CenLAw
Kellye, the true crime enthusiast, and Kyler, her willing partner, delve into intriguing cases from Central & Northeastern Louisiana.
From small-town cases to nationally known crimes, they bring you stories that hit close to home, always with that Louisiana connection.
Tune in bi-weekly for your true crime fix and support their show for a shout-out in the next episode.
Stay safe out there!
CenLAw
1976 General Store Murder - The Unsolved Murder of Mrs. Evelyn Lopoo ft. The Uncle of the Unsolved!
We delve into the puzzling narrative of James Clayton Rogers Jr., a suspect who was put under arrest aboard the USS Kitty Hawk in the Philippines. The details of his extradition process, the grand jury charges against him, and the consequential disappearance of a vital juvenile witness add ripples of complexity to this captivating case. The intense cross-examination of a 14-year-old witness, Dan Martin, and his eventual guilty plea, throws the spotlight on the pursuit of justice in this confounding case.
Piquing your curiosity further, we analyze the role of media and public opinion in shaping the trajectory of this case. Our exploration doesn't stop there. We throw light on the compelling courtroom dynamics, contrasting them with our present-day legal system. As we untangle this mysterious murder case, be ready to confront startling revelations and unanswered questions. Join us as we embark on this journey, seeking justice and truth for Miss Evelyn Lopoo.
Source Material:
- https://concordia.advantage-preservation.com/
- All information was researched from the Concordia Sentinel Archives.
- https://www.hannapub.com/concordiasentinel/
This has been an elfaudio production.
Thanks for listening & Take care out there!
All🎶created by: Uncle Sawyer
Speaker 1 = Kellye , Speaker 2 = Uncle Sawyer
Speaker 1: 0:12
On August 20th 1976, two young girls went to the local Lopoo's store on Carter Street in Vidalia, Louisiana. But instead of the friendly, welcoming smile of Miss Evelyn Lopoo, they found her laying in between two shelves, barely clinging to life. An immediate investigation began that would take over two years to arrest a suspect and many years before a jury would hear the story of what happened in broad daylight on a Friday afternoon inside that store and the trial concluded in a way that some found unsatisfactory. Take this journey with us back in time-aways to see how differently courtroom dynamics were then compared to now, and see for yourself if justice was served on this episode of CenLaw.
Speaker 1: 1:06
Hello and welcome back to this episode of CenLaw. I'm Kellye.
Speaker 2: 1:07
And I'm Uncle Sawyer.
Speaker 1: 1:09
And that's.
Speaker 3 (Kyler): 1:10
And I'm taking a bye.
Speaker 1: 1:11
Kyler isn't going to be recording with us tonight because he had one rule. Kyler, what was your one rule?
Speaker 3 (Kyler): 1:17
I am not going to do an episode on an unsolved murder.
Speaker 1: 1:20
And technically, since this one is legally still unsolved to this day, he said he was out. So, Uncle Sawyer, he said tap, tap, tap.
Speaker 2: 1:32
Sub Tap, tap, tap Sub, calling us sub Tap, tap, tap. That's typically saying tap, tap, tap. Who says tap, tap, tap, tap?
Speaker 1: 1:39
tap, tap. I do not say blabla, I do not say blabla, blabla. Okay, so Sawyer's going to be Kyler, except way better. Oh, oh, you bailed on me, okay. But that's typical you ever said he would have.
Speaker 2: 1:54
It's fair, I was going to yeah.
Speaker 1: 1:58
Okay, so we're going to start off by saying sorry for the Me Well, that and the rain, because it is pouring and based on our, you know, options of when we can record and how. That absolutely depends on the children involved in our lives. We only have so much, so many opportunities to be able to record, so right now it's storming. We're still recording you like that, okay?
Speaker 2: 2:24
So also.
Speaker 1: 2:24
I sound a little congested. We went swimming over the fourth of July weekend and I've my sinuses got all messed up. So if I sound a little funny or if I sound better, maybe I don't know.
Speaker 2: 2:34
Yeah, sinuses, Can I have some sinuses? You're ridiculous.
Speaker 1: 2:40
No, no, all right, so that, out of the way, we're going to go ahead and jump into today's case, which is taking us all the way back, all the way to 1976, which is after our parents were born, but before we were born. So, in the in between, it was August 20th 1976, in Vidalia, on Carter Street, which is, as you know, is that main street that runs through Vidalia, and there was a wonderful elderly lady, and although I say elderly, she was how you know, she was wonderful because of everything that I read about her. They had multiple news articles. All of the source material that I got for this was straight out of the art crimes of the Concordia Sentinel.
