Original subtitles

♪ slow, somber music ♪

♪♪♪

[Roxanne] The girls,

I cared for every last one of them.

You know, they call me Mom at my house.

They would say, "Oh, it's safe in here.

No dick-sucking, no pimping, no streetwalking.

It's so good just to be at peace, and all alone."

♪ slow, suspenseful music ♪

♪♪♪

And then they would leave off for about two or three days.

When they would leave,

their hair would be nice, they would be dressed nice.

Go off to the motels

to hustle up more drugs.

They were all young girls.

Very green. They didn't know what they were doing.

They thought it was just, like, a big hustle.

They would find guys with the drugs,

they'd smoke up their drugs, then go to the next guy.

It'd be on like that until they'd just get worn out.

Three days later, coming back all tired

and-and look like a totally different person.

After hearing all of the killings,

I said, "What's really going on?

Why those girls?"

Why not the girl that was the good girl that was walking

down the street or through the park?

♪♪♪

Why them?

[crow cawing]

[engine running]

♪ slow, somber music ♪

♪♪♪

We're on East Racca Road

on the outskirts of Jennings.

This is the part of town where you go to do drugs.

Folks would say, when they talked about a loved one

who was out running around doing drugs, they would say, you know,

"Crystal's out running the roads,"

or "Frankie's out running the roads."

And when they said that, this is exactly

what they were talking about.

This is territory that really only you'd know

if you were in that scene.

On the left here is the spot

where Frankie's trailer used to be.

Frankie had this trailer at the height of the homicides

in the 2007 period.

He'd come out here with women, including some of the victims,

party and do drugs.

♪ pulsing, dramatic music ♪

[lighter clicks]

[interviewer] During the 2000s,

when you were hanging out with Loretta, Kristen,

all these girls, what drugs were you on?

[chuckles]

Every fucking thing I could put in my hand, you know?

I was doing pills, I was doing crack,

I was doing powder, I was doing speed.

And through all those years, you were dealing as well, right?

Yes.

[Teresa] These were women that had drug addictions

and didn't care if they had to have sex for their drugs.

They had sex so they didn't have to pay for the drug.

It was crack.

Everybody was on crack.

Everybody smoking crack, everybody smoking dope.

I mean, that's... it-it was coming and going.

♪ haunting music ♪

[Roxanne] That's all it was about,

sex and drugs.

These girls was always high.

Every week, not just on the weekends, you know.

When you get paid, you party.

Only time I would get a lot of drugs is when I get paid.

I'd go buy me $300 worth of drugs, you know.

This was everyday, all-day drugging.

Where were they getting all this drugs from?

Who was giving these drugs out?

♪ contemplative music ♪

♪♪♪

[Ethan] Jennings sits almost directly on I-10,

and I-10 is a potent conduit,

a kind of artery of vice,

bringing enormous amounts of drugs

from Houston to New Orleans on a daily basis.

Literally, if you, if you were to draw a line

between Houston and New Orleans, Jennings is the...

right in the middle of that.

It just leaves Jennings in a really vulnerable position.

[Campbell] I didn't know that Jennings

had any sort of reputation one way or the other

before I got there.

But everybody seemed to understand

and talk about, almost eagerly, about how much drug traffic

went back and forth and stopped at Jennings.

Small towns by the interstate, you know,

it's like an old port town.

It's just, it's convenient.

♪ haunting music ♪

♪♪♪

[Ethan] When drug busts are made

on I-10 in the Jeff Davis Parish area,

we're talking kilos upon kilos of cocaine

or multiple pounds of marijuana

or thousands of pills. Drug seizures

that would be...

sort of at home in a huge city like Los Angeles or New York

is in a town of 10,000 people.

♪♪♪

[Barb Ann] This town, especially this side,

is infested with fucking drugs.

Like, like, serious.

Meth, heroin,

marijuana, pills.

You name it, you got it.

You can get it from 13-year-old kids.

Truly.

♪♪♪

[Ethan] The enormous amounts of drugs flowing

through Jeff Davis Parish

have an incredibly corrupting influence

on law enforcement.

The temptation to take a piece

of a drug seizure is enormous.

[newswoman] All of this is cocaine.

It's what officers found on one man during a traffic stop.

That amount of cocaine could value anywhere

from three million to $18 million dollars.

[Ethan] You talk to people

and they say, "Sure, you see on the news

the seizure of enormous amounts of drugs,"

but what they say is, "The drugs that you see on the table

don't stay on the table."

