Speaker 1: The vicious murder of a Louisiana woman left detectives puzzled.
Speaker 2: She'd been shot five times, stabbed deeply five times, and
Speaker 2: vigorously beaten with an aluminum baseball back.
Speaker 1: The police had a handful of suspects, but there was
Speaker 1: a problem.
Speaker 3: They just couldn't find enough evidence to really convict them.
Speaker 3: You can't charge anybody without evidence. They will just drop
Speaker 3: the case rather than press forward on what they consider
Speaker 3: a weak case.
Speaker 4: So that just terrified everybody.
Speaker 1: Today, we're in Clinton, Louisiana for the conclusion of the Brotherhood.
Speaker 1: I'm Slung Glass and this is American Homicide and Day.
Speaker 5: Warning to our audience.
Speaker 1: This episode contains graphic descriptions of racial violence. Please take
Speaker 1: care while listening. In in early summer morning in two thousand,
Speaker 1: police found Jenora Gillery, stabbed, shot, and beaten to death
Speaker 1: in the bedroom of her Clinton, Louisiana farmhouse.
Speaker 4: No, you have a woman who really had never done
Speaker 4: anything to anybody.
Speaker 1: Chuck Cusmeyer is a former federal agent turned journalist who
Speaker 1: wrote about the murder.
Speaker 4: She was just the nicest person by all accounts.
Speaker 3: I mean, nobody ever said anything bad about her, And
Speaker 3: to have somebody brutally murdered in her own bedroom and
Speaker 3: no suspects. I mean, right there, you got kind of
Speaker 3: the setup for a really bizarre case.
Speaker 1: The forty two year old was a single career woman.
Speaker 1: She lived alone in rural Clinton, Louisiana.
Speaker 3: No one really had any idea who did it, and
Speaker 3: there were some suspects.
Speaker 1: One of those suspects was a bad end Rouge police officer.
Speaker 1: He and Genora were old friends who had reconnected and dated,
Speaker 1: but he kept hounding her to the point where her
Speaker 1: colleague said he was stalking her.
Speaker 3: I mean, he was the best candidate they could find,
Speaker 3: and you know that's who they went after.
Speaker 4: They even polygraphed him.
Speaker 1: After he failed his test. The police got a search warrant,
Speaker 1: but they couldn't find anything that linked the officer to
Speaker 1: the murder.
Speaker 3: The case sort of went cold after they exhausted all
Speaker 3: their time on this particular police officer, but the detectives
Speaker 3: kept working on it.
Speaker 1: It was a real struggle to find anything that would
Speaker 1: link a suspect to the crime, and it dragged on
Speaker 1: for months.
Speaker 5: About a year.
Speaker 1: After the murder, detectives got a tip that led them
Speaker 1: to the house across the street from Genora, where her
Speaker 1: good friends and neighbors, the Skippers lived. Those were the
Speaker 1: only two homes on that dead end street.
Speaker 3: It's down at the end of this gravel road. It's
Speaker 3: an isolated area and there are no street lights, and
Speaker 3: the property directly across the street is where the Skippers
Speaker 3: lived in their trailer.
Speaker 1: The Skippers were the first people detectives had questioned because
Speaker 1: they noticed some scratches on Philip and has steps on
Speaker 1: John Balllyot's arms. The two passed a polygraph and were cleared.
Speaker 1: A year later, they re emerged as suspects.
Speaker 3: I don't believe they looked at the Skippers as suspects
Speaker 3: for a long time.
Speaker 4: I mean they were out at the crime scene.
Speaker 3: In fact, once the crime scene the Sheriff's office released
Speaker 3: the crime scene, it's really up to the family to
Speaker 3: clean up the house.
Speaker 4: They actually hired the Skippers.
Speaker 3: And John Balllyo to clean up the crime scene, so
Speaker 3: any evidence that might have still been there, anything the
Speaker 3: police may have overlooked, got swept away.
Speaker 5: Well, this is a first for me.
