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Hell and Gone Murder Line: KK's Corner Part 2 · 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
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Speaker 1: inherent in cold cases. We remind listeners that everyone has
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Speaker 1: presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
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Speaker 1: Nothing in the podcast is intended to state or imply
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Speaker 1: that anyone who has not been convicted of a crime
1:24
Speaker 1: is guilty of any wrongdoing. Thanks for listening.
1:28
Speaker 2: Just after midnight on July sixth, and nineteen ninety seven,
1:31
Speaker 2: twenty one year old Marty Lebuff, twenty six year old
1:34
Speaker 2: Stacy Reeves, and fourteen year old Nicole Guidry were fatally
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Speaker 2: shot in a triple homicide at Kk's Corner convenience store
1:41
Speaker 2: near Late Charles, Louisiana. The killing shocked the community for months,
1:46
Speaker 2: police struggled to find answers. No one seemed to have
1:49
Speaker 2: seen anything, and there was no real physical evidence, But
1:53
Speaker 2: it turned out there was a lone witness, a woman
1:56
Speaker 2: named Virginia Johnson, who had been at the gas station
1:59
Speaker 2: at around eleven forty five pm on July fifth, just
2:02
Speaker 2: before closing. Stacy was closing up the store when Virginia
2:06
Speaker 2: got there. She left Virginia inside so that Virginia could
2:09
Speaker 2: buy ten dollars worth of gas. Virginia later testified that
2:13
Speaker 2: she handed the money to Marty lebuff. At this point,
2:17
Speaker 2: Stacey was mopping the floors and Virginia saw Nicole sitting
2:20
Speaker 2: on one of the counters. That was when a black
2:24
Speaker 2: car with two men inside it drove up. When one
2:27
Speaker 2: of the men walked in, Virginia bumped into him. She
2:31
Speaker 2: later worked with an artist to create the composite sketch.
2:34
Speaker 2: All that she remembered at first about the other man,
2:38
Speaker 2: the one who walked into the gas station while she
2:40
Speaker 2: was paying, whom Virginia didn't really see, was that he
2:43
Speaker 2: had a Warborough keychain hanging from a front pocket. But
2:47
Speaker 2: under hypnosis she was able to remember more details about
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Speaker 2: that other man, and then, almost seven months after the killings,
2:55
Speaker 2: an episode of America's Most Wanted air with details of
2:59
Speaker 2: the two men Virginia Johnson saw minutes before the murders,
3:03
Speaker 2: and by then the keychain was portrayed as a rabbit's
3:06
Speaker 2: foot keychain in the reenactment. This led to someone calling
3:11
Speaker 2: in a tip about a male friend of Stacy Reeves,
3:13
Speaker 2: twenty nine year old Tomas Cisco, who lived in New Orleans,
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Speaker 2: but who would apparently come to the Lake Charles area
3:19
Speaker 2: around two weeks before the triple homicide. Police questioned Thomas Cisco.
3:25
Speaker 2: He confessed he had been at kk's corner on the
3:28
Speaker 2: night of the murders. He said that he was involved,
3:31
Speaker 2: but as we explained last week, Thomas told a lot
3:35
Speaker 2: of conflicting stories and a lot of the details that
3:38
Speaker 2: he gave to detectives trying to confirm his stories didn't
3:41
Speaker 2: make sense. Was it Thomas or someone else at Kk's
3:44
Speaker 2: corner that night? And if he was there, who was
3:47
Speaker 2: the second man? Could the killer or killers still be
3:51
Speaker 2: out there? I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past five years
3:56
Speaker 2: of making my true crime podcast, Helen Gone, I've learned
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Speaker 2: that there is no such thing as a small town
4:02
Speaker 2: where murder never happens. I have received hundreds of messages
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Speaker 2: from people all around the country asking for help with
4:08
Speaker 2: an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families, and their communities.
4:13
Speaker 2: If you have a case you'd like me and my
4:15
Speaker 2: team to look into, you can reach out to us
4:17
Speaker 2: at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight
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Speaker 2: seven four four six one four five at six seven
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Speaker 2: eight seven four four, six, one four or five, or
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Speaker 2: you can send us a message on Instagram at Helen Gonepod.
4:32
Speaker 2: This is Helen Gone Murder Line. One year after the
5:21
Speaker 2: brutal murders at kk's corner, Thomas Cisco had been arrested
5:25
Speaker 2: and was starting to talk. The man who'd confessed to
5:28
Speaker 2: the killings was behind bars, and yet there were a
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Speaker 2: lot of people in the community who believed that Thomas
5:34
Speaker 2: Cisco was not the killer, and many including the Calcashue
5:38
Speaker 2: Parish District Attorney Rick Bryant, who believed that even if
5:42
Speaker 2: Thomas was part of the carn kk's that night, that
5:45
Speaker 2: he did not act alone. Deputy Donald Lucky Deluge at
5:50
Speaker 2: the time, was the director of the Violent Crimes Task Force,
5:54
Speaker 2: which he ran with help from the FBI and other
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Speaker 2: law enforcement organizations. Deputy Deluge was heading up the investigation
6:01
Speaker 2: and was the one who directed or heard all of
6:04
Speaker 2: Thomas Cisco's confessions. As we said last week, there were
6:07
Speaker 2: a lot of them. On August twenty seventh, nineteen ninety eight,
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Speaker 2: Thomas Cisco said that he and a man named Robert
6:14
Speaker 2: big Penn were planning to rob kk's corner. Big Penn's
6:18
Speaker 2: wife and sister had driven Nicole Guidry to work the
6:21
Speaker 2: night she, Marty, and Stacy were murdered. Thomas said Robert
6:25
Speaker 2: told him that they were going to rob kk's corner,
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Speaker 2: but Robert had other plans.
