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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.
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The Cedar Grove -Serial Killer- Nathaniel Robert Code, Jr. - Part 2
The gruesome murders of Little Joe, Eric, and the grandfather of “Junior” Code, William provide a chilling glimpse into Code's methods. Little Joe and Eric met their end swiftly and methodically, while William's murder suggested a personal vendetta with its brutal excess. Was there a connection between the victims and their killer? The lack of forced entry and the disappearance of cash and a small pistol hint that they indeed knew Nathaniel Code Jr. And why did he brazenly appear at the crime scene? These are just some of the chilling questions we tackle.
Our journey doesn’t stop at the crimes themselves; we delve into the frustrating and intricate legal proceedings that followed. From his initial arrest to the contentious trial and eventual death sentence, we explore how the justice system dealt with such a heinous criminal. Despite extensive appeals and legal battles, Code's conviction and death sentence were upheld, underscoring the relentless quest for justice by the victims' families. Tune in for an in-depth examination of Nathaniel Code Jr.'s dark legacy and the enduring impacts on all those touched by his crimes.
Sources:
>>YouTube Video of Family Statement to Death Penalty Panel
Article with video link for panel statement
>> Caddo Parish DA Speaking on Lengthy Death Sentences Awaiting Execution
Murderpedia Article on Code
Serial Killer Database - Cedar Grove Killer
EXCELLENT Timeline with Pictures!
August 14, 2015 Town Talk Article
VineLink Inmate Search Results
Code’s Supreme Court Appeal
Auction of Code’s Inmate Letters Website
This has been an elfaudio production.
Thanks for listening & Take care out there!
All🎶created by: Uncle Sawyer
Additional trigger warnings include murder of children and some sexual assault.
Speaker 1:On August 6, 1987, law enforcement agencies in Caddo Parish had just arrested one of the most disturbing serial killers to ever hit Louisiana, at least up to that point. Come with us as we follow the gruesome trail left by Nathaniel Code Jr, who had left death and destruction in his wake for over three years, between 1984 and 1987. Join us as we unravel the distinct signature created by a volatile killer, and then hang on as we inspect the crime scenes together and discuss just how a predator becomes such a disturbed individual. Is it genetics, his upbringing or both? Today on Sin Law, episode 28, part two the Shreveport serial killer. Hey, how are you doing this week? I hope you're not too mad at me for leaving you hanging last week but as promised, here's part two. It jumps right back in because all I did was split that sucker in half. So I hope you enjoy the rest of the episode. Let me know what you think. Thanks, so I don't want anybody to be kind of like fumbling around in the dark here. Last week we got all the way up to his second set of official murders. There I usually refer to him as the Chaney murders. There was the family of four that were murdered and then the two youngest girls were left alive. And we're picking right back up immediately after the murders where we're about to find out that Code was again standing outside in the crowd talking about those murders. Okay, and it was also noted that he was outside in the crowd of onlookers as the scene was being investigated and so forth.
Speaker 1:Things go further on, from July 19th 85 to February 21st of 86. Yeah, there was another homicide of a 54 year old, johnny B Jenkins. His sister found his body at about 1030 on the 21st of February and he had been dead two or three weeks when he was found. So he could have been killed as early as January of 86. He said, or the report said, that he had been stabbed multiple times and again he was. Code was suspected but never charged. Right before his body was found in February, february 3rd, remember, code married Verameh. They moved into the house a couple blocks from the Cedar Grove neighborhood, the Johnny B Jenkins homicide. His body was found on the 21st.
Speaker 1:The next one that is linked but not proven was the Jake Mills homicide. He's a six-year-old man. He was found lying on the floor of his home and he may have known his attacker and he had been stabbed multiple times as well. Again, suspect, never charged. So, minus the Jake Mills, johnny B Jenkins and Monica Renee Barnum and Wes Burke, so you've got one, two, three, four possible others Outside of those four, if you don't count those, we already have deborah ford, billy joe harris and vivian colbert cheney, jerry colbert and carletha colbert, and then deborah and ford. So you have those five. That all occurred before 1986, before he was married to his wife. If you count the other ones that weren't ever charged, he was never charged. He was always just a suspect and a person of interest, but he was never charged. You add those four to those five, that would give you nine already. But as it stands the official record is five.