Speaker 1: Potential suspects in the death of Genora were paid to
Speaker 1: clean up the crime scene. In the last episode, we
Speaker 1: learned how John Balllyo told detectives Philip Skipper and his
Speaker 1: brother in law, Johnny Hoyt, belonged to a gang.
Speaker 3: They had this sort of half assed gang they had
Speaker 3: formed called the Brotherhood, and they all had tattoos and
Speaker 3: the only way to earn it was to kill somebody.
Speaker 1: John Balllyo said his initiation into that gang involved watching
Speaker 1: Genora's murder.
Speaker 2: Jenoa and the Skippers had had a good relationship for
Speaker 2: a while. I mean they had ups and dieausend.
Speaker 1: Detective Don McKee learned one of those downs happened a
Speaker 1: few weeks before Genora's death. That's when the two sides
Speaker 1: had an argument over a dog getting loose and attacking
Speaker 1: the Skipper's goat.
Speaker 2: They had had a falling out. Genoora told him to
Speaker 2: quit coming old her place, return the house keys, stay
Speaker 2: off her land. She was going to stay on hers
Speaker 2: and it wouldn't be no more contact.
Speaker 1: We covered this previously, but with the new information given
Speaker 1: by John Ballio, this falling out holds a different weight.
Speaker 1: On top of that, the Skippers were beneficiaries of one
Speaker 1: of Genora's life insurance policies. Prosecutors believed that money was
Speaker 1: part of their motive and so did a grand jury.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and one, that grand jury indicted John
Speaker 1: Balliot and Phillips Go, along with Lisa and Johnny Hoyt,
Speaker 1: for the murder of Genora Gillery.
Speaker 2: I think that it was an easy target, farmed right
Speaker 2: across the road. I hate to say it, because she
Speaker 2: was a black lady. I really believe this was a
Speaker 2: fine example and just a hate crime. I mean, they
Speaker 2: they wanted to kill a black person.
Speaker 1: Genora was black, the suspects were white, and all of
Speaker 1: that played into what journalist Chuck Husmeyer learned.
Speaker 3: Philip Skipper and Lisa and Johnny Hoyt hated black people,
Speaker 3: absolutely hated him. That they're raised in this sort of
Speaker 3: post clan culture and they hated black people. So you
Speaker 3: have all these white skinhead type guys. They befriend their
Speaker 3: next door neighbor, who's this black lady who's just ridiculously
Speaker 3: generous to them, and then they turn around kill her,
Speaker 3: you know, and I know, just killer. I mean, they
Speaker 3: slaughter her. And part of the reason that I think
Speaker 3: they found it so easy to kill jano Or Gillery
Speaker 3: was that she was black.
Speaker 1: The crime was absolutely shocking, and prosecutors were seeking the
Speaker 1: death penalty against all four suspects, but with no fingerprints,
Speaker 1: no murder weapon, no DNA, really nothing that connected the
Speaker 1: suspects to the murder. The district attorney got nervous.
Speaker 3: The district attorney he initially charged Johnny, Philip Lisa, and
Speaker 3: John Balllyo with first degree murder. But I don't think
Speaker 3: he thought he could win the case, you know. And
Speaker 3: as a cop and all the cops I know, you know,
Speaker 3: you always want him to just bring it to the jury,
Speaker 3: let the jury decide, you know. But most das don't
Speaker 3: do that.
Speaker 1: Prosecutors asked the judge to break the cases into four
Speaker 1: separate trials, one for each suspect. The judge granted this request.
Speaker 1: In the weeks leading up to the first trial, d
Speaker 1: Shropshire asked the judge for more time to collect evidence,
Speaker 1: but got denied.
Speaker 3: He just didn't feel like he had enough, I guess,
Speaker 3: so he dropped the charges against all of them.
Speaker 1: And despite what the grand jury decided without the proverbial
Speaker 1: smoking gun, the district attorney refused to move forward.
Speaker 3: In my experience in law enforcement, most prosecutors are extremely
Speaker 3: risk avert. They will just drop the case rather than
Speaker 3: press forward on what they consider a weak case.