Speaker 2: 3:22
So you trust the Sentinel.
Speaker 1: 3:25
Yeah, yeah, I mean, as far as you can trust any newspaper, I do.
Speaker 2: 3:29
All I know is that every time someone has died in our family, the newspaper the articles have always been very, and we're back.
Speaker 1: 3:38
So, yeah, we're back and we're going to start on August 20th 1976. Miss Evelyn Lopoo. She owned her own business on Carter Street that was directly across from the bank and it was known as, or it was called, lopoo store. As I said in the intro, her well, not her body, because she was still technically alive two young girls went into the shop at around five o'clock that evening and they found her in between two of the shelves in the store towards the back of the store. She was still cleaning to life at that point. She was transported over the bridge to Meridian Hospital where she later succumbed to her wounds. She passed away around six pm that evening and the investigation began.
Speaker 2: 4:34
What kind of wounds did she have? I'm about to tell you oh no, the suspense is killing me.
Speaker 1: 4:39
So it was later determined that she was shot three times, once in the chest and twice in the head, with a small caliber weapon and left for dead. And she was alive and she was alive. What a trooper. She was shot twice in the head and she was 66 years old.
Speaker 2: 4:53
The day that she died. Dagger Mom gets to cold and she's out for the week. That's right, love you.
Speaker 1: 5:01
So she had powder burns that were found on her arms as she'd thrown them up to protect herself, so that she also shows you how close the gun would have been because she had powder burns on her arms.
Speaker 2: 5:11
Well, you have a small caliber of any kind. You have to be close enough for it to actually penetrate through to do any damage.
Speaker 1: 5:19
So, according to the newspaper article, she operated the store for 30 years and she had just returned from making a deposit at the bank across the street because they had that time stamped or whatever. So they knew exactly. It was a very small window that they had from the time that she was shot to the time that her body was found, because she had left the bank shortly before and the girls found her not long after.
Speaker 2: 5:43
So Well, yeah, with three gunshot wounds, you don't have a very big window of being alive, right, right, exactly, especially to the head, exactly.
Speaker 1: 5:53
So do they believe the murder possibly occurred as part of a botched armed robbery, but they couldn't say that was certainty because initially they had no eyewitnesses or viable suspects and the cash register was found closed but it didn't have any bills in it. It had a few coins like loose coins in it, but otherwise it didn't have any. There was no cash in the thing which, on the, on the face value of that, it seems to me like that would be more of an indicator of an armed robbery, because it's five o'clock, five o'clock in the afternoon of a normal, like work day A business day. A business day that would normally have, I would think they would normally have cash in the drawer.
Speaker 2: 6:25
And with customers literally coming in to find her you'd think that there were customers coming in throughout the day. Being a favorite store of the place. It was, it was yeah.
Speaker 1: 6:33
Exactly. And then they also found her purse, but it was in her her normal quote unquote hiding spot and it had an undisclosed amount of money still inside of it. So my presumption was that they took all the money out of the register but they couldn't find her purse and she wasn't willing to tell them and wait why'd she go to the? Bank she would to go deposit to three checks. I think it wasn't a cash drop, no so maybe she wrote the checks herself. I don't know I'm not, I'm not sure that's weird or maybe, maybe it was a deposit.
Speaker 2: 7:07
I'm thinking like it'd be more likely that it was a deposit right towards the end of the day it might have been.
Speaker 1: 7:12
It might have been a positive, like 50 or so. Thursday it was a Friday.
Speaker 2: 7:16
Friday yeah, before the weekend.
Speaker 1: 7:17
Depositing the weeks yeah, earnings, but did you would have left herself no money for change for the rest of her business day it was.
Speaker 2: 7:24
You said it was right around five o'clock yeah, yeah so that's the end of the day. That's. She was wrapping up, I guarantee.
Speaker 1: 7:30
I don't know, I don't know what time she didn't get to close because she was right, I understand. Okay, I got you. I got you how you gonna put up a change, the sign for open clothes.
Speaker 2: 7:38
I'm following you guys. Two gunshots in a head.
Speaker 1: 7:41
I'm following you, I follow, I got you.
Speaker 2: 7:43
I hear what you're saying we don't tell you what you shouldn't, okay, so what I'm shouldn't?
