Ethan Brown - Murder in the Bayou: Who Killed the Women Known as the Jeff Davis 8?

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Dedicated to the Jeff Davis 8 and especially to a group of fearless women in Louisiana and elsewhere who have fought selflessly for years to keep this case alive when few cared about it. This project would not exist without you.

Those who commit the murders write the reports.

Ida B. Wells

The Jeff Davis 8

Loretta Chaisson (aka Loretta Chaisson-Lewis): Jeff Davis 8 victim #1, slain in May of 2005.

Ernestine Patterson: Jeff Davis 8 victim #2, slain in June of 2005.

Kristen Lopez (aka Kristen Gary Lopez): Jeff Davis 8 victim #3, slain in early March of 2007; cousin of Jeff Davis 8 victim #6, Brittney Gary.

Whitnei Dubois: Jeff Davis 8 victim #4, slain in May of 2007.

Laconia Muggy Brown: Jeff Davis 8 victim #5, slain in May of 2008.

Crystal Zeno (aka Crystal Shay Benoit Zeno): Jeff Davis 8 victim #6, slain in late August/early September of 2008.

Brittney Gary: Jeff Davis 8 victim #7, slain in November of 2008; cousin of Jeff Davis 8 victim #3, Kristen Gary Lopez.

Necole Guillory: Jeff Davis 8 victim #8, slain in August of 2009.

Suspects

Tracee Chaisson (pronounced SHA-sohn): Longtime associate of Frankie Richard; cousin of Jeff Davis 8 victim Loretta Chaisson; charged as accessory after the fact to second-degree murder in slaying of Jeff Davis 8 victim Kristen Gary Lopez; charges later dropped.

Billy Conner, Sr.: Brother of Frankie Richard, father of Hannah Conner; suspected of assisting Richard in running his drug operation; deceased.

Hannah Conner: Niece of Frankie Richard; charged with second-degree murder in slaying of Kristen Gary Lopez; charges later dropped.

Kenneth Patrick Drake: Forty-four-year-old man from Welsh, Louisiana, who attacked Jeff Davis 8 victim Crystal Benoit Zeno with a metal pipe in the late summer of 2008, just before she was murdered; deceased.

Eugene Dog Ivory: Longtime associate of Frankie Richard; charged in 2007 rape of Elizabeth Clemens; charges later dropped.

Byron Chad Jones: Charged in 2005 killing of Ernestine Patterson, Jeff Davis 8 victim #2; charges later dropped.

Lawrence Nixon: Cousin of Jeff Davis 8 victim Laconia Muggy Brown; charged in 2005 killing of Jeff Davis 8 victim Ernestine Patterson; charges later dropped; charged in 2005 with rape of investigator Kirk Menards daughter, Rosalyn Breaux; charges later dropped.

Frankie Richard (pronounced REE-shard): Former pimp and drug dealer in Jennings; briefly charged in 2007 with the murder of Kristen Gary Lopez, Jeff Davis 8 victim #3; charges were later dropped; charged, along with Eugene Dog Ivory, in 2007 rape of Elizabeth Clemens; charges later dropped.

Law Enforcement

Danny Barry: Former deputy with the Jefferson Davis Parish Sheriffs Office; frequent client of the Jeff Davis 8; died in 2010.

Dallas Cormier (pronounced COR-mee-yay): Jefferson Davis Parish sheriff, 198092; indicted by the feds for using public funds for private purchases; plead guilty to one count of obstruction of justice.

Ramby Cormier: Detective with the Jefferson Davis Parish Sheriffs Office; serves on the Jeff Davis 8 Taskforce; former detective with the Calcasieu Parish Sheriffs Office.

Donald Lucky DeLouche: Former investigator with the VCTF (Violent Crimes Task Force) in Calcasieu Parish during the 1990s; chief of Jennings Police Department from late 1990s to the early 2000s.

Ricky Edwards: Jefferson Davis Parish sheriff, 19922012.