Speaker 1: The decision left the people of Clinton on edge. Four
Speaker 1: suspected murderers were suddenly back on the streets.
Speaker 5: As for the Guillery family.
Speaker 1: Devastated, Genora's brother in law, Albert, couldn't believe it.
Speaker 6: My daughter said, Daddy do something. So that kept me
Speaker 6: pestering the law enforcement offices, the deputies to see what
Speaker 6: was going on and how it was proceeded.
Speaker 1: That's when things got political. The Guillery case became a
Speaker 1: talking point when the district Attorney, Charles Shropshire, ran for reelection.
Speaker 1: His challenger, a man named Sam Daquilla, made a campaign
Speaker 1: promise to bring justice to Genora.
Speaker 6: Fortunately, the voters recognized that they had a gutlass district
Speaker 6: attorney and they threw him out and a real district
Speaker 6: attorney came in.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and two, Sam d'quilla beat incumbent Charles
Speaker 1: Shropshire by nearly twenty percentage points.
Speaker 6: Sam d'quilla was elected and just he was everything that
Speaker 6: we could have prayed for.
Speaker 1: Sam Daquilla delivered on his promise and got a grand
Speaker 1: jury to again indict Philip Skipper, Johnny and Lisa Hoyt,
Speaker 1: and John Balliot all were charged with first degree murder
Speaker 1: and faced the death penalty.
Speaker 6: We we very happy. There was a lot of relief
Speaker 6: on the part of the famil.
Speaker 1: That relief would be short lived. You may remember from
Speaker 1: the last episode that trace amounts of DNA were found
Speaker 1: under Genor's fingernails. That DNA was sent off to a
Speaker 1: forensic lap and since it was the early days of
Speaker 1: DNA testing, it took forever to compare it to the
Speaker 1: DNA of the four suspects. When the results finally came back,
Speaker 1: prosecutors took another gut punch.
Speaker 7: East Feliciana District Attorney Sam Dquilla says DNA gathered from
Speaker 7: one of the fingernails of murder victim Jenoor Gillery does
Speaker 7: not match any of the suspects in the case.
Speaker 1: Without a positive match, the case against all four suspects
Speaker 1: got exponentially weaker.
Speaker 7: Nonetheless, prosecutors say right now they're proceeding with a capital
Speaker 7: murder trial sometime in June.
Speaker 1: When you think about murder trials, especially trials involving the
Speaker 1: death penalty, you probably don't ever think about the costs involved.
Speaker 1: But for the small town of Clinton, Louisiana, the price
Speaker 1: tag for trying for defendants with capital murder was astronomical.
Speaker 3: There were some budget constraints with first degree murder trials.
Speaker 1: Former federal agent and journalist Chuck Hussmeyer covered the Genora
Speaker 1: Gillery murder trials.
Speaker 4: It involves a lot of extra steps.
Speaker 3: You have to bring in a psychologist, You've got to
Speaker 3: make sure that examine the defendants. There's just a lot
Speaker 3: of expense to a first degree murder case.
Speaker 5: Here's something fascinating.
Speaker 1: Capital punishment cases in Louisiana require the defense to put
Speaker 1: together a mitigation team, usually composed of a psychiatrist, a psychologist,
Speaker 1: and a social worker who analyzed the defendant before, during,
Speaker 1: and after a crime. If a defense and can't afford
Speaker 1: that mitigation team, the state has to pay for it.
Speaker 1: There are also the cost involved with jurors. Louisiana state
Speaker 1: law requires jurors to be sequestered for the duration of
Speaker 1: the trial. That means twelve hotel rooms, three meals a day,
Speaker 1: and around the clock security. And when you're dealing with
Speaker 1: four separate trials, you have to multiply that by four.
Speaker 1: When it's all said and done, these cases would cost
Speaker 1: the state of Louisiana, hundreds of millions of dollars. All
Speaker 1: of that played into wide District Attorney Samtaquilla lowered the
Speaker 1: charges against all four defendants.
