that seems to
26:19
Speaker 2: have been overlooked in every single news story I've ever
26:22
Speaker 2: seen about these events, even after twenty five years. In
26:27
Speaker 2: my opinion, there are immediately problems with this hypnotist. I
26:31
Speaker 2: get that the detectives were willing to try and do
26:33
Speaker 2: anything to get more details, but honestly, a defense attorney
26:37
Speaker 2: could have had a field day with this. We already
26:39
Speaker 2: know that witness IDs can be problematic. Now you have
26:43
Speaker 2: few details coming out months later under hypnosis. And again
26:47
Speaker 2: we don't know what happened between the original time the
26:50
Speaker 2: witness talked with the detectives and later. We don't know
26:54
Speaker 2: if she talked to police or anyone else about their
26:56
Speaker 2: theories of the case, or if police talked to her
26:59
Speaker 2: about potential suspects. After the show aired, Laine Lebuff, Marty
27:04
Speaker 2: Labuff's brother, spoke out. He questioned why did it take
27:08
Speaker 2: so long to get that composite photo made public. The
27:11
Speaker 2: FBI agent Don Dixon said detectives had waited so that
27:14
Speaker 2: the TV show America's Most Wanted would have the maximum impact,
27:19
Speaker 2: and it seemed to. After the America's Most Wanted episode aired,
27:23
Speaker 2: a woman named Lonnie Kemp, whose daughter was friends with Stacy,
27:25
Speaker 2: contacted the task Force. She said she knew about someone
27:30
Speaker 2: who was friends with Stacy, a white man who she
27:33
Speaker 2: thought lived in New Orleans, but who had been in
27:35
Speaker 2: the Lake Charles area about two weeks before the murders,
27:38
Speaker 2: and she believed that this man carried a white rabbit's
27:41
Speaker 2: foot keychain. The man's name was Thomas Cisco. Thomas lived
27:46
Speaker 2: in Metarie in the New Orleans metropolitan area, about a
27:49
Speaker 2: three hour drive from Lake Charles. Thomas did have a
27:52
Speaker 2: criminal record, but for non violent offenses like drug charges
27:56
Speaker 2: and shoplifting, and Thomas Cisco did tell detectives that yes,
28:00
Speaker 2: he carried a wallet chain with a white rabbit's foot
28:03
Speaker 2: on it. Almost a year after the murders, on May twelfth,
28:07
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety eight, the FBI interviewed Thomas Cisco for the
28:10
Speaker 2: first time, and he told a lot of different stories
28:13
Speaker 2: during those interviews, according to court documents.
28:17
Speaker 3: At first, Thomas told.
28:18
Speaker 2: Detectives that yes, he knew Stacy, but that he hadn't
28:21
Speaker 2: heard from her in a decade. But he said he
28:24
Speaker 2: was a heavy drug user and that sometimes when he
28:27
Speaker 2: used drugs he would have violent tendencies. He even said
28:29
Speaker 2: at one point he could have participated in the killings,
28:32
Speaker 2: but he had no memory of doing so. The next day,
28:35
Speaker 2: Thomas said that he had an alibi that he was
28:37
Speaker 2: back home in Meturi for the whole Fourth of July
28:40
Speaker 2: weekend after the interview, police talked to some people who
28:44
Speaker 2: were at Thomas's apartment complex. One woman said the last
28:47
Speaker 2: time she had seen Thomas was after a barbecue on
28:50
Speaker 2: Friday night, that they hadn't seen him again until Monday
28:53
Speaker 2: or Tuesday, so Thomas's alibi was starting to fall apart.
28:58
Speaker 2: The FBI interviewed Thomas Cisco again three months later, according
29:03
Speaker 2: to court documents, this time over the course of five
29:05
Speaker 2: and a half hours, he told four different stories. In
29:09
Speaker 2: one version, he went there with a guy he knew
29:12
Speaker 2: named Robert Thigpen. Thomas said Robert was the shooter. He
29:17
Speaker 2: agreed to go back to Lake Charles to be interviewed
29:19
Speaker 2: by Deputy Lucky Deluge, who he knew personally. Deputy Deluche
29:23
Speaker 2: interviewed Thomas Cisco on August twenty sixth, nineteen ninety eight.