Speaker 1:Up to that point, every serial killer, all of the ones we've covered, even they all have a certain point, when things start to unravel, when things start to come to a fever pitch. You know that is their tipping point July 85, 86, as far as we know, he got married, he moved into his house Nothing big or crazy in the year of 86 that we are aware of, unless you want to count the other two murders they say happened in 86. But we don't know for sure. He was never charged. And these murders, up to this point, especially in Louisiana, in Shreveport, there was an assistant police chief that described them as like nothing he'd ever seen. He'd never seen anything more vicious in 25 years of being a police officer filer, who said that they were that Deborah Ann Ford and the Carletha Colbert murders. They were strikingly similar in so much as they were manipulative. They had a showy kind of I've got the control over you and a strong sense of domination over and control of the victims. Strong sense of domination over and control of the victims.
Speaker 1:Now, from what I hear and from what I've read, the bodies in these were similarly posed, so similarly posed that you could have put one next to the other and they would have been nearly not entirely, but nearly identical, which is bananas to me. But again, we're talking about a distinctive signature serial killer. So a serial killer in and of itself is crazy. And then they have the things that they do. Most of the time there's some kind of MO, but in a signature they can't help but do the same thing.
Speaker 1:Now some people say that because of the differences in between the two, that they may or may not have been the same person. Because they say, well, he didn't. Um, he brought the gag with him the second time, because the first murder, with Deborah, he used clothing from the home and the second one he brought the duct tape with him. So they're saying, oh, because that that's then that's obviously different, that may not be the same one. Um, no, that's, that's a learning from your mistakes type thing, making sure you come prepared, which is exactly what he did. He obviously prepared and planned all of these things out in his mind ahead of time, which is also why he brought the gun to the second set, because that was used to control the victims. He knew he was going to have a harder time, especially being one against however many, and obviously they had to have the fear put in them to be able to keep them under control, which was a but I mean like and that gave him an extra added, heightened element of his need to control.
Speaker 1:It came after his tipping point, so I was talking about that earlier. It starts to go downhill. Really easy to see where code started to take that unraveling. He pulled that thread right. 17 days after the murders of the cheney household he struck again, but this time he made the number one rule that all serial killers are supposed to live by or what, what I would assume they do you can't kill someone connected to you or close to you. You can't make that link for the investigators right, you've got to keep them impersonal. Well, he screwed the pooch on that one On August 5th 1987. And this is really sad.
Speaker 1:Code went to his grandfather's house and because obviously he was known in that household, the only really crappy part is that his grandfather probably wouldn't have let him in because there were many witnesses who testified later that you know he had tried to cut ties with code the grandfather had because he was scared of him. Um, because of the many times that you know things have happened before he, he had been known to do drugs and things of that nature and he just wasn't very reliable. And also he often came to his grandfather because, I mean, his grandfather helped raise him, him and his great aunt, and they generally had a rocky relationship. Like after all of his other family members died, the grandfather was the last one that he really wanted to go be with, but he didn't have much else family and he would go and ask his grandfather William T Code, he would ask him for money. Grandfather, william T Code, he would ask him for money.
Speaker 1:He also lived in Shreveport and on August 4th, william, he had been working in his yard with a couple of uh, a friend of his had two grandsons and they had come over to help him with the yard. They did it a lot. They I mean like they would come over and help him with the yard and then sleep over and then like go home the next. Like that's how close this, this bunch were. They had last been seen out in the yard at about 8 pm and that was when the grandparent of the two boys had given permission to the boys to spend the night over the phone. Now, the next morning she was supposed they were supposed to come home, home because they were supposed to go do stuff. They had plans that evening and this is how bad it had gotten for for William T Code, the 73 year old grandfather of Nathaniel Code, it had gotten so bad that he always kept his doors locked and he had steel burglar bars on his windows and doors because he was that concerned about someone breaking in, or possibly his grandson breaking in.