Speaker 4: They were all charged with second degree murder.
Speaker 3: And it's an easier and less expensive series of trials
Speaker 3: he would have to go through. It wouldn't bankrupt the parish.
Speaker 3: I mean, I know it seems silly to talk about that,
Speaker 3: but I guess budget constraints are a real problem.
Speaker 1: So instead of the death penalty, each defendant now faced
Speaker 1: life in prison. But the DA wasn't done wheeling and dealing.
Speaker 1: His next move would be one of the most controversial.
Speaker 3: You make a deal with one of them, and in
Speaker 3: this case, the weak link was John Balllyo. He did
Speaker 3: seem as though he may have been one of the
Speaker 3: least culpable of the four, So that seemed like a
Speaker 3: good place to start here, you know, trying to make
Speaker 3: a deal, And that's exactly what the new district attorney did.
Speaker 1: I don't blame the DA. He was relying on the
Speaker 1: DNA under Jennora's fingertips to be his smoking gun. Cutting
Speaker 1: a deal with one of the four suspects was one
Speaker 1: of DA Sandiquilla's final moves if he was going to
Speaker 1: bring justice for the guileries with the blessing of Jennora's family,
Speaker 1: the DA made a deal that came at a cost.
Speaker 1: In exchange for his testimony against the other three suspects,
Speaker 1: the DA offered to charge John Balliot as a juvenile,
Speaker 1: meaning he'd only be incarcerated until his twenty first birthday.
Speaker 1: It was a gutsy decision that could backfire if the
Speaker 1: DA failed to secure convictions of the other three defendants.
Speaker 3: But I understand why the district attorney did it because
Speaker 3: without John Balllyo's testimony, there's just no evidence. So you know,
Speaker 3: he had to make a deal with the devil to
Speaker 3: get some justice for Janore.
Speaker 1: The first to go on trial was Philip Skipper. His
Speaker 1: trial took place in historic downtown Clinton.
Speaker 3: Clinton's kind of centered on a square, the town Square.
Speaker 1: Clinton's Courthouse sits in the middle of that square, and
Speaker 1: the whole area looks like it's frozen in time.
Speaker 3: I think the courthouse is the oldest still functioning courthouse
Speaker 3: in America.
Speaker 1: Built before the Civil War in eighteen forty, the large
Speaker 1: white brick building with Florida ceiling columns takes up a
Speaker 1: city block and looks like something you'd find in Athens, Greece.
Speaker 4: Last time I was there, they didn't have an elevator.
Speaker 3: There was a lady with a handicap and she couldn't
Speaker 3: go up the stairs, so somebody had to literally carry
Speaker 3: her up and down the old flight of wooden steps.
Speaker 3: So it's sort of like stepping back in time when
Speaker 3: you go into Clinton.
Speaker 1: That's why the town is so popular with Hollywood. Its
Speaker 1: downtown looks like an old movie set. The vampire drama
Speaker 1: True Blood as well as The Dukes of Hazzard are
Speaker 1: just two projects that were filmed there, and Hollywood also
Speaker 1: played a role in these cases. At the time and
Speaker 1: even today. Having the most advanced forensics was something many
Speaker 1: jurors came to expect in trials because of what they
Speaker 1: saw on TV shows like CSI.
Speaker 5: They call it the CSI effect.
Speaker 1: As Philip Skipper's trial grew closer, prosecutors were still falling short.
Speaker 3: They weren't able to really find any evidence that linked
Speaker 3: Philip Skipper to the murder.
Speaker 1: Maybe because the Skippers were paid to clean up the
Speaker 1: crime scene. Prosecutors lacked DNA, so they had to rely
Speaker 1: on what they did have that twenty five thousand dollars
Speaker 1: payout from Genora's Life Insure It's policy.
Speaker 3: And in two thousand it was an enormous amount of money.