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Speaker 3: He told me, this was a plan for us today.
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Speaker 3: We would go there. She would go through the front.
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Speaker 3: I would meet you at the back where he could
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Speaker 3: let me. He would cut the wires to the phone
6:47
Speaker 3: into the launeless so that nobody could call the cops.
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Speaker 3: And he said that he would kill everybody there if
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Speaker 3: he had.
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Speaker 2: As Thomas went through this story, he said that Robert
6:58
Speaker 2: bumped into the witness on purpose because Robert was being
7:02
Speaker 2: a smart ass, and that Robert had said something about
7:05
Speaker 2: her being a bitch immediately. There were problems with this story.
7:09
Speaker 2: First of all, Thomas described the witness as short, medium built,
7:13
Speaker 2: and white, but Virginia is black. And he mentioned going
7:17
Speaker 2: through a back door, but kk's corner does not have
7:21
Speaker 2: a back door. They do, however, have a side door.
7:25
Speaker 2: Thomas said that they were robbing this door and that
7:27
Speaker 2: Robert led the victims into the back cooler one by one,
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Speaker 2: Marty first, then Nicole, then Stacy, and shot them each
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Speaker 2: multiple times with a nine millimeter gun. He said that
7:38
Speaker 2: he was left outside the cooler with Stacy, who was
7:41
Speaker 2: begging for her life while he held her a gunpoint
7:44
Speaker 2: with a thirty eight caliber gun. He said that he
7:47
Speaker 2: was distraught because Thomas described Stacy as his best friend,
7:51
Speaker 2: but he said that he let Robert lead her into
7:54
Speaker 2: the cooler anyway.
7:56
Speaker 3: Stacy's telling me, please let me go. What I tell
8:00
Speaker 3: her is if I let you go, he's gonna shoot
8:03
Speaker 3: both of us. Can't her? Straighten me? I I mean,
8:06
Speaker 3: I want to bust out in tears, dude, because I'm
8:09
Speaker 3: the one sitting there hold my best friend, the GOP
8:12
Speaker 3: that I've known for years. I know what's going to
8:16
Speaker 3: happen to her. Hell, it just happened to the other two.
8:19
Speaker 3: I know what he's going to do. He ain't gonna
8:21
Speaker 3: let none of them well, and she's telling me please
8:25
Speaker 3: let me go. I told her I can't because if
8:28
Speaker 3: I do, he's gonna kill both of them. He says,
8:30
Speaker 3: come on, you're next, Stacey, and she's walk back there
8:34
Speaker 3: with you, and that's when I heard this up four shots.
8:40
Speaker 2: According to police, there was not really any physical evidence
8:43
Speaker 2: to test against Thomas's story. The crime lab determined based
8:47
Speaker 2: on bullet fragments that a nine millimeters semi automatic pistol
8:51
Speaker 2: had been used, but they never found the murder weapon
8:55
Speaker 2: and there were no usable fingerprints. Some of the details
8:59
Speaker 2: of Thomas Cisco's story appeared to match the evidence, like
9:02
Speaker 2: the order that the victims were killed in. According to
9:06
Speaker 2: The Southwest Daily News, the Calcashue Parish coroner Terry Welk,
9:10
Speaker 2: testified that it was his belief that Marty Lebuff was
9:13
Speaker 2: shot first because of his position near the back of
9:16
Speaker 2: the cooler. Nicole Guidry was next. The killer probably forced
9:20
Speaker 2: Nicole to sit on her knees. Her position was consistent
9:23
Speaker 2: with sitting on her knees, back on her heels with
9:26
Speaker 2: her head bowed. She was also shot once in the leg.
9:30
Speaker 2: Stacy was last. She was shot once in the face
9:34
Speaker 2: and once in the back of the head. The coroner
9:36
Speaker 2: said the gunshot powder in Stacy's eyes made him believe
9:40
Speaker 2: that she had her eyes open and was facing her killer,
9:43
Speaker 2: and that the first shot forced her head around. After
9:49
Speaker 2: confessing to Deputy Delution and saying that Robert Digpen was
9:52
Speaker 2: the shooter and that he was the accomplice, Thomas wrote
9:55
Speaker 2: a letter on legal paper that he said was to Stacy,
9:58
Speaker 2: who had been his good friend. Thomas cried as he
10:01
Speaker 2: read the letter to Deputy Delus.
10:04
Speaker 3: I notice, while we were round the room, you were
10:06
Speaker 3: writing something. If you might have read Richard wrote a
10:09
Speaker 3: blood but said Stacy, I want you to know. Weren't
10:14
Speaker 3: you read this? Is it probably easier for you to
10:16
Speaker 3: read your writing to make Stacy. I want you to
10:18
Speaker 3: know that I'm really sorry for what happened.
10:22
Speaker 4: If I knew you were you were glorad to be
10:24
Speaker 4: there that hey, I would have never let it out.
10:28
Speaker 3: Please don't understand. If I could take your place in
10:31
Speaker 3: the other's place, I would. If it was up to
10:33
Speaker 3: me that night.