Quite a bit of that goes right back out onto the street.

[Cormier] People talk about, you know,

law enforcement involvement in the drug trade.

Just because there's a-a drug problem

doesn't mean that law enforcement is involved.

I don't recall anybody that's ever been arrested

or-or looked into for being a drug dealer

that's in law enforcement.

Can't say that it never happens; it does.

[Ethan] The chief of police during the Jeff Davis 8 era,

Johnny Lassiter, was later indicted

for pilfering the evidence room

for drugs, cash and other items.

♪ dramatic music ♪

♪♪♪

[Sarah] The cops arrest somebody, and if it's not

nothing that they're gonna get caught for,

I believe they'll get put back on the street.

More dope comes from them

than it pr-pretty much does from the dudes on the streets.

Real talk.

People talk.

They want you to sell drugs for them.

You don't sell drugs for them,

they're gonna try to fuck you over any way they can.

If you not working for them, you working with them.

I mean, they've had... they don't have a good track record.

The corruption goes back years ago.

[man] He's pulling you over?

[man 2] Yeah, he's pulling me over.

[host] You are watching an actual traffic stop

along Interstate 10 in Louisiana.

-How you doing, sir? -[man 2] How you doing?

Step out of your vehicle. Step back here for me, please?

[host] But what this officer doesn't realize

is that the car is rigged with Dateline's hidden cameras,

and so is the driver.

In 1997, NBC's Dateline came to town

and did an exposé

of the Jeff Davis Parish Sheriff's Department.

[host] Up and down I-10, our cameras recorded

out-of-state motorists pulled off to the side of the road

and detained.

Dateline had been receiving

an enormous amount of tips and complaints,

where people are saying, "I'm driving on this section of I-10.

I'm getting pulled over and literally robbed

by the sheriff's office."

[host] What's going on here began

as what many thought was a good idea

to help win the drug war.

Police across the country were given a new weapon.

It's called asset forfeiture.

[Ethan] When Ricky Edwards takes office,

there is a big increase

in civil asset forfeiture on I-10.

Civil asset forfeiture

allows law enforcement to take assets

of people who are suspected of,

but not convicted of, a crime.

That in itself opens up

enormous avenues of abuse.

The Dateline team used

a bait car that's set up

to not go above 65 miles per hour.

They send this car down I-10

through Jeff Davis Parish,

and almost instantaneously

the vehicle is pulled over.

They would just invent reasons to stop people.

That's illegal.

[host] Ricky Edwards is the sheriff

-of Jefferson Davis Parish. -Would it surprise you

to know that your deputies pulled us over?

No, it wouldn't surprise me.

I-I don't know, I wasn't there.

If he said you were speeding,

I would have to assume that you were speeding.

Edwards's response is, essentially:

That's not what's happening there.

There's financial incentive

for the officers to pull these people over

and take away money and cars.

There's financial incentive in the war on drugs, yes.

Doesn't that seem odd?

No.

♪ dramatic music ♪

[Ethan] The Dateline NBC episode

gets over 12 million viewers.

Louisiana state officials

find themselves having to respond to the episode

and do damage control.

[newsman] A Dateline report that touched close to home tonight

and raised some questions.

Are the stories true?

[Ethan] But Ricky...

does not give an inch.

Okay, Sheriff, you had a chance to review

the Dateline piece tonight.

What's your take on it?

Do you think that they were accurate?

Uh, I think that they've showed the negative side to everything.

I don't think that they've shown a positive side to anything.

[Scott] The parish's response to the Dateline piece was

to kind of rally back around the department, just kind of...

Their feeling was that we were just kind of unfairly...

hit by it.

[Ethan] It's remarkable.

It did nothing

to change the power structure in Jeff Davis Parish.

Ricky Edwards remained in power

for years later.

And I think...

that response has very profound echoes

in how they responded

to the Jeff Davis 8 case.

[interviewer] Ricky, it's been four years and five months

since Loretta Chaisson died.

Describe the progress that has been made.

Well, uh, unfortunately, I'm not going to get into

the investigative part of it.

But progress has been made by utilizing tons of resources

made available to a small department like ours.

Uh, we don't have an answer yet, and, uh, w-we will continue

to work for the resolution of these homicides.

Let's talk about Ricky a second.

Ricky...

...to me, he wasn't no kind of sheriff at all, I'm sorry.