Speaker 3: But you're talking about two people who had to bum
Speaker 3: money from their neighbor just to buy diapers for their
Speaker 3: baby and were living in an old mobile home, so
Speaker 3: to them it was quite a windfall profit.
Speaker 1: The prosecution also had video evidence of the crime scene
Speaker 1: that detectives took after discovering her body. The footage contained
Speaker 1: no sound, but the gory images spoke volumes.
Speaker 3: It was so horrendous and I was just stunned, really
Speaker 3: and how violent these people were.
Speaker 1: Most importantly, prosecutors had the testimony of John Balliot. His
Speaker 1: eyewitness account was crucial for securing a conviction. John began
Speaker 1: by showing the jury the tattoo located on his back
Speaker 1: that made him part of the brotherhood. Then, in graphic detail,
Speaker 1: he explained how he earned that tattoo. It was testimony
Speaker 1: that Chuck Husmeyer will never forget, and neither did I
Speaker 1: after listening, this is very hard to hear.
Speaker 3: Philip Skipper, Johnny Hoyt, John Balllyo, and Lisa Skipper Hoyt.
Speaker 3: We're all sitting around the trailer getting stoned. About two
Speaker 3: thirty in the morning. Johnny Hoyt asked Baally o, Hey,
Speaker 3: do you want to go kill Jennore Gillery. That's how
Speaker 3: you'll get your tattoo. They walked across the street, mostly barefoot.
Speaker 3: They didn't want to leave shoe impressions.
Speaker 1: Johnny Hoyt's wife, Lisa, knocked on Jenora's door while the
Speaker 1: men hit off to the side.
Speaker 4: Jenore came to the door in her nightgown.
Speaker 3: She has been sound asleep and Lisa asked her for
Speaker 3: some money to buy the baby, meaning Amy and Phillip's
Speaker 3: baby diapers and truder in nature.
Speaker 4: Jennire turned around to.
Speaker 3: Go get them some money, and that's when they pounced
Speaker 3: on her, and John Balllyo said.
Speaker 4: That she didn't go down easily. I mean she was really.
Speaker 3: Fighting them and it's four on one, you know, three
Speaker 3: men and one Johnny Hoick punched in the face first.
Speaker 3: She turned and ran to the phone. There's blood on
Speaker 3: the phone. She tried to pick it up to use it.
Speaker 4: She couldn't.
Speaker 3: She had enough time to hit her again. She reached
Speaker 3: in a drawer to get some kind of a knife.
Speaker 3: They kept attacking her. I mean, they're like rabid dogs,
Speaker 3: all right, they're attacking her. She's running. She went back
Speaker 3: into the house farther. She got into her bedroom, tried
Speaker 3: to lock the door. Naturally, they forced it open. One
Speaker 3: of them picked up a pretty heavy lamp off of
Speaker 3: a nightstand and just cracked it across her head, and
Speaker 3: that's what killed her.
Speaker 1: It's almost unbelievable to think her neighbors and good friends,
Speaker 1: her employees carried out these violent acts. Over the course
Speaker 1: of John Balllyo's testimony, he only admitted to tying up
Speaker 1: Janora's dog, Cleo.
Speaker 3: I've heard a good bit of confessions. I've never heard
Speaker 3: one like that. That was that brugal. I mean, that's
Speaker 3: one of the most brutal crimes I've ever covered in
Speaker 3: my post law enforcement career as a journalist.
Speaker 1: But Philip Skipper's defense attorney promised the jury that he
Speaker 1: would unmask the real killer and pointed the blame at
Speaker 1: the original suspect, the Baton Rouge police officer named Steve.
Speaker 5: Remember him.
Speaker 1: Officer Steve was one of the original suspects who was
Speaker 1: said to be stalking Genora. Steve took the stand and
Speaker 1: immediately denied stalking her. He said he stopped cooperating in
Speaker 1: the investigation because he felt like he was being framed.
Speaker 1: He claimed his polygraph was administered improperly.
Speaker 5: And that's why he failed.