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Speaker 4: I would have I would have done that totally different.
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Speaker 3: I would have just took all the morning and took
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Speaker 3: my chances of getting caught.
10:42
Speaker 4: I know that you could never forgive me, but I
10:45
Speaker 4: really sawry from the bottom of my heart, no matter
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Speaker 4: what happened, I still love.
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Speaker 3: You, Sis. If you can find me in your please
10:55
Speaker 3: forgive me if you can.
10:58
Speaker 4: I'm paying for what I did, and he will pay
11:02
Speaker 4: for what he did because I'm willing to do everything
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Speaker 4: in my power to see that he is called.
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Speaker 3: I promise I cry a lot since.
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Speaker 4: Your believe Yeah, I do again. I'm really sorry about everything.
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Speaker 4: By this, I love you very much to me.
11:25
Speaker 2: Just days later, Thomas Cisco said that he had lied
11:29
Speaker 2: and that Robert Thigpen was not the shooter. According to
11:32
Speaker 2: Deputy to Loosh, Thomas said he made that story up
11:35
Speaker 2: because he didn't like Robert this time. Thomas said he
11:40
Speaker 2: wasn't even at kk's corner that night. He said the
11:43
Speaker 2: only reason that he confessed at all was because the
11:45
Speaker 2: FBI was harassing him. He said that he had lost
11:48
Speaker 2: his job and his place to live, and he just
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Speaker 2: wanted everything to be over.
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Speaker 3: The only reason I know the way out from the
11:54
Speaker 3: stores because I have been there before.
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Speaker 2: Now this may sound illogical, but the director of an
12:00
Speaker 2: alcohol and drug treatment center where Thomas Cisco spent some
12:03
Speaker 2: time testified that Thomas had personality disorders and arrested development
12:07
Speaker 2: due to substance abuse. From the age of six. Thomas
12:11
Speaker 2: told a psychiatrist he started drinking at age eight and
12:14
Speaker 2: was using drugs daily by age fifteen. Months later, in
12:18
Speaker 2: January of nineteen ninety nine, Thomas Cisco had another story.
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Speaker 2: This time he said he was there with two guys
12:25
Speaker 2: who he identified as Bobby and Malcolm. Later he would
12:28
Speaker 2: say that a fourth man named Chris was there too.
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Speaker 2: There were other stories as well between nineteen and thirty five.
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Speaker 2: Depending on which version of the news report you watch
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Speaker 2: or read, sometimes Thomas said he was the shooter, sometimes
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Speaker 2: a bystander. Thomas has said at very eous times that
12:44
Speaker 2: a Spanish guy and a black guy from New Orleans
12:47
Speaker 2: did it. But in all of these various versions of
12:50
Speaker 2: the story, there were still a lot of details that
12:53
Speaker 2: didn't match, like the fact that at one point he
12:56
Speaker 2: said that he tied the victim's hands, but investigators said
13:00
Speaker 2: the victim's hands were not tied. Or he said that
13:03
Speaker 2: Marty was looking at him when forensic evidence showed Marty
13:06
Speaker 2: was shot in the back of the head, but police
13:11
Speaker 2: believed that Thomas Cisco was involved somehow. Thomas Cisco was
13:16
Speaker 2: charged with the murders of Marty, Stacy, and Nicole. He
13:20
Speaker 2: was being held before trial, but he was still talking.
13:23
Speaker 2: It came out during the trial that he talked to
13:25
Speaker 2: the coroner, to warden's at the jail, and a fellow prisoners,
13:29
Speaker 2: and one of the stories that he told, one that
13:32
Speaker 2: was played on audio tapes at his trial, was that
13:35
Speaker 2: the killings were a hit and that Stacy was the target,
13:38
Speaker 2: and that Richard mcelvin, the son of Sheriff Wayne mccelvin,
13:42
Speaker 2: had hired him to kill Stacy because she quote knew
13:45
Speaker 2: too much about the death of Kevin Abel, her friend
13:48
Speaker 2: who she had started dating. Kevin Abel died at his
13:51
Speaker 2: home in May of nineteen ninety seven, just a few
13:54
Speaker 2: weeks before the Kk's Corner killings. Kevin's death was ruled
13:58
Speaker 2: a suicide, but Stacy didn't believe this. She believed that
14:01
Speaker 2: Kevin was murdered. We said last week that Richard mcelvin
14:07
Speaker 2: voluntarily went in for questioning, he gave blood samples, he
14:11
Speaker 2: had an alibi, and he was cleared by law enforcement.
14:14
Speaker 2: We talked to Stacy's daughter, Tiffany. Tiffany was only twenty
14:18
Speaker 2: three months old when her mother was killed, and she
14:21
Speaker 2: told us that she, her family and a lot of
14:24
Speaker 2: people in Kalkashi Parish do not think that Tomas Cisco
14:28
Speaker 2: acted alone.
14:28
Speaker 5: Well, I think the reason for that is because most
14:31
Speaker 5: people honestly believed he was not the trigger man, and
14:35
Speaker 5: he was the doorman, and he didn't do this alone.
14:38
Speaker 5: We know there's no way he could have done this alone. So,
14:42
Speaker 5: you know, we silly's done and they're now were ready
14:44
Speaker 5: to see somebody else pay for what.
14:46
Speaker 6: They've done again.