Speaker 1: 7:48
all right, so continue with the crime scene. They found no bullet casings and they believe that the weapon was likely a revolver because there was no casings at the scene, although they didn't initially release the caliber of the weapon. 22, don't be guessing. You don't know that yet. Yes, I do. Her family also reported that she was supposed to leave town the next day, so it would have made sense that she was doing the deposits because she was going out of town to do a business transaction or sale or something of the sort. She wanted some pocket change, you know, for the trip maybe, and the Concordia Sentinel reported that concrete leads were found in early September but still no one was in custody. And then they set up an award fund. That was set up within a week of her death for tips leading to an arrest and that went on all the way through the entirety of the case, or at least until before the trial started. So it was announced on September 1st that it was a 22 caliber pistol, so good job heck, yeah, oh, full disclosure.
Speaker 2: 8:47
I have not read or heard any details of this case at all yes, so he's hearing this completely fresh.
Speaker 1: 8:53
I haven't told him any details, like I would normally. At least run a few things by Kyler, or in the same way I did with Peyton. Peyton said another episode, so he absolutely has heard none of this. So after they released the caliber of the pistol, the, they also released that at the same time the caliber, they released that the state investigators were becoming involved with the case. About a week later and they put out in the news that they believe the killer was a local person or a person local to the area. So around mid-october they updated the award fund had been had raised around six thousand dollars, which can you guess. And 1976 can you guess how much that would have been in today's money?
Speaker 2: 9:36
around 75 to a hundred thousand dollars no, no, you're a little overshooting.
Speaker 1: 9:41
Six thousand, say fifty six thousand dollars then would have equated to about thirty two thousand dollars today, which is a heck of a fun, in my opinion, for that for that period. Like if you think about that much money at that point in time, you can almost buy a car with that. Yeah, a lot of money. So the award, the award money, eventually turned into the reward money, eventually turned into an award that was given to idea high school graduates each year until it was completely depleted. What the hell did they do? to earn that so nothing, they just did it for honor, because they had no other. You know, they didn't want to like just leave it and let it, whatever.
Speaker 2: 10:19
So that's what they, that's what they did with it and they should have put it in a savings account today. It would have been worth thirty two thousand dollars or more or more interest.
Speaker 1: 10:28
So only one article was found in night that I found was in 1977, so that was the next year they received heavy criticism the Videlia PD did because of a lack of arrests and talk of Concordia, parish being the murder capital of the world.
Speaker 2: 10:43
This is what I why is that why they have more police per capita than anywhere else in the country?
Speaker 1: 10:47
I don't know. It definitely seems like it today well, well, and I think that has a lot to do with the area now and how riddled it is with big city crime for such a small town. But the this article that I got, that I read this part in about it being the murder capital murder capital of the world was actually what drew me to this case when I was researching for something else. So I was just shocked that that was something that was being said about Videlia, louisiana, and the sheriff, fred Shealy at the time. He was stung by these comments, as the parish had only had three murders in the past year and although no one had been convicted in any of these three, he remained hopeful that arrest would eventually would be made. So finally, in February of 1978, which would have been about a year and a half after the murder of miss Evelyn Lopu, they publicly charged an 18 year old Videlia resident for first degree murder and armed robbery. Rock that did it again. Why don't, why can't I say robbery, robbery, okay? dude his name was James Clayton Rogers Jr and he was serving aboard the USS Kitty Hawk and the US Navy located in the Philippines when he was taken into custody the USS Kitty Hawk, kitty Hawk yes, isn't that fun? No, I thought it was fun. Was he a white?
Speaker 2: 12:09
no, we are not in the 70s. We're supposed to, you know yes, get into the story. Okay, that means go into the 70s no, we're not.
Speaker 1: 12:21
We're not like hey man it's the conspiracy man okay, now you sound like feel more, feel more from cars anyway, Rogers was taken into custody by the Naval and guess investigation service where he was interviewed in an extradited and he was extradited back to Videlia but it took a few days. So they did their initial investigation while they were on the USS Kitty Hawk. The break came for the Videlia PD when a 13 year old eyewitness came forward with his parents saying that he had been present when the murder slash robbery took place. So he was 13 year old at the time he came forward, but he would have been 11 at the time and Rogers would have been 16 at the time the murder occurred, and that is your math lesson for the day you welcome two plus 11 equals 13 there we go the juvenile's father, the 13 year old eyewitness. He also turned in the murder weapon, which was a 22 caliber revolver, called it probably Smith and wasn't black. It didn't say. I can get that far. Completing information couldn't pinpoint where the father said he got the weapon. It was either found in a field or he got it from Dan, the 13 year old eyewitness that was his son. The article stated that they finally had sufficient evidence, via the eyewitness statement and information verified by the Naval investigators that interviewed Rogers, that Rogers had robbed Miss Evelyn Lopu of between three and five hundred dollars, or between sixteen hundred and twenty six hundred dollars today, and then he shot her three times oh, we don't get to do the math on that one like we did.