He didn't do anything.

This town is so corrupt

that it doesn't make any sense.

You want to get away with something?

Go to Jennings.

I'm just gonna call it for what it is.

Crooked.

♪ quiet, suspenseful music ♪

♪♪♪

[Frankie] Jennings is...

the Wild, Wild West.

These motherfuckers...

...want their cut.

I don't give a goddamn if it's...

a parking meter

or a hamburger joint.

They want their cut.

[Ethan] What was Jennings like when you came back here

in 2002, 2003 or so?

[Ethan] What do you mean by that?

[Frankie] I mean...

[interviewer] Let's talk about your history

as a drug dealer in the area.

What you want to know?

[interviewer] What was your relationship

with the police during those years?

My relationship with the police

in them years...

...is about the same as it is

with the police today.

Not worth a fuck.

I didn't trust them,

I didn't like 'em,

and I goddamn sure wasn't gonna give them

some of my money that I fucking worked for.

I had a habit to support, you know?

I wasn't making enough fucking money

to support their habit, too.

[Ethan] Frankie has this enormous rap sheet.

Things that he's been charged with

and has walked away from.

The biggest question that hangs over Frankie is:

how has he been able to skirt

so many allegations against him?

[interviewer] In our research on Frankie,

we've determined that in Jeff Davis Parish alone,

he has been arrested 23 times

with zero convictions.

As law enforcement, our job is to investigate crimes

and arr... make arrests when warranted,

and then we submit information to the D.A.'s office.

If somebody has multiple arrests and no convictions, then...

that'd be a question for the D.A.'s office.

But it's a... that's a large number of arrests,

obviously.

♪ ominous music ♪

♪♪♪

[Sarah] I've always heard that

Frankie works for the damn cops.

Do I believe it? Yeah.

Because he got out of a lot of trouble.

I mean, and especially with these murders.

[Ethan] We know for a fact that Frankie has

cooperated numerous times with the task force.

There's a relationship there in the recordings that you hear

with his interviews with the task force

where it's very buddy-buddy.

[Ethan] It really poses the question

of what is the exact relationship

between Frankie and the task force?

♪ dramatic, percussive music ♪

♪♪♪

In 2009,

the sheriff's office

had learned of an alleged theft ring

in town.

Homes were being broken into.

Weapons were being stolen.

And those weapons were then being moved

to Chad's Pawn Shop

and pawned off there.

There was a raid

on Frankie's mother's home.

Coins, weapons,

cash and other items were taken.

Frankie and his mother were arrested.

There seemed to be

strong evidence against Frankie.

And very quickly

evidence began to disappear.

An internal investigation

was initiated,

and the result of the investigation was that

Paula Guillory, the ex-wife of Terrie Guillory

and a core member of the task force at that point,

had mishandled the evidence.

And Paula Guillory was terminated

from the Jeff Davis Parish Sheriff's Office.

Were you ever given a chance to give your side

or your account of what happened?

[Ethan] What is your account of what happened

to the approximately $4,000 that went missing?

[Ethan] Okay.

[Ethan] So, you were in the evidence room.

[Ethan] Who was the evidence custodian at the time?

Gary?

After the evidence went missing,

the charges against Frankie and his mom disappeared.

This was part of a pattern of cases where

there seemed to be strong evidence against Frankie

and suddenly that evidence was no longer there.

By that point,

there were seven bodies.

And there was about to be eight.

When Necole Guillory's body was found

just off I-10,

the fact that it had come so closely after

a case against Frankie fell apart again

created a wave of anger.

All of the fears, skepticism and cynicism

surrounding law enforcement

all came to fore at once.

♪ slow, dramatic music ♪

♪♪♪

[Frankie grunting softly]

[Ethan] What do you make of the fact

that things happen to cases that involve Frankie Richard

that lead to those cases falling apart

and ultimately lead to him

just sitting on his front porch right now

in South Jennings as a free man?

[Ethan] That's my question, yeah.

[Ethan] You know, as I mentioned earlier,

there were task force witnesses

talking about your ex-husband

being involved in prostitution at the parish jail

and things like that.

[Ethan] Terrie Guillory

comes up repeatedly

in interviews with witnesses

and family members alike.

We know he had deep relationships with these women

that were often sexual in nature.

In the case of Crystal Shay Benoit Zeno,

Terrie was aware

of tattoos in personal areas

that only someone intimate with Crystal

would have known.