Speaker 1:So when Miss Williams realized that it was getting later in the morning and then the boys hadn't shown back up. She went to go by the house to see what was going on. There was no sign of forced entry. Everything was locked up tight tight and even though nobody was answering her knocking and yelling, she could hear music playing. It was later discovered there was a television on and, unfortunately for her, through the window she could see a bound foot. So she knew that there was something wrong.
Speaker 1:The night before, like I said, they had been working in the yard and the two boys one was 8-year-old Eric Williams, the other one was 12-year-old, joe Robinson, fun-loving, sweet boys helping out their friend of the family, you know, just doing what 8 and 12-year-olds do and 12 year olds do. And later, based on the discovery of the bodies, miss williams, she obviously she went back home, called the police again. No cell phone, she had to go to a landline. She returned with her brother, niece and granddaughter to the house before the cops ever got there and they used her key to open the burglar bars on one of the windows and miss williams and her brother discovered the bodies of the two boys and mr william, and again, the bodies had been in separate rooms, each victim in a different part of the house.
Speaker 1:Little joe, who was 12, he was found lying face down on the living room couch. He had been struck in the head and they say that it was hard enough to like daze him, so it was a good hit, but it wasn't a death blow. So they know that he didn't die instantly from that. He had bruises that were on his like shoulders, beneath his skin and over both of his collarbones, so it was almost like somebody had pushed pressure down on his like shoulders, uh, beneath the skin and over both of his collarbones. So it was almost like somebody had pushed pressure down on his upper, the upper part of his body, or like trying to hold him down, maybe. And his ankles were tied together with white plastic cord and again each of them were tied with a gap between like the handcuffs and that had been used to go back up to his hands, behind his back, one wrist and the other. And then there was a loose length of cord that was around his neck, that held a gag in his mouth and that had been doubled and used to strangle him.
Speaker 1:The boy Joe, joe had been found in nothing but his underwear and that was the same for Eric as well. They had on underwear again inside out. And when they found eric, who was eight, he was face down between two twin beds in the small bedroom and he it looked like he had been dragged from one of the beds and there was a plastic rope that held a gag that was around his neck and his hands had been tied, identically to how Joe was tied. And then the killer took electrical cord as an extra because he didn't have enough of the other one to finish tying up the ankles, and then he used another piece of electrical cord to strangle him and there was no sign of a struggle and, like I said, he was only wearing a pair of underwear. So the two boys were murdered in about the same fashion as the other victims.
Speaker 1:Yes, it was brutal, yes, they had been bound, yes, they had been strangled, and that's all personal as it is, but all very similar. There was no overkill. Once they were dead, they were dead. There wasn't a whole lot of other pieces to that. It didn't show any like emotion or personal. The reason I say that is because that's completely different when we come to William the 73-year-old 74, 73, 74. I've got different reports, but either way, well into his 70s he was found face down in bed wearing his nightclothes. He was found exactly the same, with electrical cord and the tele. There was a telephone cord that was used to hold a gag in place around his neck.
Speaker 1:Now his autopsy showed something starkly just different, completely different from all the other victims of nathaniel coke. So so when McCormick did this autopsy, he found that there was initially a very heavy blow to the side of his head that in and of itself could have caused death all by itself. He had been beaten so severely about the head with bare hands, with fists. It wasn't, it was obviously blunt force trauma, but there was so much brain hemorrhaging Again that alone could have killed him. He had been stabbed 13 times.
Speaker 1:He had, according to this crime scene evidence, he had rolled side to side, back and forth, from back to front and been stabbed repeatedly. And he couldn't have done this on his own, he had to have been manually moved. So Code was rolling him over, stabbing him, rolling him back over, stabbing him again. He was stabbed five times in the chest, seven times in the back and there was one stab wound to his right upper arm that severed a major artery. There was no sign of a struggle, none.
Speaker 1:So he said, obviously, mccormick, he said obviously this is the same guy who killed all the other people. He said that William Code, the grandfather he, died from the overall cumulative. He couldn't say for sure which one specifically killed him, but the overall effect, the blood loss, the severe beating, the brain hemorrhaging, all of it combined is his cause of death. There was also, because of the amount of beating and because of the brutal viciousness of the attack, there was medium velocity blood spatter found on one of the walls in his bedroom where he was killed, right. So McCormick later testified that same work of the signature, the signature serial killer, but the difference here was that there was a personal, emotional, rage-type incentive for the killing of William and also that there was no sign of forced entry. All the other cases he'd had to pry the window open, he's had to pull the screen off, he's had to something, but not here.