29:27
Speaker 2: Now Thomas and Lucky knew each other from before, and
29:29
Speaker 2: you can hear them talking about what they'd been doing
29:32
Speaker 2: in their lives, making small talk. Parts of this interview
29:35
Speaker 2: can be found on YouTube.
29:37
Speaker 5: Knock on this door, all right, and he said come in, okay.
29:41
Speaker 5: I went in. He told me he was SI harsh.
29:43
Speaker 6: See then he just popped up like out of the
29:46
Speaker 6: blue Man and said, let's go.
29:48
Speaker 5: Let's go Rob kk's corner. I thought it was a joke.
29:52
Speaker 6: Bro actually truly thought it was a joke at first,
29:57
Speaker 6: you know, and then he started getting serious about it.
30:00
Speaker 5: You know, he was telling me, let's go Rob Kk's corner.
30:02
Speaker 5: That's all they kept talking about. With Robin Kk's.
30:05
Speaker 2: Corner, Thomas was saying Robert Thigpen was the shooter, and
30:10
Speaker 2: he took detectives to places where he and Robert had
30:13
Speaker 2: supposedly been the weekend of the killings.
30:16
Speaker 3: He did know some details.
30:17
Speaker 2: He knew the phone lines had been cut, and that
30:19
Speaker 2: money had been stolen from the back office, and that
30:22
Speaker 2: the bodies were in the cooler, But later in court documents,
30:26
Speaker 2: it came out Thomas admitted to having watched The America's
30:29
Speaker 2: Most Wanted segment, and also police quickly found out that
30:33
Speaker 2: a lot of other details in Thomas's story did not
30:36
Speaker 2: add up. The bus station that he said he and
30:40
Speaker 2: Robert were at together, for example, was not even open
30:43
Speaker 2: live nineteen ninety seven, according to court documents, and Thomas
30:47
Speaker 2: could not pick out Robert Thigpen's house even when detectives
30:50
Speaker 2: took him to the street where the house was located. Meanwhile,
30:54
Speaker 2: police figured out Robert Thigpenn did have a connection to
30:58
Speaker 2: one of the victims, but it wasn't Stacy, who a
31:01
Speaker 2: lot of people in town believe may have been the target.
31:04
Speaker 3: It was Nicole.
31:06
Speaker 2: Robert's wife and sister took Nicole to kk's corner on
31:09
Speaker 2: the night of the murders.
31:10
Speaker 3: His sister was friends with Stacy.
31:12
Speaker 2: Police talked to Robert, who said he had no idea
31:15
Speaker 2: why Thomas said he was involved. He said he did
31:17
Speaker 2: know Thomas, but that he hadn't seen him in a
31:19
Speaker 2: long time, and Robert provided an alibi, which police verified.
31:23
Speaker 2: So police ruled out Robert pretty quickly. So now detectives
31:28
Speaker 2: had a problem. They had someone who had confessed and
31:32
Speaker 2: changed the story multiple times.
31:34
Speaker 3: They had cleared Robert, but they didn't believe.
31:38
Speaker 2: Thomas's other story about how he committed the murders himself
31:41
Speaker 2: that also would not match the stories that the witness
31:44
Speaker 2: had told and the evidence. Detective de Luce asked Thomas
31:48
Speaker 2: again what really happened? This time he said he was
31:51
Speaker 2: never at kk's at all. He said he only confessed
31:54
Speaker 2: after being harassed by law enforcement. He said the only
31:57
Speaker 2: reason he knew the layout of that store was because
31:59
Speaker 2: he had been there before, and he said in the
32:03
Speaker 2: past he had falsely confessed to other things, including a
32:06
Speaker 2: rape that he had not committed. Quote, because he wanted
32:09
Speaker 2: that shit to be over end quote what is it on? On?
32:11
Speaker 5: Tayor said, I didn't commit these murders.
32:13
Speaker 2: Do.
32:14
Speaker 6: I was talking to my X on the phone after
32:16
Speaker 6: y'all had left, and she asked me, why you confessed
32:19
Speaker 6: to something.
32:20
Speaker 5: That you didn't the fucking did? Okay? And man, I
32:24
Speaker 5: wanted this shit to build with this as much as
32:26
Speaker 5: y'all do. Loocky I was. I felt like I was
32:29
Speaker 5: being harassed by the LBI. I lost two jobs for
32:34
Speaker 5: I lost my place to live.