[Roxanne] Loretta Chaisson told me

she had an affair with Terrie Guillory.

I don't know how old she was, but she said she was young.

He would come and pick her up

and have sex with her and drop her off.

[Ethan] We know a witness told the task force

that Terrie Guillory was having sex with Loretta

in a jail cell

just weeks before she was murdered.

She knew things about Terrie

that nobody else knew but her and Terrie.

[Ethan] I learned that Terrie also used most

if not all of the women of the Jeff Davis 8

as informants.

[Frankie] I always felt

that the girls

would inform the law

about one thing or another

to either get their ass out of a bind

right then and there

or for future references.

♪ quiet, dramatic music ♪

♪♪♪

[Ethan] A place like Jennings,

where there's so much drugs and drug use,

has a thriving informant culture.

This is a very informal relationship

with law enforcement where

you may be a drug user yourself,

but you provide information

to the police in exchange for something.

In exchange for the dropping of charges.

Often in exchange for being permitted

to engage in criminal activity.

The informant culture in a small town like Jennings

creates this sense

of a kind of limitless tentacle

of the police state.

I was a confidential informant.

I was a confidential informant

for Danny Semmes,

who was the detective at the time.

I got in trouble selling an ounce of weed.

Danny gave me a choice.

Either I do what he wants me to do,

or he's gonna call welfare and have my kids picked up.

♪♪♪

He wanted me to bust a few people in town.

And I did it.

I busted six people for him.

Then, when I seen just how much trouble I could get in,

I got out of it.

'Cause I got scared.

♪♪♪

It's very dangerous.

Drug dealers don't want you on the streets

if you informing the law what they doing.

♪ slow, dramatic music ♪

[Jessica] All it takes is one person

to say one mistake about you.

You having anything to do with the law enforcement.

You gonna get jumped.

You gonna probably get beat half to death

or you're gonna die.

♪♪♪

[Ethan] Family members and friends

told me that the women of the Jeff Davis 8

would provide a steady flow of information to the police.

♪♪♪

As informants,

the women were squeezed

between law enforcement

and the most dangerous people in South Jennings.

♪♪♪

[Nick] The last time

that I saw Loretta alive was on Mother's Day,

and we had a gathering at my-my aunt's house.

And Loretta had just gotten out of jail after a month,

month and a half, maybe two, something like that.

My aunt asked her why she had gotten out of jail so early,

when she was supposed to be in there for about a year.

She said, "Well, I'm not supposed to tell anyone."

She says, "But I'm-I'm gonna be a witness

against a drug dealer."

So they let her out of jail, and...

she made it for, like, two, three weeks and then she died.

♪♪♪

[Sarah] When Crystal went missing,

I called Terrie Guillory,

and I told him Crystal was dealing drugs

for a-a drug dealer in Jennings.

He said he had already knew that,

that Crystal had done told him what she was doing.

Why would Crystal tell Terrie what she was doing

for this certain person if she wasn't his informant?

Terrie told me

that he had picked Crystal up in Lake Arthur,

and he said he dropped her off in town.

And I s... I was like, "Terrie,

you dropped her off on that side of town,

and, you know, you're a cop.

You know, that's not cool."

And he was like, "Well, it was all right.

Nobody was around."

But, still, somebody's lurking.

Somebody sees something.

It takes just one person to see you get out of a cop car.

Then it's all over town that you're narcing.

♪ slow, suspenseful music ♪

But the cops put 'em out there.

When they're done with 'em and they get what they want,

they throw 'em out there in the streets like... animals.

You know? "We don't need you no more.

We're done." They-they can do whatever they want to you.

[birds chirping]

♪♪♪

[Ethan] Years before

the Jeff Davis 8 murders began happening,

there are other examples

of informant murders in Jeff Davis Parish.

♪♪♪

[Lakesha Myers] My mother's name was Sheila Comeaux.

On February 14th of 1998,

she was found in an abandoned building

down South Main Street in Jennings.

She was found by a man that lived behind the building,

and she was beaten brutally.

♪♪♪

[Ethan] Sheila Comeaux is kin

to both Jessica Kratzer

and Barb Ann Deshotel.

[Barb Ann] I refer to her as my sister-in-law.

And her kids are my nieces and nephews.

Sheila's kids.

[Lakesha] I believe very strongly

that my mom's death is connected

to the disappearances and deaths of these women.

The cases are so related.