Speaker 1: In a bizarre moment during closing arguments, Philip Skipper's lawyer
Speaker 1: suggested a riddle that pointed to Genera Guillery's real killer.
Speaker 1: There's no way to say this that doesn't sound ridiculous.
Speaker 5: He said.
Speaker 1: Genora took five shots, five blows, and five stab wounds
Speaker 1: five five five. He then casually added that Steve was
Speaker 1: born in May of nineteen fifty five.
Speaker 5: In other words, five five five.
Speaker 4: So that's a bit odd. Yeah, you don't see that
Speaker 4: every day.
Speaker 1: It was a ridiculous argument, and the jury knew it.
Speaker 1: They deliberated for less than an hour and found Philip
Speaker 1: Skipper guilty of second degree murder.
Speaker 4: Philip Skipper got life in prison.
Speaker 1: The judge called Genora's murder brutal, senseless, and gruesome. He
Speaker 1: sentenced Philip to life in prison and said he wished
Speaker 1: he could give him even more than that. At the
Speaker 1: time Johnny Hoyt stood trial, Louisiana law required only ten
Speaker 1: of twelve jurors to find the defendant guilty to secure
Speaker 1: a conviction. That law, by the way, has since been eliminated,
Speaker 1: but at the time, prosecutors played the odds and once again,
Speaker 1: John Ballio's testimony was central to their case.
Speaker 3: Accord to John Ballio, Johnny Hoyt came into town the
Speaker 3: knight that they killed Jenore and was instrumental and participating
Speaker 3: in the murder.
Speaker 1: But Johnny Hoyd's lawyer worked to pin the blame back
Speaker 1: on John Ballo. He argued that years of abuse from
Speaker 1: Philip Skipper turned John into a murderer.
Speaker 3: Philip Skipper sexually abused him for years. You know, he
Speaker 3: burned the kid a lot with cigarettes and you know,
Speaker 3: beat him, sexually abuse him.
Speaker 1: Johnny Hooight's lawyer called John Ballio's testimony a rodden, worm
Speaker 1: infested apple. He told the jurors that you don't eat
Speaker 1: around the rotten part, you throw it all away. Well,
Speaker 1: the jurors threw that argument to way. They needed about
Speaker 1: two hours to find Johnny Hoit guilty of second degree murder.
Speaker 1: What's interesting about that is only ten jurors voted for guilty,
Speaker 1: but it was enough to convict and have Johnny Hoyight
Speaker 1: spend the rest of his life in prison. That meant
Speaker 1: Johnny's wife, Lisa Hoyt would be next to go on trial,
Speaker 1: But after seeing her husband and brother get put away
Speaker 1: for life, she decided not to test her luck.
Speaker 4: She never went to trial on this case.
Speaker 3: She pled guilty to a manslaughter count and she got
Speaker 3: the twenty five year max for manslaughter.
Speaker 5: She should feel lucky, that's all she got. All these
Speaker 5: people are evil.
Speaker 1: But there is something about a woman using a baby
Speaker 1: to trick another woman that feels really evil. Shortly after
Speaker 1: all of Jenora and Guillery's killers were sentenced, tragedy struck
Speaker 1: the Gillery family once again.
Speaker 6: Genora's dad, just a few weeks after the last trial,
Speaker 6: died really of a broken heart.
Speaker 1: Jenora's father was seventy years old. He passed away in
Speaker 1: July two thousand and five.
Speaker 6: He loved this child, he loved his family, and so
Speaker 6: it had a very negative effect on him.
Speaker 1: Genora's dad was buried next to her in their hometown
Speaker 1: of Eunice, Louisiana. In a nod to Genora's love of animals,
Speaker 1: her tombstone features a drawing of a dog and a horse.
Speaker 1: If Genora was still alive today, her brother in law
Speaker 1: imagines those animals would still be a big part of
Speaker 1: her life.
Speaker 6: She'd still be living in Clinton. It would probably have
Speaker 6: had to buy more land to house the dogs and
Speaker 6: horses and other assorted animals that she would have come across.