Speaker 1:So it was probably someone that these people knew and that the victims themselves were probably found the way that they were probably murdered, the way that they were found. So it would have been Joe. As soon as he opened the door he was hit over the head, gag, tied, strangled. Williams in the front bedroom was probably surprised as he was sleeping in the twin bedroom bed. Twin bed bedroom, drug out of bed surprised Tide killed. He said that the focus was a William code and he said that there were the overkill and the beating repeatedly over the head and it showed the emotional relationship between the victim and the murderer. Also, again, just like in the Chaney homicides, no money was found in the residence, although William Coe did cash checks totaling about a grand the day before, william Co did cash checks totaling about a grand the day before, and they also had a small pistol that was missing. There was a set of keys and something else, but they found a knife and a set of keys in a storm drain that was like 600 feet from the residence right, and the knife that was found in the storm drain was similar to the set that was in william's kitchen and the key fit the door.
Speaker 1:So once they get all that and they have a scene processed, guess who walks up to talk to the officers? Yeah, mr code. Nathaniel code Jr walks up and says hey, I'm the grandson. I, you know, I'm here to help, you know whatever. So they decided to take him in. But before they do that they talked to some other witnesses.
Speaker 1:There was a neighbor who testified that he saw Nathaniel Code Jr exit the house sometime after 8 pm the night of the murders and he said he saw him shut the door and then the iron bars and check to make sure they were locked. Then he walked out to a vehicle. He said that he saw co-drive down the street. He stopped to say hello through the car window and he introduced the female passenger in the car as his new wife. Then the two drove off. John uh the neighbor. He thought the situation was weird because mr william the grandfather always walked guests to the door to make sure that the bars were locked and he knew that William would never have let Nathaniel in the house because they had had kind of a falling out because he had asked to borrow money from him. And he said no, all of these things pointed to why was he there? Why did he not get followed by his grandpa to lock the door, make sure the bars were locked behind them? So all these things are kind of stacking up. Okay.
Speaker 1:So, like I said, after the bodies were found he code actually approached the officers introduced himself. As the grandson said, he had received a call the night before. This was after he got into his interrogation. He said he received a call the night before from his grandpa at about like 10, 30, 11 and his grandpa had asked him to come to the house complaining because there were people hanging out around the house and he didn't want him there. So he said that he went over to the house at like 2 am on the morning of August 5th and he said that his grandpa let him in the house. He checked the house, the area and then he left on his bike. He said he returned once again to make sure that nobody was outside and then he rode his bike home.
Speaker 1:And because he went down and agreed to give a statement because you know, at this point the police are like duh he's the last person to see his grandfather alive they got very suspicious because, like I said, they'd already been suspicious of him for the other murders as well. They just had no proof they get him to come down to the station and he further goes into detail about stating he touched certain things and he lists them off. He touched the vacuum, the fan, the humidifier, a phone phone all the night before and shocker, no, shocker. Those are all of the items from which the cords were used to bind the victims. Which is odd, because if you're coming to check for people hanging out outside the house, why would you be touching the vacuum, the fan and the humidifier, the phone maybe you could get away with. But all the other stuff Come on and eventually, I guess because they had such a good rapport Code, agreed to give them his clothes and the shoes that he had worn the day before and he gave them fingerprints, palm prints, all that good stuff and they matched the Chaney homicide. So at that point he's booked, he's questioned and arrested for the Chaney homicides. He later is informed that the shoes that he gave to the lab for the police office, the crime lab, had located medium velocity blood spatter, exactly like, was in the bedroom of his father or grandfather. They couldn't prove whose blood it was because they just didn't have enough and at that time they were lucky that they were doing anything and other than like being able to tell it was human. So later they got consent from vera to search the residence and they see several cut electrical cords and also because he was in construction and plumbing and all that stuff. He had professional grade duct tape To kind of tie it all together.