Speaker 2: 14:01
No, I guess I was.
Speaker 1: 14:03
I wasn't making you guess that you failed so miserably last time.
Speaker 2: 14:06
I didn't want you to embarrass yourself no, I wanted to make you correct me, so people like you know okay, thanks, I think I think I'll be okay.
Speaker 1: 14:12
I doubt it. If they don't like me, they just won't listen.
Speaker 2: 14:14
You're gonna have raging comments. Bring him back, bring him back.
Speaker 1: 14:17
Okay, rogers was 16 at the time of the murders. The juvenile witness was 11. Rogers had reportedly been a runaway but had been staying in different places in medallion, and Rogers had joined the Navy shortly after the incident and had been assigned to the Kitty Hawk in the Philippines, which is where the Navy interviewed him and kept him in custody until he was extradited. Sheriff Fred Shealy flew to Treasure Island, california, at the end of March 1978 to retrieve Rogers and bring him back to Vidalia to officially be charged and have his bond set.
Speaker 2: 14:48
So he got to go have fun at Treasure Island.
Speaker 1: 14:52
I don't think he had fun at Treasure Island.
Speaker 2: 14:54
Bullshit. It was the 70s. I don't know about all that. I guarantee you he did something.
Speaker 1: 14:59
I'll ask his grandson and see if he knows anything. I don't want to talk to him. So on April 4th 1978, james Clayton Rogers Jr was officially magistrated by Judge R P Boyd and he was held without bond. Rogers told the court that he could not afford an attorney and was subsequently appointed a public defender named Jerry Day, who eventually stayed on his co-counsel with defense attorney Weber. No arraignment date was set because a grand jury had to be reconvened to indict Rogers and once that happened they would set a date at that time. So on April 20th, 16 days later, the grand jury returned two true bills for the first degree murder and armed robbery. Now we've covered what a true bill means. Do you know what that means when it comes to the grand jury?
Speaker 2: 15:41
A true bill. It means it's not a lie.
Speaker 1: 15:44
Well, it means they have sufficient evidence to proceed to trial Right. With the charges in their opinion. So Rogers at that time was currently undergoing a psychiatric evaluation at the state mental hospital in Jackson to see if he was competent for trial. And he was eventually found competent and ready to stay on trial on May 25th 1978. So it took him from March to May to find him competent.
Speaker 2: 16:08
Just a little geography reference here. Jackson Mississippi is only like two and a half hours away from the delia.
Speaker 1: 16:14
Okay, good, it's good to know. Only five days later after he was found competent and ready to see in trial, tuesday May 30th, the concordia sent an old published an article that said the Sheriff's office was still trying to locate their juvenile witness who had reportedly come missing on Saturday, three days earlier. Apparently they'd be keeping in like in custody or in some kind of like safe house or something, so that he'd be able to know he was eventually found. Like he just kind of randomly showed back up. And that's crazy too, because like I saw that the they published the article that he was missing but then they never published anything saying that he was quote unquote found. But apparently and we'll get into this later he had a history of kind of disappearing, so never found the other article saying he'd been found or whatever. But he does testify, so we obviously know that he came back and was found.
Speaker 2: 17:04
Now they used the elaborate set of puppets.
Speaker 1: 17:08
Maybe I don't know. Alright, so this is odd for me, but let me see if I can get it straightened out for everybody. Alien projection On June 11th 1978, law enforcement and the prosecutor. They were both worried about the juvenile being available for testimony. When the trial eventually happened, they decided to perpetuate I knew that word Perpetuate Ernest Denison Martin, who went by Dan, the 13 year old eyewitness. They decided to perpetuate his testimony into the record, which means that they got it on official recordings who'd be able to use in accord of law for later. He testified that he had been present in the store when Rogers and Ms Evelyn went to the back of the store and then he heard gunshots. He said Rogers was, who was only 16 at the time, asked Dan to be a lookout because he quote wanted to get some money unquote. He testified that there was a 22 caliber pistol missing from his house and he believed the police now had it.