They lived the same... she lived the same lifestyle

as these other women and these young women,

you know, these young girls.

It's very much related.

It should be investigated right alongside...

the rest of 'em.

♪♪♪

[Ethan] Comeaux was out

by Fondel's Funeral Home in Jennings

making a drug buy

when it went bad somehow.

[Barb Ann] She had been beaten,

hit with something, beat with something.

And from what I'm understanding,

the only thing that kept her alive at the time

is because it was so cold that it clotted her blood

and it stopped her from bleeding to death.

She had to wear this...

helmet thing on her head

'cause her hea... her head was dented in.

[Ethan] Before she succumbed to her injuries,

Comeaux was hospitalized for about one year.

[Lakesha] Every time she would

start talking about what happened,

they would call the police to come in

so that they could question her about it.

And every time that the detective

that was working her case showed up,

she would stop talking.

She-she wouldn't say anything else.

[interviewer] Was she afraid?

No, I-I do believe she was afraid.

Are people that scared of the authorities here?

Mm, I believe that some of 'em are.

Why? What-what do they hold over them?

[chuckles]

I'm not gonna answer that. [chuckles]

-Uh, that's okay. That's okay. -I'm-I'm sorry. That's...

-That's okay. That's okay. -[clears throat]

♪♪♪

[Ethan] Her family insists

that Sheila Comeaux was an informant

and that she was wired up for this drug buy

by the Jennings Police.

♪♪♪

[Barb Ann] The thing with Sheila

goes back to the police.

Now, the rumor is that she was an informant.

First, she turned informant.

Then, when... then, when she doesn't...

didn't want to...

tell or whatever anymore is when

this happens.

♪♪♪

♪ tense music ♪

♪♪♪

[Ethan] The informant culture in a small town like Jennings

left the women of the Jeff Davis 8 vulnerable.

♪♪♪

As drug users,

they were vulnerable to arrests,

constantly.

They were in and out of the jail regularly.

Terrie Guillory had enormous power over them

in the jail.

They would engage in all sorts

of informal deals with Terrie

to get out of trouble.

♪♪♪

Outside of the jail as well,

he was a go-to man

if they needed help of any kind.

♪♪♪

To be a part of this very informal relationship

with law enforcement,

it's an incredibly precarious place to be.

♪♪♪

[Lorritta LaCoste] My boyfriend Steve,

him and Terrie was always together

at the bars when they would go out.

And Terrie would do

favors for Steve.

Like, Steve would get in trouble.

Say he'd got a DUI.

Got locked up in the parish.

Next day, he was out.

I don't know anybody that goes to jail for a DWI

and gets out the next day,

unless you're an informant and you're helping the police.

♪♪♪

Steve would set up busts for Terrie,

'cause that's what Steve would help him with.

♪ pulsing, dramatic music ♪

[Beth Trahan] My brother Steven

was happy-go-lucky,

fun.

But he liked to party and drink.

♪♪♪

It was Saturday.

I was at my brother-in-law's.

And when my husband and I

got back in the car to come home,

I checked my phone, and I had, like,

20 missed calls

from our son Johnnie.

♪♪♪

So I called Johnnie, and...

Johnnie said,

"Steven's dead."

♪♪♪

[interviewer] Deputy Guillory, if you will,

uh, just identify yourself by name and position, please.

Terrie Guillory. I'm a warden at Jeff Davis Parish Jail.

[interviewer] Okay.

And I just need you to explain

how you were notified of the incident

which occurred in Lake Arthur.

[Terrie] I got a phone call

from Detective Chad Romero.

He advised me that, uh,

Steven Gunter had pointed a weapon

at a police officer in Lake Arthur.

Told him I'd meet him in Lake Arthur.

♪ slow, dramatic music ♪

[Ethan] On June 9, 2007,

Steven Gunter and his partner,

Lorritta LaCoste, had been arguing.

♪♪♪

Lorritta was worried about Steven's drinking.

They had been arguing the day before.

And the argument had kind of stretched into the next day.

The argument spilled out into the street,

and the police were called.

The Lake Arthur Police was first on the scene.

When they arrived,

both Gunter and LaCoste said,

"Everything's okay.

We don't need any help."

Steve told 'em, "I don't want to talk to you.

Nothing happened. Nobody's pressing charges.

Get out my house."

And he shut the door and he locked the door back.

Somehow the incident kept escalating.

More and more police officers were called to the scene.

Terrie Guillory

was called to the scene.