Speaker 1:They think that the majority of the reason for the murder of William was because Nathaniel Code was upset because his grandfather had refused to loan him any money. And there was multiple people, multiple witnesses, that testified to Code asking for a loan just prior to the murders. And he'd even gone so far as to approach narcotics officers in Shreveport and offered his service as a CI, a confidential informant, because he knew of people that were dealing drugs and he needed to pay one of them $100. Yeah, something is obviously not connecting in his mind, because that's not something. A normal logical progression thinker, I don't know how to say that, but like, in your right mind, you would not go up to a narc and be like, hey, I owe this drug dealer $100. I'll be a CI if you'll help me pay him back. It just that sounded all kinds of crazy to me. It would stand to reason that he wouldn't have any money to his name, right?
Speaker 1:Well, another witness, a cousin named Beatrice Holmes, said she got a call from Nathaniel Cote Jr the day the bodies were found and he invited her to come to his house. The two them shared a gram of cocaine, which coach supplied. Then they went to the liquor store where the code purchased beer and then on the way home he stopped and purchased another gram of cocaine. They were shooting cocaine when they were interrupted by a phone call informing them of their grandpa's death and her I don't't know uncle, whatever he is and at that point they had the witness, the cousin. She testified that a gram of cocaine sold for about $150 at the time. So he had $300 plus enough money for beer. Where do you get that money If he was just asking, immediately prior to grandpa dying, for a loan? But he had 300 to spend on cocaine. Maybe that's why he had to spend the 300, maybe that's why he wanted the loan, who knows? On august 6th 1987 he was arrested for the cheney homicides because, remember, the palm prints match the ones that were found at the scene of that homicide scene. So he's been named in eight other homicides, including the killing of his grandfather and the two sweet boys.
Speaker 1:Now nothing about this is going to be satisfying. I apologize in advance. Please forgive me. This is where it starts to get a little infuriating. So initially, when they start, they do the indictments. The grand jury indicts code for initially they do the five first five victims that they can confidently tie him to. So that's Deborah Ford and the Chaney Colbert Harris murders, right? So that's five total victims. And because of the way that the dockets were worded I guess they decided to sever the Ford murder, deborah Ford's murder, from the other four. Okay, reasons probably able to explain, but most of it just comes down to the fact that they had the majority of the evidence that they had was substantial and they were the most confident in those four murders in that one day that one act. Okay. So he was indicted first degree murder all four. So he had four charges of first degree murder.
Speaker 1:For the Cheney homicides Jury selection began on September 1990, which is actually pretty quick, I would say, because the majority of the stuff that we do in Louisiana these days it seems like it takes two to three years just to get to a point of doing a trial and then jury selection gets delayed at least twice. So with the code trial it went from September 17th to October 6th. So 12 days, is that right? 13? No, 13 and 6 would be 19 days. So three weeks give or take, with weekends and they find him guilty of the quadruple homicide of Vivian, billy, joe, jerry and Carlita. Now he's also been charged with killing Deborah Fordah, ford william code, joe robinson and eric williams, but he's not prosecuted for those. And on october 9th three days, because that's standard and we've talked about this before they have to have a cooling off period for the jury in death penalty cases because they have to give them time to simmer down from the guilty verdict and then then they have to do like another trial, mock trial type situation where now they can introduce different evidence.
Speaker 1:But the interesting thing about this one was they were allowed, because of the specific type of killing, because of the modus operandi, the specific and distinctive signature that he left at all these crime scenes, to be able to show the proclivity or the majority reasoning, a belief to be that these had all been committed by the same person. They had to get special permission to actually allow evidence of other crimes that had not been adjudicated, which simply means he had not been found guilty or not guilty of those crimes yet. But they were allowed to talk about them at the trial, which is usually a big no, no, no, no, no, because you're only supposed to be tried on your guilt or innocence based on the crime that you're being charged with, not other crimes that you have not been proven to have committed yet. They made a lot of a big deal about this and it went on forever and ever, and that was the major assignment of error that they pled in his appeal was that they used the evidence of other crimes in both the guilt and sentencing, because you can use it majority of the time. You can use it in the sentencing phase when they decided if it's death or life, but in the guilt phase you're not supposed to do it unless you have a really good reason, and it had to have have. Basically, it has to be independently relevant, so it couldn't just be oh well, he probably did this too. It has to have relevance and stand on its own in its revelance and it has to outweigh the damage it could do in creating a bias in the jury.