Speaker 2: 18:04
Sounds pretty scripted.
Speaker 1: 18:06
Yeah well, it seems a lot convenient and self-serving in my mind, because it's like oh yeah, no, I saw him do it, but it was the gun that was at our house. That's what it just said. Yeah, exactly, that's what I'm agreeing with you. Oh, okay, yeah.
Speaker 2: 18:18
Yeah, yeah, definitely, it really sounds fishy.
Speaker 1: 18:21
Yeah, dan also testified that after the robbery, slash, murder he saw Rogers run out and then he followed him. Rogers then told Dan not to say anything and then asked if he wanted some money and showed him the rolled up bills in his pocket. He then says that he didn't see Rogers until he got back from the Navy, although he did get a threatening letter that said he'd quote come back and get him unquote if he talked about anything. That happened about two weeks after Rogers left but conveniently or unconveniently for him he no longer had the letter. He said that it went missing, didn't have that as any actual proof that he was threatened and because they were perpetuating this into the record, they actually had the defense present to be able to cross-examine the witness and he admitted on cross that he'd run away from home before and that he'd smoked marijuana. And when they asked why it took him 15 months to come forward he said he didn't know, but he didn't help plan the robbery or nor did he give Rogers the gun. But he also wasn't threatened to participate or anything like that. He just kind of agreed when Rogers asked him to come be his lookout. So eventually we get a statement released from the defendant, who has always referred to as Navy semen, james C Rogers Jr. At the beginning of all the articles that I read he slowly started to change his story. So initially he told investigators that things were kind of fuzzy. He remembered being in the store, he remembered Miss Evelyn reaching behind some boxes and quote falling, but only remembers like a loud explosion and then he took off running and maybe he ditched the weapon in the corner of a pastor by a Baptist church. And then he says he doesn't really remember anything until he got to Atlanta Georgia. And when he got to Atlanta Georgia he said he vaguely remembered being in West Virginia, but he couldn't give you any specifics. And eventually, sometime in the following year, he enrolled in the Navy and had been serving aboard the Kitty Hawk. Like I said, seventies were hell of a time. Yeah, if especially. I mean like even if you were 16, apparently, or 11,. Yeah, the other kids case. He started young. Yeah, wait for it, wait were the two boys even friends. Yes, yeah, they had been, like they've hung out around before, but like everything that I read, it made it sound like Rogers was just kind of like a floater. He didn't really have like a, a stay, like a steady home that he lived in. He was just kind of vagrant. Kind of kind of. Well, it was the seventies. There you go. A lot of, a lot of hitchhiking and free loving. I know I've been saying that the whole time. Yeah, so on September 21st 1978, a little over two years since the surveillance murder Navy Seaman Roger, he officially pled a dual plea which I had never heard of before. Means two no, it means that he pled not guilty, and not guilty by reason of insanity.
Speaker 2: 21:09
So that counts to two.
Speaker 1: 21:12
Yes, but I've never heard of them pleading not guilty and then also pleading not guilty by reason of insanity, and I guess that's something that was different in the 70s with legal something. I don't know. I just know that I've never heard it called that like a dual plea. I've heard him say I'm not guilty by reason of insanity or I'm just not guilty, but I've never heard of him being used both at the same time like that.
Speaker 2: 21:35
He was doubly not guilty. He said, okay, okay, he wanted to make sure you dual not guilty. Well, like, if you know pistols, dual pistols are better than one pistols, uh-huh.
Speaker 1: 21:46
So two guilty ple not guilty pleas means he's doubly not guilty, gotcha. Yeah, that's exactly what that means Okay. So his public defender did his due diligence, with motions to suppress multiple statements, motions to change venue, but the trial date kept getting pushed back for different reasons, whether it was new evidence. He eventually hired a private attorney. That in itself caused us delay, because at that point the new attorney has to be given time to be get to get familiar with all of the discovery. And then, finally, from September of 1978, when he pled the dual plea in May of 1979, jury selection began. So nearly 50 witnesses with subpoena to testify in this trial. The defense's main strategy reported that they would point out the real killer and they would be in the courtroom and that they planned to show that it wasn't their clients. So who do you think they're gonna pin everything on?