14:49
Speaker 2: Richard mcelvin was cleared by police who say they checked
14:52
Speaker 2: his alibi for that night, and Tomas Cisco has been
14:56
Speaker 2: discredited after admittedly lying several times. So why does Stacy's
15:01
Speaker 2: family believe that she was the target. Stacy had told
15:06
Speaker 2: people the week before she was murdered that someone had
15:08
Speaker 2: come into the store and threatened her to stop her
15:11
Speaker 2: from talking about Kevin Abel's death and about drug deals
15:15
Speaker 2: that were allegedly happening inside kk's corner. Stacy's family say
15:20
Speaker 2: they were stopped from going inside the press conference.
15:24
Speaker 5: So the press conference with Wayne mclvin where Wayne mcgilvin
15:28
Speaker 5: addressed the public, where our family was.
15:30
Speaker 6: Not let in.
15:31
Speaker 5: We were stopped at the door. I think you know,
15:33
Speaker 5: the word around the town that it was his son.
15:36
Speaker 5: You know, that was the composite sketch of and the
15:38
Speaker 5: one that was a Sugarman with his son Steven. He
15:42
Speaker 5: just didn't like that, and so he told my grandfather,
15:45
Speaker 5: I hate y'all more than I feel sorry for y'all.
15:49
Speaker 2: So what do we know about Stacy's relationship with Kevin Abel.
15:54
Speaker 2: Her family say that they were dating and that Kevin
15:56
Speaker 2: had been into drugs though he was trying to get clean.
16:00
Speaker 2: Kevin had a young daughter who was about two years
16:03
Speaker 2: old at the time of his death. Stacy's twin daughters
16:06
Speaker 2: were twenty three months old when she was murdered. Robert T.
16:10
Speaker 2: Bob Rogers, Stacy's uncle, said that Stacy was a caring
16:14
Speaker 2: and loving person, but that she began hanging around with
16:18
Speaker 2: what he called the wrong crowd.
16:20
Speaker 5: She was a good kid, just trying to raise her daughter.
16:23
Speaker 4: She was running around with the wrong crowd.
16:25
Speaker 6: She was trying to save people she thought she could save.
16:28
Speaker 6: She thought she could save Kevin Abel from drugs. She couldn't.
16:33
Speaker 6: She got involved in it too deep.
16:36
Speaker 2: Kevin Abel died at home on Saturday, May seventeenth, to
16:39
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety seven. The coroner arrived on scene at nine
16:42
Speaker 2: thirty five pm and ruled the death of suicide. Eight
16:45
Speaker 2: minutes later, at nine forty three PM. I've gotten calls
16:49
Speaker 2: from sources who lived in the trailer part Fairview Estates
16:53
Speaker 2: where Kevin lived. This trailer part, by the way, is
16:55
Speaker 2: about a quarter mile from kk's corner. They say that
17:00
Speaker 2: Kevin was involved in drugs and that he would loan
17:03
Speaker 2: his truck out to drug dealers for several days at
17:06
Speaker 2: a time to use his collateral when he couldn't pay
17:08
Speaker 2: his debts. Kevin left behind a two year old daughter
17:11
Speaker 2: and a family who loved him. We found out that
17:14
Speaker 2: Stacy showed up at his house while the police were
17:17
Speaker 2: still there right after the fatal shooting, shortly after nine
17:21
Speaker 2: thirty PM. According to the incident report, Stacy told police
17:26
Speaker 2: she and Kevin had a date that night and that
17:28
Speaker 2: she had been planning to pick him up. Her family
17:31
Speaker 2: say that Stacy believed, even if Kevin had been planning
17:35
Speaker 2: on taking his own life, that he would not have
17:37
Speaker 2: done it when she was on her way to visit
17:39
Speaker 2: him with her young twin daughters. Kevin lived in the
17:43
Speaker 2: fair View trailer Park, just a quarter of a mile
17:45
Speaker 2: from kk's corner. He was addicted to crack and according
17:49
Speaker 2: to multiple sources, he owed money to drug dealers, and
17:52
Speaker 2: they believe that some of those drug dealers might have
17:55
Speaker 2: links to law enforcement. Could Stacy have been right and
17:59
Speaker 2: was she threatened before the triple homicide at Kk's or
18:03
Speaker 2: even if she was wrong, even if Kevin's death was
18:06
Speaker 2: a suicide, if she was making claims that he was
18:09
Speaker 2: murdered and the wrong people heard that, could that have
18:12
Speaker 2: made Stacy a target? From what the coroner said, Marty
18:25
Speaker 2: Lebeuff was the first victim that night at Kk's corner.
18:29
Speaker 2: His sister, Laura Duhan said she will never forget the
18:32
Speaker 2: day that she got the call about her brother being
18:35
Speaker 2: brutally murdered.
18:36
Speaker 6: I was actually a nurse practitioner at the hospital here.
18:40
Speaker 6: I work with newborns, and I had gone to work
18:43
Speaker 6: that morning and one of the nurses that I worked
18:46
Speaker 6: with said that she lived out there by the store,
18:50
Speaker 6: and she said there's crime scene tape all up around
18:54
Speaker 6: the store and so mean. My first thought was, you know,
18:58
Speaker 6: maybe the store was robbed. It never occurred to me
19:01
Speaker 6: that anything is violent had happened. Anyway, I went into
19:05
Speaker 6: the dressing room to change into scrubs, and somebody came
19:08
Speaker 6: and got me and they said, Laura, your mom's on
19:10
Speaker 6: the phone. She was telling me, Laura, they killed my Marty.