Warren Gary: Former chief investigator/chief of detectives of the Jefferson Davis Parish Sheriffs Office; in 2007 purchased a truck from a female inmate that had allegedly been used to transport the body of Jeff Davis 8 victim Kristen Gary Lopez.

Terrie Guillory: Former warden of the Jefferson Davis Parish jail; also formerly with the Jennings Police Department; currently with Lake Arthur, Louisiana, Police Department.

Mark Ivory: Jailer under former Jefferson Davis Parish warden Terrie Guillory; defendant in a 2007 federal civil rights lawsuit for alleged sexual assault of female inmate Lisa Allen; committed suicide in the fall of 2007.

Phil Karam: Officer with the Jennings Police Department; in February 2000, killed fellow officer Kenneth Guidry and his wife, Christine; during an ensuing standoff, also killed Officer Burt LeBlanc; deceased.

Wayne McElveen: Former sheriff of Calcasieu Parish; son Richard McElveen was implicatedbut never chargedin two murder cases in Calcasieu Parish during the 1990s.

Raymond Mott: Former detective with both the Jennings Police Department and the Lake Arthur Police Department; claims that he was instructed by Terrie Guillory not to arrest drug dealers in town; terminated by Lake Arthur PD after photo emerged of him at KKK rally.

Ivy Woods: Jefferson Davis Parish sheriff since 2012.

Other Victims

Rosalyn Breaux: Daughter of private investigator Kirk Menard, who is investigating Jeff Davis 8 case; in 2005, allegedly lured to home in South Jennings by Jeff Davis 8 victim Laconia Muggy Brown and raped by a group of men, including Lawrence Nixon, Browns cousin, who was briefly charged in the murder of Jeff Davis 8 victim Ernestine Patterson.

Harvey Lee Bird Dog Burleigh: Prescription-pill dealer; his home at 610 Gallup Street in Jennings was raided by law enforcement on April 20, 2005; Leonard Crochet killed during raid; associate of Jeff Davis 8 victim Whitnei Duboiss brother, Mike; stabbed to death in Jennings in the summer of 2007. His murder remains unsolved.

Sheila Comeaux: Informant beaten to death in Jennings in 1998; her murder remains unsolved.

Leonard Crochet: Killed by law enforcement on April 20, 2005, drug raid at 610 Gallup Street in Jennings; murder witnessed by Jeff Davis 8 victim Kristen Gary Lopez.

David Bowlegs Deshotel: Former boyfriend of Jeff Davis 8 victims Brittney Gary and Necole Guillory; his murder in July of 2011 remains unsolved.

Eric Ellender: One-half of Calcasieu Parish couple murdered in 1991.

Pam Ellender: One-half of Calcasieu Parish couple murdered in 1991.

Lacie Fontenot: Twenty-seven-year-old woman from Lake Arthur, Louisiana, found dead by drowning from hypothermia in a ditch in that town on January 31, 2014; dated Alvin Bootsy Lewis, a former boyfriend of Jeff Davis 8 victim Whitnei Duboiss and father of a child with Dubois; associate of longtime Frankie Richard cohort Eugene Dog Ivorys.

Steven Gunter: Lake Arthur, Louisiana, man shot to death by Terrie Guillory of the Jefferson Davis Parish Sheriffs Office on June 9, 2007.

Christopher Prudhomme: Suspect in 1991 killing of Eric and Pam Ellender; found dead in Calcasieu Parish jail weeks later, allegedly by suicide.

Whistle-Blowers

Jesse Ewing: Former detective with the Jennings Police Department who in December of 2007 took statements from two female inmates who claimed that high-ranking members of law enforcementincluding Chief Criminal Investigator Warren Garyconspired with Frankie Richard to destroy physical evidence in the murder of Jeff Davis 8 victim Kristen Gary Lopez.

Nina Ravey: Jail nurse under Jefferson Davis Parish warden Terrie Guillory; in 2007, filed internal reports regarding sexual assaults at the jail by jailer Mark Ivory; then charged with falsifying medical documents; charges later dropped.