Speaker 2: 22:41
The boy.
Speaker 1: 22:42
The 11 year old at the time, dan. They planned on pinning everything on him, which I mean it is kind of sus. I mean I'm not gonna disagree with you, but as we look at our courtrooms and our procedure, in today's world juveniles are highly protected, like they don't use their names if they're used as witnesses. A lot of times they don't even record, like if it's a televised trial, juveniles won't be shown on camera. They'll allow their voice to be recorded, but not their face. I mean there's all kinds of things that they go out of their way to do to protect juvenile witnesses.
Speaker 2: 23:17
That's because they're scared like the bikers, have a very, very large group of them that literally go and sit in the courtrooms with people. No, no, no, not witnesses that go with the little kids that have been abused or something like that. Yes, it's like Hell's Angels. I think is one of the benefits of this.
Speaker 1: 23:37
Oh, I hear what you're saying.
Speaker 2: 23:40
They go in there with the kids, to protect them, to give them peace of mind. Yeah, yeah. It works 100% of the time. I believe it.
Speaker 1: 23:48
Well, apparently that was on the case in the 70s, because this 14-year-old kid was torn to literal shreds on the stands, and I'm not talking about like they were just bullying him or picking on him. No, no, no, no, no, no, no no.
Speaker 2: 24:03
They literally tore him to shreds, like piece by piece.
Speaker 1: 24:05
No, no, no, not that literal Sawyer come on. You said literally. Okay. So they made him proclaim on the stand that he had been smoking dope at age 11 and had done it multiple times, so had everybody else in the 70s. They had made him openly confess and say on the stand that he had been sexually involved with multiple females since he was 10 years old. What a pimp. The defense attorney was quoted.
Speaker 2: 24:31
You can't be talking bro.
Speaker 1: 24:33
The defense attorney was quoted as saying that Dan, still a 14-year-old boy, was the sorriest human being you will ever see to the jury. Well, we don't know what he looked like. Oh my gosh, come on. There's also mention of a bait letter that law enforcement had Dan send to Rogers while he was onboard the Kitty Hawk, trying to get Rogers to confess, kind of like an old school wiretapping session or wiretapping phone call, like trying to get him to elicit some, you know, guilty knowledge. But they got no response so their wiretapped letter didn't work. In reference to Rogers' statement that he gave the Naval officers, he said he didn't know where the gun came from or how wound up in his hands or being used in the robbery. He said he had no idea. He also said again that Miss Evelyn pushed the boxes over at him and he kind of fell or moved backwards and then he heard a loud noise and then he heard a ringing in his head and that it was all fuzzy. His defense attorney pointed out that Rogers couldn't have been the shooter because he checked into a halfway house slash truck stop. That was too far away for him to have been able to get back and commit the robbery murder. He even said that he would and did have witnesses that testified to seeing Rogers on the 20th. At August 20th, peeling potatoes states away. So keeping all that in mind, let's get back to little Dan Martin. Badgering a witness, and specifically a juvenile witness, was a thing, apparently, because he was made to stand up in court, look directly at Rogers and tell him you blew Miss Evelyn's brains out. Verbate them that's what they made him. Stand up in court and look him in the eye and say you blew Miss Evelyn's brains out In front of the jury and the judge allowed it. A 14 year old child. I don't get it. I don't do that to grown ass men. It would be considered wildly inappropriate.
Speaker 2: 26:24
Well, it's wildly inappropriate. Yeah, but he did it.