19:15
Speaker 6: They killed my Marty. And I was just like, no, Mom,
19:18
Speaker 6: I'll be right there. So I ended up leaving and
19:21
Speaker 6: going to her house and they had an ambulance at
19:24
Speaker 6: the house. She was just completely purple in the face.
19:27
Speaker 6: They had her on oxygen and she had to go
19:30
Speaker 6: to the EVAR and she was just screaming and screaming.
19:34
Speaker 6: I remember a detective coming to talk to my dad.
19:37
Speaker 6: My dad had been a detective sheriff's apartment years before that.
19:41
Speaker 6: They just felt like they could talk to him like
19:45
Speaker 6: he was one of them and not like he was
19:47
Speaker 6: the parent. And I remember sitting beside my dad as
19:50
Speaker 6: a detective described to him how they found Marty and
19:54
Speaker 6: how he had blood in his lungs and that they
19:56
Speaker 6: felt like he had laid their gasping, and I remember
20:00
Speaker 6: thinking that there's no reason for him to tell Dad
20:04
Speaker 6: that that that was cruel. I remember people calling the
20:07
Speaker 6: house and asking to speak to Marty, but you kind
20:10
Speaker 6: of knew that they already knew he was gone. They
20:13
Speaker 6: were just calling to see if it was true. I
20:15
Speaker 6: guess I don't know.
20:19
Speaker 2: After police arrested Tomas Cisco and put him into an
20:22
Speaker 2: isolation cell. According to court documents, he was assigned an
20:25
Speaker 2: attorney by the court, Evelyn Ubray, but right away there
20:29
Speaker 2: were questions about a conflict of interest because Evelyn was
20:33
Speaker 2: also representing Deputy de Lush and what was referred to
20:36
Speaker 2: as unspecified family court matters, which the court documents called
20:40
Speaker 2: a clear and undeniable conflict of interest. Missus zu Bray
20:45
Speaker 2: said she first spoke to Tomasisco on September fourteenth, nineteen
20:48
Speaker 2: ninety eight. Two days later, she apparently realized there could
20:52
Speaker 2: be a potential conflict of interests. She sent Thomas a
20:55
Speaker 2: letter saying she believed she didn't have a conflict of interest,
20:58
Speaker 2: but she left it up to Thomas to decide whether
21:01
Speaker 2: or not he still wanted her to be his lawyer.
21:04
Speaker 2: A member of the local defense bar named Thomas Lorenzi
21:07
Speaker 2: was concerned, so he wrote a letter on October ninth,
21:10
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety eight, to the district Court, and in that
21:13
Speaker 2: letter he claimed that because there were allegations of criminality
21:17
Speaker 2: made against Deputy Deluge in that family court matter, the
21:21
Speaker 2: pleadings of the domestic case were placed under seal. So
21:25
Speaker 2: this attorney who wrote the letter said he was concerned
21:28
Speaker 2: that the conflict of interest could not have been fully
21:31
Speaker 2: explained to Thomas Cisco. Thomas's trial started in two thousand,
21:37
Speaker 2: with Evelyn u Bray representing him. The trial judge did
21:40
Speaker 2: bring up the potential conflict again. This time, the judge
21:43
Speaker 2: asked Thomas directly whether he'd read and understood the letter.
21:47
Speaker 2: Thomas said he had, so, the court ruled that the
21:50
Speaker 2: defense counsel, missus u Bray, could continue to be Thomas's lawyer.
21:54
Speaker 2: Both the trial judge and the defense attorney left it
21:57
Speaker 2: up to Thomas to decide for himself whether the conflict
22:00
Speaker 2: of interest existed. This will come up later at appeal.
22:05
Speaker 2: At one point, Thomas was convinced that Deputy Deluche and
22:08
Speaker 2: missus Zubray were colluding against him. However, when he was
22:12
Speaker 2: asked about this by the court, he said he didn't
22:15
Speaker 2: have any doubts about missus u Bray representing him. Deputy
22:19
Speaker 2: Deluche was married to his wife in nineteen ninety. They
22:22
Speaker 2: divorced a few years later. According to the book Murder
22:26
Speaker 2: in the Bayou, Deputy Deluche's ex wife accused him and
22:30
Speaker 2: his girlfriend at the time of sexually molesting their daughter,
22:33
Speaker 2: who was then about four years old. So Deputy Deluge
22:37
Speaker 2: was charged with aggravated rape and aggravated oral sexual battery
22:41
Speaker 2: charges on October twenty second, nineteen ninety seven, right in
22:45
Speaker 2: the middle of the kk's Corner investigation. Missus Zubray was
22:48
Speaker 2: his attorney. In court documents, it's very clear the state's
22:54
Speaker 2: case boils down to the testimony of two people, Virginia Johnson,
22:59
Speaker 2: the witness, and Thomas Cisco. We've already explained how problematic
23:03
Speaker 2: Thomas Cisco's testimony potentially was, but Virginia's witness ID had
23:07
Speaker 2: problems as well. First of all, Virginia Johnson had never
23:11
Speaker 2: been able to give a description of the man inside
23:14
Speaker 2: the gas station, the one she didn't bump into, but
23:17
Speaker 2: she said he had a Marlborough keychain. Yet when Deputy
23:20
Speaker 2: Deluge held a lineup, she identified Tomas Cisco, and at
23:24
Speaker 2: that time she was also apparently able to remember details
23:27
Speaker 2: for the first time, including that the man she didn't
23:31
Speaker 2: see that well had a tattoo on his left hand.