Speaker 1:I know that sounds like a lot, but basically the law says that the juror could get confused and when there are other issues that are introduced, they may or may not be able to differentiate right. So exceptions to this rule is when they use other crimes for purposes other than to show the character of the defendant. So, basically, you can't say, oh, look, how bad of a guy he is because he did this. It's oh look, this is the exact same ligature knot he used in this one, this one and this one. So you have eight people tied up in the exact same way. You're not saying, oh look, how bad of a guy he is. You're saying look at the exact same knot he ties every time. If he did this one, then I mean, obviously the person who tied that knot had to have tied this knot, and that's the difference. They are saying that it's independently relevant, that the evidence used from the other crimes, even though he hadn't been fully adjudicated. It's relevant because it doesn't just say, oh, he's such a bad guy, he did all these bad things. It shows his distinct signature and that was the major difference, meaning his appeal got overturned eventually.
Speaker 1:However, let's get back to the jury deciding whether or not he was guilty. What do you guys think? Oh, yeah, they let him off. I'm kidding, that would be awful. No, they found him guilty of four charges of first degree murder, like I said already, but he was also sentenced to death. Yeah, death, death and death. So that happens, and this is where it's going to get really upsetting. He was found guilty on October 6th. On October 9th he got the death penalty. He was formally sentenced to death on. December 28th.
Speaker 1:Now they waited that long for the formal sentencing because in a death penalty case you get an automatic post-conviction review and a motion for a new trial and that has to go through all of the places places. It has to go all the way up and down and then it takes a lot of time. So the very end of 1990, december 28th 1990, he was formally sentenced to death after his acquittal and motion for a new trial were denied and the caddo judge, gail k ham Hamilton, sentenced him to death. That was December 28th 1991, 990. Three years later, december 2nd, the Supreme Court automatically they review all death penalty cases. We've talked about this. They affirm his sentence, his guilt and his death sentence. August 8th of 94, so nine months later, a judge signed a death warrant for the execution of Nathaniel Code. Because apparently once you get sentenced to death this is and I think this is why people wait sit so long on death row. Now there's a lot of a lot of reasoning for this. And what happens when you are sentenced to death? Either by a jury or it can only be by jury, otherwise you get life. However, the way this works is you're sentenced to death, it automatically goes to the supreme court. If that's affirmed, the guilt and the sentence, then it's turned over to the district court. This is in louisiana only, so every state's different and when it goes back to the district court, the district court has to sign the execution warrant, which then starts the ball rolling in the process of execution.
Speaker 1:Okay, now Louisiana has been on kind of a hiatus. It hasn't really been um, what's the word I'm looking for? It hasn't been stayed or there hasn't been like a memororium or however. You say that. Oh my gosh, I'm sucking today. Anyway, my point being is that they haven't really said we're not going to do them, but basically they've said we don't have the drugs to do them because lethal injection up until this year and our new governor, up until this year we could only do, we could only carry out death sentences by lethal injection. However, we now have a Republican sitting as our governor, as Mr Jeff Landry has officially signed in. It was done, it's a done deal.
Speaker 1:There are now two other methods of execution. Anybody guess, any guesses? One of them is, well, still, lethal injection, obviously, but now and keep in mind, it's been 13 years, I think, since the last person was executed. However, now they're adding the nitrogen gas, the suffocation method basically. And also they're bringing back Olsparky, that's right, electrocution. So they're saying that and this bill has been signed, it has been passed, it is now an act of the Louisiana Criminal Court of Procedures. Now we can kill them by lethal injection, nitrogen suffocation or the electric chair. I am surprised they didn't go with. Oh my god, what state was that here recently? They now have, or they they still. I don't even know if they ever took it off, but firing squad you can choose to be killed by a firing squad. I'll have to look that up and put it on my tiktok or something but, yeah, still think so.