Speaker 1: 26:29
Okay, well, I guess yeah. Not to mention that they made him talk about his sexual exploits, which apparently were multiple enough in detail for the time. At the time, at 14 year old. The actual testimony that had to do with the case was that Rogers had asked to borrow money. When Dan said he didn't have any, rogers asked him to come out and watch for him when he was going to steal some money and he assumed that that's what he was doing. He didn't think he was going to do anything else. He said he didn't know until after everything that happened, that when Rogers was at his house that he had gone back into Dan's house before they left and he realized then that when he went back in that was when he retrieved the gun from his house. He also said that he recalled later, dan did, that when Rogers came back out he had his hand in his pocket quote like he had a gun in it. So that's convenient. Very, very. I agree with that. All kind of pieces, everything so nicely together. You know what I mean. Like it just sounds too scripted. Like I said, that's exactly right. So they're getting through witnesses and all these inflammatory headlines and then, on May 28th 1979, another roadblock on a case that's had way more than a spare share. The judge's father passes away, judge RP Boyd's father died, so there was an immediate mistrial declared. So not only did they have to stop proceedings, they had to completely start over New jury pool the whole thing. So in the interim the Sheriff's office actually filed charges of aiding and abetting the robbery on the death of Ms Evelyn, on Dan Martin, and called it kind of a continuation of the case. And then eventually, before the new trial got started, dan actually pled guilty to the charges of aiding and abetting the robbery and death of Ms Evelyn. And I don't know, because I couldn't find it in any of the news articles what his sentencing, if there was any that came along with that. I just know that he did plead guilty to that. So he was a felon. And after, finally, finally, after things finally got going again, it was January 1980. I remember she was murdered in August of 76. So three and a half years after her murder occurred things were looking the same Prosecution laid out, armed robbery, murder gone wrong, with Dan Martin as their star witness, muddy as he may be, the defense's strategy blamed Dan completely and they even tried to pin blame on not just him, but him and two of his brothers, saying that they had all kind of acted in cahoots, and then they were all trying to blame Rogers.
Speaker 2: 29:07
They're the only one that was in the military and out of the country. Yeah yeah, perfect plan.
Speaker 1: 29:14
And the defense had multiple witnesses saying that he was in another place, miles, hundreds of miles away states away on the day that the murder occurred. So Rogers got on the stand in his own defense and said he only confessed to the naval investigators was because he felt pressured and bullied and he wasn't in the right state of mind and felt like he had no.
Speaker 2: 29:34
The what the right what the?
Speaker 1: 29:36
right of mind. What did I say? Was it bad? It was bad, okay, and he felt like he had to say what they wanted to hear or he'd never get out of the interrogation situation. The defense called witnesses to back up a story and the defense and the prosecution both sides arrested after all the after Rogers got off the stand and they called those witnesses to back up a story. So what do you think happened when the jury came back for this case?
Speaker 2: 30:05
They were fed a bunch of lion slander.
Speaker 1: 30:08
But what was their verdict?
Speaker 2: 30:09
I'm guaranteeing they gave it a guilty one.
Speaker 1: 30:14
You'd be wrong, On January 28th 1980, the jury came back with a not guilty for the 20 year old James Clayton Rogers Jr.
Speaker 2: 30:22
Chief naval seguement After old boy, oh boy. Yeah, this is the new trial, this is the new tree, the new jury the new judge, the new trial that started in January 1980, I believe that.
Speaker 1: 30:34
So January 28th 1980 they came back with a not guilty and, after a mist trial, years and years of motions and legal hoops and basically a Chicago style three-ring circus, rogers was found not guilty and set free that same day. Hurray, now go after the little shit. Well, that's the thing is. So what we have here illegally is a solved, illegally Unsolved murder. The sheriff's office stood by their findings legally unsolved or illegal.
Speaker 2: 31:02
Legally unsolved okay, so you sounded like you said illegally Okay, illegally solved by means that are not legal what we end up with is solved, but legally unsolved, murder my girl.
Speaker 1: 31:15
The sheriff's office stood by their findings as to the prosecution, but since Rogers the Navy semen was found not guilty by a jury of his peers, what you have is one kid who's found he's pled guilty to being an accessory to the person that he is saying did it. But the person that he is saying did it was innocent. So that's where the case still is to this day.
Speaker 2: 31:36
Don't forget this little boy's dad had the gun.
Speaker 1: 31:39
Right. Well, when he came to say that he was an eyewitness, we still couldn't verify if it was Brought it from the house or if the dad, after he heard the son statement, went to the field and located it. There was never any mention of that specifically, so I don't know for sure.
Speaker 2: 31:54
Yeah, but it was their gun.
Speaker 1: 31:56
It was their gun absolutely ballistic smash that yes 100% 100%. So officially this is an unsolved case in the court of public opinion, though it is kind of up in the air because some people believe that Roger said it, some people you know thought that it was all Make believes that was concocted by Dan and his possibly his family To get him off the hook for something that was just an accident, that it wasn't supposed to happen shot three times Is an accident I. Don't think anybody actually intended for her to die. I just think that when they tried to get her to tell them where her purse was, where they knew more money was, that it escalated. And she's 66 years old, I agree with you. But apparently she was pretty sprightly because she was walking across the road, across the street, to go to the bank in the middle Of the middle of the afternoon in August in Louisiana and that was not cool, I guarantee it got shot three times in a day.