23:33
Speaker 2: Thomas has tattoos on both hands. Later, she was hypnotized,
23:37
Speaker 2: and it was only under hypnosis that she remembered a
23:40
Speaker 2: rabbit head keychain, not a rabbit foot, and yet in
23:43
Speaker 2: the Marrior Because Most Wanted episode, the re enactment is
23:46
Speaker 2: done with the actor wearing a rabbit's foot key chain.
23:49
Speaker 2: Of course, it's possible Thomas Sisko wasn't even there on
23:52
Speaker 2: the night of the kk's Corner murders, that the whole
23:55
Speaker 2: thing was a false confession. This was the argument that
23:58
Speaker 2: Thomas's lawyers were leaning on during the trial. Thomas's attorney,
24:02
Speaker 2: Missus zu Bray, said that he gave the false confessions
24:05
Speaker 2: because he lacked quote a mature and established self identity,
24:08
Speaker 2: and therefore he was easily influenced by persons and authority
24:12
Speaker 2: and chameleon like would say anything in an effort to
24:15
Speaker 2: please whomever he was with end quote. However, it was
24:19
Speaker 2: ruled at trial that the expert presenting on false confession
24:22
Speaker 2: syndrome did not have enough expertise, so there couldn't be
24:26
Speaker 2: any more arguments presented about false confession syndrome. We have
24:30
Speaker 2: done Foyer requests for the entire recordings of Thomas's confession
24:34
Speaker 2: with Deputy Deluge. So far we have not had any luck,
24:38
Speaker 2: but the confessions lasted for several hours. The response that
24:42
Speaker 2: we got to our Feyer Requests indicates that even though
24:44
Speaker 2: Thomas Cisco has been tried, the second man was never found,
24:49
Speaker 2: so it's still classified as an open investigation, and the
24:52
Speaker 2: incident report we did receive was heavily redacted. Some of
24:56
Speaker 2: the pages we got are basically Sheriff's department letterhead with
24:59
Speaker 2: one giant black square. Marty's brother, Lane Lebeuff has spoken
25:05
Speaker 2: to several people over the years and helped create a
25:08
Speaker 2: Facebook group Remembering Kk's Corner twenty five years later to
25:12
Speaker 2: continue to collect tips related to the Kk's Corner murders.
25:15
Speaker 4: The story I got is that he was picked up
25:18
Speaker 4: by the main goal for picked up at his apartment
25:21
Speaker 4: in New Orleans and fed a bunch of drugs on
25:25
Speaker 4: the way back to Lake Charles, and he was supposed
25:28
Speaker 4: to be in the lookout.
25:31
Speaker 2: Lane has told us he does not believe that Thomas
25:34
Speaker 2: Cisco acted alone, but again, the series of events that
25:38
Speaker 2: took place on the night of the killings is difficult
25:40
Speaker 2: to figure out because Thomas Cisco has told so many
25:44
Speaker 2: different stories. Three years after the murders at kk's Corner
25:48
Speaker 2: in the fall of two thousand, Thomas Cisco's trial started.
25:52
Speaker 2: Nine days later. He was convicted of murder and sentenced
25:55
Speaker 2: to death by lethal injection. Thomas appealed. His attorney argued
26:01
Speaker 2: that Thomas had not knowingly and intelligently waived his right
26:05
Speaker 2: to have an attorney with no existing conflict, and later
26:08
Speaker 2: the Louisiana State Supreme Court ruled in his favor. They
26:12
Speaker 2: reversed the conviction and ordered a new trial. In the end,
26:17
Speaker 2: Thomas Cisco's attorneys got him a deal. He pleaded guilty
26:21
Speaker 2: to three counts of manslaughter and was sentenced to ninety
26:24
Speaker 2: years in prison. Now how just that sentences really depends
26:28
Speaker 2: on who you ask. Some people believe that Thomas Cisco
26:32
Speaker 2: should stay behind bars for the rest of his life.
26:35
Speaker 2: Others say that, due to the fact they believe he
26:37
Speaker 2: did not act alone, that he should be freed. He
26:40
Speaker 2: became eligible for parole in twenty twenty three. He almost
26:44
Speaker 2: got out, but days before he was due to be released,
26:48
Speaker 2: his parole was rescinded due to an infraction he committed
26:50
Speaker 2: before appearing before the parole board. It apparently involved medication
26:55
Speaker 2: that he wasn't supposed to have. So he's still in
26:58
Speaker 2: Angola and according to the latest information I can find,
27:01
Speaker 2: he's next eligible for parole. In twenty twenty five, there
27:07
Speaker 2: was a show on ID called Killer in Question. They
27:10
Speaker 2: talked to former district attorney Rick Bryant, who prosecuted Tomas
27:14
Speaker 2: Cisco for the Kk's Corner murders. He told the local
27:18
Speaker 2: news station, quote, I know he didn't do it alone.
27:21
Speaker 2: There's no doubt in my mind. There were at least
27:23
Speaker 2: two people, and I base that on number one. To
27:26
Speaker 2: control three people in a store is difficult enough, but
27:30
Speaker 2: number two, an eyewitness, Virginia Johnson, saw two people. End quote.