Speaker 1: Another wrinkle in this whole story is that long before
Speaker 1: the Skippers were suspects, they reached out to Albert for
Speaker 1: help collecting Genora's life insurance policy.
Speaker 6: Within a couple of days of her death, the Skippers
Speaker 6: contacted me with the policy and I assisted them in
Speaker 6: getting it paid.
Speaker 1: Albert never found it unusual because he was aware of policy.
Speaker 6: Actually, Genora had told the family that in case anything
Speaker 6: happens would happen to her, these Skippers would be provided for.
Speaker 1: And so helping the Skippers collect that money didn't raise
Speaker 1: any red flags.
Speaker 6: It did not seem out of the ordinary at all.
Speaker 6: They were in the cessator circumstances. It was purely her
Speaker 6: love for that family, her concern for that family's well being,
Speaker 6: and her insistence on participating in their future in a
Speaker 6: positive way.
Speaker 1: No one, including Albert, saw the Skippers as anything but
Speaker 1: helpful and friendly neighbors.
Speaker 6: Skipper family was right there with us. They behaved just
Speaker 6: as one would expect close friends to behave.
Speaker 1: Obviously, Albert's feelings about Philip and the Skippers have done
Speaker 1: a one eighty.
Speaker 6: I would not sit here and tell you that I
Speaker 6: did not consider a number of ways that I could
Speaker 6: have gotten some time with Philip Skipper or reached out
Speaker 6: and touched him in some way. And when I say
Speaker 6: reached out and touched him, I didn't mean a gentle
Speaker 6: pet on his bag. But the court system, the criminal
Speaker 6: justice system, is something that I've chosen to live by,
Speaker 6: and so I lived by.
Speaker 1: Some including one of the detectives who worked this case,
Speaker 1: have labeled the murder of Genera Guillery a hate crime,
Speaker 1: but Albert disagrees.
Speaker 6: I've never related this to Louisiana or conditions in Louisiana.
Speaker 6: The skinheads exist in America, and that's just a part
Speaker 6: of life. I don't believe that their attack on General
Speaker 6: was as much racial as it was financial, although I
Speaker 6: recognized that there are certainly some serious racial implications in this.
Speaker 6: Philip's Coharts had to be really upset and angry at
Speaker 6: the fact that in this world Genora could be so
Speaker 6: successful while they were so unsuccessful, and so I'm sure
Speaker 6: that that inflamed their racial passions.
Speaker 1: In twenty twelve, Philip Skipper underwent surgery in prison and died.
Speaker 1: There's no indication of what happened, but given that he
Speaker 1: was just thirty four years old, perhaps some prison.
Speaker 5: Justice was done.
Speaker 1: Philip was survived by his wife, Amy Skipper, who is
Speaker 1: one person we haven't talked much about. Amy Skipper was
Speaker 1: never charged in the case. She was pregnant at the
Speaker 1: time of Genora's murder and testified that she was asleep
Speaker 1: when the others carried out the crime.
Speaker 3: And as far as I know, she hasn't been charged
Speaker 3: with anything. She wasn't really involved in it.
Speaker 5: Tuckhusmeyer has his opinion on this.
Speaker 3: Philip Skipper and Johnny Hoyt, they're from Livingston Parish. When
Speaker 3: I was young, and even when I was first in
Speaker 3: law enforcement, a Livingston Parish was like known as the
Speaker 3: home of the Klan. My first partner at the DA's
Speaker 3: office was a black investigator and we had to go
Speaker 3: over there to serve a warrener or subpoena or something.
Speaker 3: And he's like, I ain't going to be over here
Speaker 3: after dark, Like why he goes because you just can't
Speaker 3: if you're black.
Speaker 4: That's the reputation that lives in Parish had. So not
Speaker 4: surprising that these guys.
Speaker 1: Grew up like that, and that's how a man working
Speaker 1: in the DA's office felt. Imagine being a woman living
Speaker 1: in an unpopulated road. That was Genora's reality every day. Still,
Speaker 1: she believed she had friends watching her back.