Speaker 1:Apparently none of that starts going, though, until the judge from the district court where they were initially found guilty and sentenced, and all of the other appeals and everything else. All of that time has run out. They've exhausted all of those appeals. They've run out of time for whatever. Once he signs that execution, everybody else gets made aware. Then they have a date, that's set and then that counts down and that gets that whole ball rolling. Now, interestingly, code actually sued I believe it was the warden or someone of the prison because some sort of procedural failure to make someone aware, because you have a whole laundry list of people that have to be given a copy of the lethal injection procedure for execution. If you don't do that, it can be a big deal for execution. If you don't do that, it can be a big deal. And apparently he tried to make it a big deal and nothing came of it. He was still sentenced to death. All of his appeals none of them were any good. I mean everything from the time he was arrested. Basically, he never got another break, I guess you could say Because for a long time there I say a long time, it was from 84 to 87 that he pretty much got away with it and if he hadn't, like, stepped in and introduced himself into the murder of his grandfather I mean eventually, I'm sure, because there were just too many advances in technology and things like that that eventually it would have happened. But it might have taken a little bit longer. He may have been able to abscond from justice and got and lived, you know, like the Golden State Killer that lived an entire lifetime and now was just now starting to serve time for the murders he committed, the atrocities that he committed. So 1990, december 1990, is when he was actually convicted.
Speaker 1:Here's where you're gonna hate me. He's still alive, he's still on death row. They are still arguing. This man has been on death row two years longer than I've been alive. Yeah, almost 40 years almost. And and the part that gets me is that he's had an execution warrant signed three different times, not once, not twice. Three separate times, separate times. That's how many times he's had a warrant signed for by the judge saying let's get this guy out of here. And then what happens? Well, I'm gonna tell you a couple times.
Speaker 1:It's been a stay by the governor or something along those lines. It's's been various reasons, whether it be the governor, or because technically, by law, the governor doesn't have to have permission from the probation and parole board. He doesn't have permission from them to stay in execution. He has to have permission to grant clemency or to commute, but he does not have to have permission to extend clemency or to commute, but he does not have to have permission to extend the time a little bit. So basically what it comes down to is that you know he's he's had some time and he's gotten the ability.
Speaker 1:Like I said, he's, he's had three different ones signed, but his first one was initially signed, so he was affirmed. His life sentence was affirmed December 2nd 93. Nine months or so later, in August of 94, they signed his first death warrant. Okay, but not even before the end of the month. 17 days later it was recalled. And then in February of 95, they signed another one.
Speaker 1:No execution takes place. Now I did read the law on this one Nothing happens if they don't do it. By the time they say to, nothing happens, it, just it invalidates it and they have to start over. So that's what happened in this case. They just didn't execute him. So again, february 27th, second death warrant filed no execution. June 19th, 95th, third death warrant filed but even though it was scheduled for july 28th 1985, it didn't happen. So that's three different judges that have signed three different warrants and it still hasn't happened.
Speaker 1:On july 10th of 95 he did uh put in a post-conviction relief petition, um for like a writ of habeas corpus motion for evidentiary hearing, and he filed that himself pro se. And then he filed a motion again in 97 for an extension of time to file additional pleadings for the post-conviction proceeding or petition the supreme court in 1999. So this he had. His first death warrant was signed in 94. This is now 99, and they're still going over a post-conviction relief petition. Apparently, of the 17 claims in that relief petition they took five of them on. The Supreme Court did. And then in 2003, he actually appeared in district court with his attorneys for a hearing of this post-conviction relief and it is the first of at least nine court appearances that he made between 2003 and 2006.
Speaker 1:Finally, in 2008, his post-conviction claims are denied. But that still has to go back to the Supreme Court. They have to uphold that. If it's not upheld then they send it back. They have 365 days to file federal post-conviction appeals. So this is just the state like. This is the state level post-conviction appeals okay If it's denied by the Supreme Court, if they say, if they uphold the decision by the state, that's the end of his state level post-conviction appeals? He has one year to file federal post-conviction appeals.