27:35
Speaker 2: Rick Bryant said on the ID show he believes he
27:37
Speaker 2: knows who the second killer may be, saying, quote, this
27:41
Speaker 2: guy was from New Orleans, he was Cisco's, one of
27:43
Speaker 2: Cisco's best friends, and he is a perfect match to
27:46
Speaker 2: the composite drawing that was shown on TV. But Rick
27:50
Speaker 2: Bryant said police have spoken with that man and that
27:53
Speaker 2: the man claimed to have been with his girlfriend not
27:55
Speaker 2: in Lake Charles on the night of the murders. Rick
27:58
Speaker 2: Bryant said he would love to prosecute the second gunman,
28:01
Speaker 2: if there was one, but he says it's a tough case.
28:04
Speaker 2: They have no physical evidence and no other witnesses, so
28:07
Speaker 2: the only way that someone else could be tried or
28:09
Speaker 2: convicted is if someone confessed and if they could back
28:12
Speaker 2: up that confession, or if they found the videotape that
28:15
Speaker 2: was stolen the night of the killings, which is probably
28:18
Speaker 2: a very remote possibility. Rick also said that if that
28:23
Speaker 2: did happen, he would be happy to come back to
28:25
Speaker 2: the area to prosecute and possibly seek the death penalty.
28:29
Speaker 2: But who is that second man and could there have
28:32
Speaker 2: been a third? Remember that the witness, Virginia Johnson, said
28:36
Speaker 2: she saw two men in a black car, but after
28:38
Speaker 2: she left Kk's she picked up her boyfriend at work
28:41
Speaker 2: and then they drove back by KK Corner at around
28:44
Speaker 2: twelve thirty am. And at that point she said they
28:48
Speaker 2: saw another vehicle, a red pickup truck next to the
28:51
Speaker 2: black car, and that the red truck had its passenger
28:54
Speaker 2: door open. Whose red pickup truck was that? Could they
28:58
Speaker 2: have been involved in the killings as well? Respectfully, I'm
29:06
Speaker 2: not sure that I agreed with the DA and with
29:07
Speaker 2: the police. I think there is still a lot of
29:10
Speaker 2: potential clues out there. We just got back a ton
29:13
Speaker 2: of information for Foya's and from sources, and I'm hoping
29:17
Speaker 2: that next week we will have some of those questions answered.
29:21
Speaker 2: Another unanswered question that we had was the missing keys.
29:26
Speaker 2: Stacy's keys, the one that opened the employees' safe, were
29:29
Speaker 2: found inside the safe. The doors had to be locked
29:33
Speaker 2: to close the store. When Virginia Johnson came to the store,
29:37
Speaker 2: Stacey was in the process of closing up, and Virginia
29:39
Speaker 2: noticed that Stacy had a set of keys hanging from
29:42
Speaker 2: her waist. Lame Lebuff claims that when the other coworker
29:47
Speaker 2: arrived for work the next morning, she opened the door
29:49
Speaker 2: and saw Stacy's purse on the counter and saw that
29:52
Speaker 2: the money was missing. Stacy's keys that opened the door
29:55
Speaker 2: were found in the safe. So if the doors were locked,
29:58
Speaker 2: how did the killer lock the door when they left.
30:01
Speaker 2: Laura said she believes it may have been with Marty's keys,
30:05
Speaker 2: because she said his key ring was never found.
30:08
Speaker 6: He drove a green Ford Bronco. It had been my
30:12
Speaker 6: mom's car and she had given it to him, and
30:16
Speaker 6: I'm assuming the store keys would have been on the
30:18
Speaker 6: same key ring. But they could not find his car
30:21
Speaker 6: keys at all. And I don't know anything specifically about
30:24
Speaker 6: store keys, but like I said, I know that his
30:28
Speaker 6: car keys were never found.
30:33
Speaker 2: Laura said that the accusations the sheriff made about family
30:36
Speaker 2: members coming after his son just weren't true. She said
30:39
Speaker 2: they were as shocked as anyone else when people in
30:41
Speaker 2: town started saying they recognized that composit drawing.
30:45
Speaker 6: I think they had hypnotized one of the people that
30:48
Speaker 6: had been in the.
30:48
Speaker 7: Store and they had someone draw a picture of the
30:53
Speaker 7: person that they saw in the store. And then it
30:56
Speaker 7: came out on KPLC this drawing. And we didn't even
31:01
Speaker 7: know Richard McKelvin. I think my brother is close to
31:04
Speaker 7: his age and may had seen him out at the
31:06
Speaker 7: bar and maybe knew who he was or something like that,
31:08
Speaker 7: but very very very casual acquaintance, not anything more than that.
31:15
Speaker 7: And it came out that we were making accusations against him,
31:19
Speaker 7: and if anybody said anything about him, you know, that
31:23
Speaker 7: these families were coming after Wayne mckelvin's son, and.