♪♪♪

Terrie really takes control of the scene,

even though he has no background in negotiating

with someone in mental health distress

or negotiating with someone who is armed.

[Terrie] I knew his girlfriend who was there.

She was telling us that he had a twent... .22 rifle.

They asked me if there was a gun in the house.

I said yes, but his gun was nowhere where he could find it,

'cause I hid it when he was gone.

I was told that if I didn't get away,

that I was going to jail.

So I walked to my backyard.

At this point he was in the house alone.

And Steve refused to come out the house.

[Terrie] He just kept saying, "Y'all-y'all go.

Y'all leave, y'all leave." Or "go home."

That's what he kept saying.

[Ethan] Steven is begging the officers,

including Terrie,

to leave him alone.

He just wants to be left alone.

They started shooting tear gas bombs in the...

I mean cannons.

Like cannisters.

And then Terrie entered through the back door.

[Terrie] When I came in, I started shouting, "Steven."

I said, "Steven, this is Terrie."

I said, "Where you at?"

I kept asking, "Where's he at?"

[Ethan] Terrie Guillory claims

Steven raised a weapon at him.

[Terrie] As I was coming out,

he was already standing up,

had the gun pointed straight down at him.

And at that point, they had no choice

but to fire upon him.

[Terrie] He fired a round same time I fired.

I shot him again.

When I shot him, he fell on the couch

hollering, "He shot me! He shot me!" or "I'm hit!"

or something of that nature.

We grabbed him by the waist,

and we drug him out the front door.

♪ suspenseful music ♪

[Ethan] Steven's lifeless body

is placed in the front yard.

It's a very hot

June day in Louisiana,

and Steven's corpse is

left there for hours.

♪ melancholy music ♪

♪♪♪

[Beth] We went to the Lake Arthur Police Department.

And a gentleman, an older gentleman,

he introduced hisself as Richard DuPont, the coroner.

And he said,

"I'm gonna be blunt."

He said, "I'm tired of this shit.

I'm tired of covering up for these people."

♪ haunting music ♪

♪♪♪

[Ethan] After Steven was killed,

there was an autopsy.

When you look at the autopsy,

you see there are

multiple gunshot wounds...

in Steven's hands...

[Lorritta] I seen the autopsy.

He had holes in his wrists.

I believe his hands

was up when they started shooting.

[Ethan] His family says

that it was hard to imagine

Steven's hands wrapped around a weapon.

And if those hands were not around a weapon,

then law enforcement's

entire narrative of the case collapses.

[Beth] All the news reports

had said he shot at police officers,

he hit a police officer with his fire from his .22,

but that's not the true story.

They told us it was actually

their own officer's ricochet that hurt the officer.

And then Mr. DuPont called

and said, "Miss Trahan, I have some information

I was told by the Lake Charles coroner

I could give it to you."

He said, "There was no gun residue

found on your brother's hands."

I said, "What?"

And he's like, "There was no gun residue

found on your brother's hands."

Twenty, 25 minutes later,

Richard DuPont calls us back.

He said,

"The coroner of Lake Charles just called me back

to ask me how much information I gave you off the autopsy,

and I told him,

and he was very upset with me.

He said that they actually didn't test for gun residue

because, since they shot him,

he would have residue all over his whole body,

so there was no reason for him to test the hands even."

"But 20 minutes ago, you told me they did test the hands,

and there was no gun residue on his hands."

That hit me wrong.

♪ haunting music ♪

Our investigator, he wanted to look at the gun hisself,

and when he requested the gun...

it was lost.

It was lost out of the evidence locker.

I find it suspicious.

♪ haunting music ♪

♪♪♪

You feel in your heart something ain't right.

Like your brother is dead

because him and his girlfriend got in an argument?

♪♪♪

My brother knew Crystal.

My brother knew all those girls.

My brother would party with those girls.

I believe my brother knew too much about Terrie.

Steven was his neighbor in Hathaway.

Steven was locked up at his jail all the time.

Steven was his informant.

♪♪♪

[Ethan] In a deposition, under oath,

Terrie admitted that Steven Gunter worked

as an informant for the sheriff's office.

♪♪♪

In that deposition,

there was a lot of interest

in questioning Terrie

regarding his relationship with Gunter.

Questions about the drinking together,

about "Were you in bars together?"

And yet,

perhaps the most important piece of this--

that Steven was an informant for Terrie--

went unexplored.