Speaker 1:That was in 2008. And now 2009,. His appeal was still under review. He's still in Angola and this is 2009,. So five years ago the families at this point are beyond frustrated. The Supreme Court is still reviewing because of course, they'd be busy, it happens. The Supreme Court is still reviewing because of course they'd be busy, it happens. But we're talking about 2009 is when they're talking about the review, and then 2008, the state denied it and it was sent away. So 2008, all the way I know, till 2012, 2012 they have a hearing or a meeting of the Administration of Criminal Justice. They held a panel on the death penalty and this was in March of 2019, march 12th. That has a snippet of it that I completely and utterly borrowed. That's what I'm going to go with Albert Colbert Jr, colbert, the family member of Jerry Colbert, vivian Colbert Chaney, Carlitha Colbert and the two girls he is allowed to speak and give a statement at that hearing and it's powerful.
Speaker 2:Our mother was a strong woman, the one that we needed to lean on, but our mother did not talk too much about the death of her daughter, her son and her grandbaby, but when she did, she always asked this one question why? Why did he do what he did to my children? So I would also like to ask this panel today after so many years, why has nothing been done?
Speaker 1:Why has nothing been done? Excellent question. Now, apparently, according to Jeff Landry and the reason that he signed this new bill is because he's trying to get justice for the families who have been waiting years and years and years, because, as of right now, there are 70 people waiting on Louisiana's death row. But there's a lot of, you know, debate on the death penalty. There always has been, there always will be debate on the death penalty. There always has been, there always will be. But this is one of those things that I feel like it should be let's do it or let's not do it. Let's not just say we're gonna or not, like figure it out one way or the other. I just don't like the people who don't shit or get off the pot. And Louisiana is one of the 27 states where the death penalty still exists, even though it's been 13 years since we executed anybody. The last one was Gerald Bordelon, which we're going to cover him. His was death by lethal injection and he actually waived all of his appeals. And he is the 28th person to die by the execution because of the death penalty. And since it was brought back I think it was a 70 something that they brought it back. Anyway. The reason for that, though, is that oh, I'm sorry, it's 57. They're 57 currently on death row. So the reason they implemented this new way of killing people, but legally, is because, like I said, they couldn't get the drugs because they've had a shortage a national shortage on a lot of different drugs all across the board, so that's where the bill came in, so now they're just waiting, basically, and I don't know what else to tell you on that, honestly.
Speaker 1:Interestingly enough, I think that Nathaniel Coe Jr has sued the state and the prison systems more often than anyone I've ever seen in my life, like in 2015,. He lost the right to his air conditioning, for whatever reason, and he took them to court over that. He's taken them to court over the procedure, like I said, with the paperwork or whatever that didn't get turned in. He's appealed for clemency every time it's been available to do so, never been granted. However, I do want to note since 1976, 82% of Louisiana's death sentences have been overturned by appeals. Serious violations quote that occurred at trial. Most sentences were reduced to life. Some were completely exonerated. Obviously, there is some kind of fundamental inequity that is systematically failing in Louisiana over these death sentences, but this man is a multiple murderer, he is a serial killer. He was convicted and sentenced and I appreciate the checks and the balances, but something's gotta give and if anything happens in the future, I'll be sure to update everybody and I'm going to leave you guys with one last time what the family representative said at that 2012 meeting on the death penalty panel.
Speaker 1:And you guys, I'll leave a source link or a link in the source notes episode notes for that YouTube video that I got that from and you should listen to the whole thing. It's very good, very succinct and not like my hour or so droning on, but it goes over a lot of the different nuances of the case and covers it in a bite-sized version. And I've also got all of the other links that'll be down there and you can look at pictures and things like that that I found and came across. That'll be attached to the website on the blog post there. If you get a minute rate review what's up, you can even text. You can send me a text.
Speaker 1:Some of the platforms that you listen they allow you to click a button down there. It's at the very top of the episode notes, or snow, whatever. It is down there underneath the episode. In the description it says text us now. You click that and you can send us a text. It comes immediately to my phone, no email or nothing. Thank you so much for coming back. I still love you, awesome nerds, thank you. Check us out All of our socials Twitter, x, whatever, or TikTok. Check out the website. If you want to support the show, you can go to Patreon Sin Lawsome. Thank you guys so much. Take care out there.