32:36
Speaker 6: I swear on it if you give me a stack
32:38
Speaker 6: of Bibles right now, but I swear on my kid's life,
32:40
Speaker 6: and I don't never swear on my kid's life or anything.
32:44
Speaker 5: I did not commit these murders, dude. I did not
32:46
Speaker 5: commit these murders, and I did not know who did
32:49
Speaker 5: commit these murders.
32:51
Speaker 2: Thomas said he confessed because he wanted the interrogations to end.
32:56
Speaker 2: But months later, Thomas Cisco told yet another completely different story,
33:01
Speaker 2: and what he said this time was shocking this time,
33:05
Speaker 2: Thomas said the mastermind behind the shootings was Sheriff Mcalvin's son,
33:09
Speaker 2: Richard Mcalvin. While being questioned by Detective Lucky Deluge, Thomas
33:18
Speaker 2: Cisco said the mastermind behind the killings at kk's corner
33:22
Speaker 2: was none other than Richard mcgalvin. Thomas said that Richard
33:26
Speaker 2: was allegedly involved in drug related activities going on in
33:29
Speaker 2: the area around kk's corner. He said Richard had hired
33:32
Speaker 2: him to kill Stacy and that Marty and Nicole had
33:35
Speaker 2: basically been collateral damage. Thomas said that Richard, who he
33:39
Speaker 2: called that little sorry rascal, promised to pay him twenty
33:42
Speaker 2: thousand dollars to kill because she knew too much, meaning
33:47
Speaker 2: that she had information about Kevin Abel's death, which he
33:49
Speaker 2: said was murder, not suicide. Thomas told detectives that Richard
33:53
Speaker 2: had been involved in that alleged murder as well, but
33:56
Speaker 2: Thomas said he only got ten thousand dollars from the
33:58
Speaker 2: alleged tit and never collected the other ten. Thomas said
34:02
Speaker 2: the Sheriff's department had covered up the killings, but by
34:05
Speaker 2: this time Thomas was totally unreliable because he was admittedly
34:09
Speaker 2: a liar, who had given thirty five different statements, all
34:12
Speaker 2: of which contradicted each other. Next week, we're going to
34:16
Speaker 2: take a more detailed look at Thomas's confessions. We're also
34:19
Speaker 2: going to talk to Stacy Reeves's uncle and Marty's brother,
34:22
Speaker 2: Lane Leabuffe, who has been trying to get answers for
34:25
Speaker 2: almost twenty five years. We're also going to take another
34:28
Speaker 2: look at the civil lawsuits to see if we can
34:30
Speaker 2: find any answers there. We're also going to try to
34:33
Speaker 2: figure out what's the real story with Thomas Cisco. Are
34:37
Speaker 2: any of these confessions believable? Was he just a distant
34:41
Speaker 2: friend of Stacy's from high school, or, as he later
34:43
Speaker 2: told pol, her best friend. How did he know details
34:46
Speaker 2: about the crime scene, about the phone lines being cut,
34:49
Speaker 2: in the back office being broken into? Was it just
34:52
Speaker 2: because he'd been in the store and watched America's Most
34:54
Speaker 2: Wanted or did he have more details than only the
34:57
Speaker 2: killer would have known? And if Thomas didn't act alone,
35:01
Speaker 2: as the district attorney and police believe, then who was
35:05
Speaker 2: that second man? Could the killer still be out there
35:08
Speaker 2: walking around and has he killed again?
35:12
Speaker 5: What do you know about that?
35:13
Speaker 6: I'll know who I know who did it, that I
35:17
Speaker 6: was there.
35:18
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm Catherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line.
35:25
Speaker 2: Helen Gone Murder Line is a production of School of
35:27
Speaker 2: Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by me
35:31
Speaker 2: Catherine Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts. Special thanks to
35:35
Speaker 2: Amy Tubbs for her research assistance. Julia Chris Gau and
35:38
Speaker 2: Jesse Niswanger mixed and scored this episode. Our theme song
35:42
Speaker 2: is by Ben Sale, Executive producers of Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr,
35:46
Speaker 2: and LC Crowley. Listen to Helen Gone ad free by
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Speaker 2: subscribing to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel on Apple Podcasts.
35:54
Speaker 2: If you were interested in seeing documents and materials from
35:56
Speaker 2: the case, you can follow the show on Instagram at
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Speaker 2: Helen gonpod. If you have a case you'd like me
36:03
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