♪ percussive, jarring music ♪

There was a Louisiana State Police investigation.

The police concluded

that Terrie Guillory's use of force in that case

was reasonable and justified.

It was also looked at by a grand jury.

But the grand jury declined

to bring an indictment

against Terrie Guillory.

♪ dramatic music ♪

[Beth] I hope to get justice for my brother,

to get justice for the girls.

God don't sleep.

You may not get it in this life,

but you may get it in your next one.

You reap what you sow in the end.

♪♪♪

[Ethan] In the earliest stages

of my reporting on this case,

I pulled every incident report

or criminal case

related to both the Jeff Davis 8

and any of their friends, relatives, associates.

♪ soft, somber music ♪

♪♪♪

[Ethan] Very quickly I began to see

a specific address pop up

on Highway 26.

Right off of I-10.

I just ran a basic search on the address and found

that it was a shuttered motel

called the Boudreaux Inn.

And then I spent quite a while

talking to people about the Boudreaux Inn.

And they explained that

in the Jeff Davis 8 era,

the Boudreaux Inn was the place in town

to go for sex and drugs.

[Sarah] I worked at the Boudreaux Inn,

at the café.

It was known as

a cheap motel in town to go have a good time.

You know, if you wanted to get high,

uh, whatever you was looking for was there.

♪ haunting music ♪

Ernestine worked at the Boudreaux Inn.

She was a maid.

Loretta hung out at the Boudreaux.

That was Loretta's spot. That was her spot.

[Roxanne] Loretta Chaisson,

she always knew how to hustle up the drugs.

She would go out at the Boudreaux's Inn

and stuff and come back with it.

If we ran out, she'd go and get some more.

My brother lived next to the Boudreaux Inn.

My brother would get drugs from the Boudreaux Inn.

My brother would party with those girls.

[Frankie] If a female would

want to make some money,

she could go into the bar

at the Boudreaux Inn and...

be able to hustle some money.

Even in the days before Kristen's murder,

Frankie talks about how he took

Kristen and Tracee Chaisson

to the Boudreaux to make some money.

He was deeply involved

and at times ran the sex trade there.

I never forced...

one of them girls to do something

they didn't want to do.

I took them girls off the street

where they was jumping from car to car for ten, $20.

It was convenient

that they had rooms for rent, you know?

I mean, better than going to another bar and hustling a chick

and going out in a car and getting a blow job

or something, you know, in the back seat.

[Ethan] Everybody knew that you went to the front building

to purchase drugs or purchase women.

And then, at that point,

you took the drugs and the women

to the back building

to have sex and use the drugs.

[Letitia] Boudreaux's Inn made a lot of money.

It was $25 a room for three hours.

I can flip those rooms all night long.

Sometimes I had three or four of 'em going at a time.

[Ethan] Frankie Richard used

the Boudreaux Inn

with many of the women of the Jeff Davis 8,

as a kind of ATM for the sex business.

I decided to pull literally every

incident report and every single call for service

to the Boudreaux Inn during the Jeff Davis 8 era.

There were thousands of pages of materials.

[Ethan] Somebody calls

the police because there's

a crack party happening at the Boudreaux Inn.

Frankie Richard and Andrew Newman,

Kristen's father, are in a fight.

Muggy Brown is in there, pulling a fire alarm.

Whitnei is stabbed

in there at one point.

The entire universe

of the Jeff Davis 8 are...

enveloped in this Boudreaux Inn world.

The mountains of police reports raise

enormous questions about

what the Jennings police

or the sheriff's office knew about this place.

[Cormier] Obviously, law enforcement was aware

that the Boudreaux Inn was a location that

people involved in drugs and prostitution were...

were known to-to go to.

As for what connection that had to the murders,

the Jeff Davis 8,

to the degree that those things were connected,

I-I don't... I can't tell you that.

[Ethan] You had poor women

who struggled with substance abuse

engaging in sex work at the Boudreaux Inn,

while at the same time,

these women are being murdered

and having their bodies dumped all around town.

And yet the Boudreaux Inn continued

to be operated unencumbered.

Why?

♪ suspenseful music ♪

[Ethan] Throughout this case,

I was repeatedly warned, you had to be careful

of that shuttered motel called the Boudreaux Inn,

because it was maintained

or operated or owned even

by powerful people.

♪ haunting music ♪

♪♪♪

♪ suspenseful music ♪

♪♪♪