31:26
Speaker 6: It's like, no, we're not. We're not even the ones
31:29
Speaker 6: that had the artists make that drawing. And I mean,
31:32
Speaker 6: you know, everybody in the town saw the drawing in
31:35
Speaker 6: and started naming his name. I never would have known
31:37
Speaker 6: who they were talking about, you know, And I don't
31:41
Speaker 6: even know that my brother would have. But a lot
31:43
Speaker 6: a lot of people came forward and said that, and
31:45
Speaker 6: it wasn't us. As a matter of fact, when my
31:48
Speaker 6: son was he was two years old and he was
31:52
Speaker 6: going to a daycare and the daycare owner pulled me
31:56
Speaker 6: aside and said, Richard mckelvin's son is in the class,
31:59
Speaker 6: goes to this daycare too. Is there going to be
32:02
Speaker 6: any trouble? And I'm like, I wouldn't know him from
32:05
Speaker 6: Adam and I don't even know him. No, there's not
32:09
Speaker 6: going to be any trouble for me, That's what I'm saying.
32:11
Speaker 6: It's like, we weren't targeting him. That's not our motivation
32:14
Speaker 6: or our intention. We just you know, our anger was
32:18
Speaker 6: never directed at him. It was just the rest of
32:21
Speaker 6: the town was saying it was him.
32:24
Speaker 2: In twenty eighteen, Lara's brother, Lane Lebuff was brutally attacked
32:29
Speaker 2: in the parking lot of a local Louisiana casino. Lane
32:32
Speaker 2: said that he believes that law enforcement knows who the
32:35
Speaker 2: perpetrators are, and he says there is video of the attack,
32:39
Speaker 2: but he says no one has ever been arrested or charged.
32:43
Speaker 2: Lane wonders if the attack was somehow connected to the
32:46
Speaker 2: kk's Corner killings. On social media. Over the years, he
32:49
Speaker 2: has traded insults with a lot of people, including Richard Mcalvin.
32:53
Speaker 2: He's even posted screenshots of what he claims are Richard
32:56
Speaker 2: making threats to beat him up. Laura said that she's torn.
33:00
Speaker 2: She would love to see justice for her brother, but
33:02
Speaker 2: at the same time, even after almost thirty years, she
33:05
Speaker 2: says she's still afraid for her family's safety and in
33:09
Speaker 2: Southern Louisiana. She says her fear is that when it
33:12
Speaker 2: comes to the good old Boys network, but some things
33:15
Speaker 2: never change. And while she appreciates investigative journalists who've taken
33:19
Speaker 2: an interest in the story and appreciates people coming on
33:22
Speaker 2: social media to help, she says that some of the
33:25
Speaker 2: comments make her sad because they make it more about
33:28
Speaker 2: solving a murder mystery than remembering that these are actual
33:32
Speaker 2: victims whose families and lives will never be the same after.
33:37
Speaker 6: All this time, I really don't see it being solved.
33:41
Speaker 6: If somebody was going to come forward, they would have
33:42
Speaker 6: come forward by name. And the people that do know things,
33:46
Speaker 6: like you say, they're going to hide under the rocks.
33:47
Speaker 6: They're not going to say anything. A lot of people
33:50
Speaker 6: on that Facebook page. They're detached from it, and understandably so,
33:55
Speaker 6: but they treat it like it's some sort of a
33:58
Speaker 6: murder mystery who done it game, sort of make things
34:02
Speaker 6: up to fill in their gaps the way they want
34:04
Speaker 6: it to be. And they started accusing the owner of
34:07
Speaker 6: the store of dealing drugs from the store and being
34:11
Speaker 6: involved in that kind of stuff, and that was so untrue.
34:15
Speaker 6: It just kind of gets a little bit upsetting when
34:18
Speaker 6: you read these kinds of things over and over. People
34:21
Speaker 6: on Facebook can be completely ridiculous, Like you live your
34:25
Speaker 6: whole life not expecting something bad to happen, and then
34:27
Speaker 6: when something like this happens, you wait for the next
34:29
Speaker 6: bad thing. Your naivety is gone.
34:35
Speaker 2: Next week, in our next episode on kk's Corner, we're
34:38
Speaker 2: going to answer some questions about Kevin Abel's suicide. We
34:42
Speaker 2: have details that have never been made public about the
34:44
Speaker 2: witness who was there, the drug dealers who are allegedly
34:48
Speaker 2: driving his truck, and the Calcushoe Parish police officer who
34:52
Speaker 2: picked up his truck from an alleged drug dealer. We're
34:54
Speaker 2: also going to talk to Stacy's friend, who was a
34:57
Speaker 2: former reserve deputy at the Sheriff's department about what Stacy
35:01
Speaker 2: said about the threat she was getting in the weeks
35:03
Speaker 2: before her murder. And we're going to try to figure
35:06
Speaker 2: out what happened to Kevin Abel's truck. Could it have
35:09
Speaker 2: been the red truck that was parked at kk's corner
35:12
Speaker 2: that night. I'm Catherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line.
35:19
Speaker 2: Helen Gone Murder Line is a production of School of
35:21
Speaker 2: Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by me
35:24
Speaker 2: Catherine Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts. Special thanks to
35:28
Speaker 2: Amy Tubbs for her research assistance in James Wheaton for
35:31
Speaker 2: legal review. Julia Chris Goau mixed and scored this episode.
35:35
Speaker 2: Our theme song is by Ben Sale, Executive producers of
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Speaker 2: Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and l. C. Crowley. Listen to
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Speaker 2: Crime Plus channel on Apple Podcasts. If you were interested
35:49
Speaker 2: in seeing documents and materials from the case, you can
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Speaker 2: follow the show on Instagram at Helen gonpod. If you
35:56
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35:57
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Speaker 1: School of Humans,