Speaker 2: 32:54
Yes, and that but two young left lads that have a gun.
Speaker 1: 32:58
Yeah, like, come on, well, technically, people, you've been sorry, it was only the one guy with the gun, but that's, that's where it is that's the injustice of an unsolved case, to miss Evelyn Lopu and Talk about just nuts. But I did want to throw in because I did look it up, because I was curious, because we talked about Frontal lobe development before and you should know a lot about that. Keep on talking that shit. I'm gonna do my best on top of the proven legality of intense interrogation tactics with people under 25 and the false Confession facts. According to research, about 42 percent of juvenile studied in 340 exoneration cases have falsely confessed that special needs people are?
Speaker 2: 33:47
oh, Absolutely. We way more susceptible, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 1: 33:52
I've seen way too many of those, for sure, like I'll say that's almost 50% of 340 exoneration cases. That's almost a hundred and ten Kids yes, I do the math that falsely confessed just to be out of that pressure. That's that situation. Yes, compared to only 13 percent of adults.
Speaker 2: 34:14
Just like I agree with you all the time, just to get you to stop talking.
Speaker 1: 34:17
Oh, come on. So that's the case of miss Evelyn Lopu, the technically still unsolved case deep. What do you guys think? Let me know what y'all think, because I I'm on the fence on this one. I really am not sure. It's hard to believe the story because everything, just the way that it falls into place so perfectly to Not be Dan, even though everything kind of points to Do Him being some kind of more more of a role that he played in it than what he Tries to make it out to be there's a reason that the people were being mean to him like they were.
Speaker 2: 34:56
They knew something, probably Because they were his lawyers or they were the fence. They knew something that we don't, because they didn't just go in the courtroom be like so today.
Speaker 1: 35:04
Here's this badass little kid who's sorry as human being you've ever met. And like All of the research that I got from this case, obviously it was 1976. All I have were these newspaper articles and I Don't, I don't know. I just think it was Extremely interesting. The first thing that caught my eye was the Videlia murder capital of the world. I just thought that was hilarious, for three murders in one year. And then the other part was the amount of Just mud slinging character Decimation that they were doing on this 14 year old boy on the stand. I just thought it was nuts.
Speaker 2: 35:42
He deserved it.
Speaker 1: 35:43
I'm telling you, the dude killed her no 14 year old deserves that.
Speaker 2: 35:46
I don't care how bad so do come in and shoot your grandma on the head twice in a chest once, if he was the one on trial.
Speaker 1: 35:54
It might have been different, but he was an eyewitness. I don't feel like he should have been treated like that, regardless if he actually did it or not Give him his day in trial and then drag him through the mud. Don't, don't do that to him while he's on the stand, because we can roll back on his own, they still have a lot of develop. He didn't technically confess he, just he. He gave a statement as an eyewitness, which led to the arrest of somebody that was exonerated later.
Speaker 2: 36:16
Yeah, and it took him 18 months to go up and do it. Yeah, see, I'm telling you there's something fishy about that.
Speaker 1: 36:22
I'm not disagreeing with you.
Speaker 2: 36:24
Yeah, now we'll interview him.
Speaker 1: 36:26
That is an excellent question. I am not into the investigative journalism side of things, so that's why I'm just reporting these stories as a form of Relaying Interesting cases, in fact that I found that I think other people will find interesting and entertaining. So yeah, well you.
Speaker 2: 36:42
This is a good take on the other side of the spectrum that your brain works on Bullshit well.
Speaker 1: 36:50
Thank you so much, uncle Sawyer, for sitting in, because you're welcome. Kyler bailed on us.
Speaker 2: 36:54
You're welcome.
Speaker 1: 36:55
And thank you guys for listening. I hope you guys come back Um week after next to hear the next episode and if you have any questions, comments, concern. If you just want to let me know what you think, which side of the fence you land on. Do you think it was Rogers, do you think it was little Dan Martin, or do you think it was Dan Martin with someone else or what? What is your opinion? Just let me know. The email will be linked in the show notes below Send law podcast at gmod gmailcom. And. I have had a really rough time talking tonight so I hope this wasn't hard to listen to oh, it's hard to listen to when I'm not talking. Thank you guys, so much, take care out there.
Speaker 2: 37:32
Also, don't be too harsh on her. I probably won't be on another one unless she begs real, real good Bye, deuces