Speaker 3: There's no doubt that they were nice to her at
Speaker 3: the time, but that all turned out to be a
Speaker 3: you know, a mask. John Balyo said they were always
Speaker 3: call her names behind her back and sort of belittle
Speaker 3: her and talk about how they had fooled her. I mean,
Speaker 3: I wish she had had a more skeptical bone in
Speaker 3: her body somewhere, because we wouldn't be having this conversation.
Speaker 4: It should be living out there with the dogs right now.
Speaker 5: So then there's Johnny Hoyt. Today.
Speaker 1: Johnny Hoyt is serving out a life sentence. In two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, Johnny was doing court on an unrelated
Speaker 1: murder charge. According to the warden, that's when he planned
Speaker 1: to escape using a makeshift handcuff key. Unfortunately for Johnny,
Speaker 1: prison officials caught wind of his plan. He was put
Speaker 1: into solitary confinement in twenty ten and remained there for
Speaker 1: the next decade. Then in twenty twenty, Johnny sued the prison,
Speaker 1: claiming his rights were violated. A judge dismissed the suit
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty three. As for Johnny's wife, Lisa Hoyt,
Speaker 1: she took a plea deal and served just over twenty years.
Speaker 1: Today she is a free woman. That leaves us with
Speaker 1: John Ballio, whose confession and cooperation helped to bring justice
Speaker 1: for genera guillery.
Speaker 3: By the time this case was sort of solved and
Speaker 3: they charged everybody, he was nineteen maybe twenty, so he was,
Speaker 3: you know, facing the possibility of juvenile life, which is
Speaker 3: not but like a year, you know, he's already almost
Speaker 3: twenty years old.
Speaker 1: Including time served. John Ballio ended up spending about four
Speaker 1: and a half years in jail.
Speaker 3: The DA really had a choice, let all these killers
Speaker 3: go or get three of them, and he chose to
Speaker 3: get three of them, and you know, you had to
Speaker 3: make a deal with the fourth.
Speaker 4: I think it's a.
Speaker 3: Total miscarriage of justice to have to cut a deal
Speaker 3: with a guy like John Balllyo and give him, you know,
Speaker 3: one year in jail for murdering somebody like Janora Guillery.
Speaker 3: I mean, but I understand why the district attorney did it,
Speaker 3: because without John Ballio's testimony, he wouldn't have gotten convictions.
Speaker 4: On the other three.
Speaker 3: I mean, he did what he could do to get
Speaker 3: himself the best deal possible.
Speaker 1: John Balllyo was released from prison on his twenty first birthday,
Speaker 1: but he'd quickly find his way back.
Speaker 3: He's been in and out of jail since he was
Speaker 3: released on the Janoor Gillery case. You know, he's been
Speaker 3: arrested a few times. He's just part of that group
Speaker 3: of people. They are, you know, in and out of
Speaker 3: prison all the time.
Speaker 1: Next time on American Homicide, a friend's night out ends
Speaker 1: up in murder and exposes a bizarre love triangle. I'm
Speaker 1: slow Glass. We'll head to Covington, Louisiana for the story
Speaker 1: of Thomas Tally. That's next time on American Homicide. Contact
Speaker 1: the American Homicide Team by emailing us at American Homicide
Speaker 1: Pod at gmail dot com. That's American Homicide Pod at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com. American Homicide is hosted and written by
Speaker 1: me Sloane Glass and is a production of Glass Podcasts,
Speaker 1: a division of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership with iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 1: The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Todd Gans.
Speaker 1: The series is also written and produced by Todd Gans,
Speaker 1: with additional writing by Ben Fetterman and Andrea Gunning. Our
Speaker 1: associate producer is Kristin Melcurrie. Our iHeart team is Ali
Speaker 1: Perry and Jessica Crimecheck. Audio editing, mixing and mastering by
Speaker 1: Nico Aaruka. American Homicides' theme song was composed by Oliver
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