Speaker 1: School of Humans. Helen Got Murder Line actively investigates cold
Speaker 1: case murders in an effort to raise public awareness invite
Speaker 1: witnesses to come forward and present evidence that could potentially
Speaker 1: be further investigated by law enforcement. While we value insights
Speaker 1: from family and community members, their statements should not be
Speaker 1: considered evidence and point to the challenges of verifying facts
Speaker 1: inherent in cold cases. We remind listeners that everyone has
Speaker 1: presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Speaker 1: Nothing in the podcast is intended to state or imply
Speaker 1: that anyone who has not been convicted of a crime
Speaker 1: is guilty of any wrongdoing. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2: On November fifth, two thousand and five, a jogger was
Speaker 2: out running beside a lake in Lake Charles, Louisiana, behind
Speaker 2: the Civic Center, when they saw something floating in the water.
Speaker 2: When the jogger took a closer look, they realized it
Speaker 2: was the body of a woman. Police identified the victim
Speaker 2: as thirty two year old Brandy Renee Dyson, a mother
Speaker 2: of three who had recently been made homeless after Hurricanes
Speaker 2: Katrina and Rita. Those hurricanes devastated the state of Louisiana.
Speaker 2: It's been almost twenty years. There's been one arrest and
Speaker 2: a lot of controversy, but Brandy's case is still unsolved.
Speaker 2: There's a lot we don't know about Brandy's murder, but
Speaker 2: we do know that it was violent. Her father, Adley
Speaker 2: Dyson told a local news station, quote, we had to
Speaker 2: bury her in a turtle necktwater because she was strangled
Speaker 2: and she was thrown in the lake end quote.
Speaker 3: I'm Catherine Townsend.
Speaker 2: Over the past five years of making my true crime podcast,
Speaker 2: Healing Gone, I've learned that there is no such thing
Speaker 2: as a small town where murder never happens. I've received
Speaker 2: hundreds of messages from people all around the country asking
Speaker 2: for help with an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families,
Speaker 2: and their communities. If you have a case you'd like
Speaker 2: me and my team to look into, you can reach
Speaker 2: out to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line at
Speaker 2: six seven eight seven four four six one four or five.
Speaker 2: That's six seven eight seven four four six one four five.
Speaker 2: This is Helen Gone Murder Line. A lot of time
Speaker 2: periods in Brandy Dyson's life are still unaccounted for. We
Speaker 2: and even the people closest to her didn't always know
Speaker 2: what was going on. What we do know were piecing
Speaker 2: together through her sister Miranda and her daughter Holly. Brandy
Speaker 2: Dyson was born on November one, nineteen seventy three. Growing up,
Speaker 2: her family was mostly based in Louisiana, and both her
Speaker 2: daughter Holly and her sister Miranda told us that Brandy
Speaker 2: had a tough life. She struggled with mental health issues
Speaker 2: and addiction. Brandy had three children, a son who she
Speaker 2: had when she was around seventeen years old and later
Speaker 2: gave up for adoption, a daughter, Holly, and a second
Speaker 2: son who she gave birth to a few months before
Speaker 2: she died. Brandy was out of contact with a lot
Speaker 2: of her family for several years before she was killed,
Speaker 2: and finding information on where she lived during that time
Speaker 2: period is challenging. American Press did a story on the case,
Speaker 2: and there's a video on YouTube with comments under it.
Speaker 2: One of the commenters said that they knew Brandy from
Speaker 2: when Brandy was in Texas for a job corp job
Speaker 2: at the age of sixteen. Later from her family, we
Speaker 2: know that Brandy lived in New York City for several years.
Speaker 4: She didn't like small town life.
Speaker 5: We came from a small town.
Speaker 6: She didn't like that lifestyle.
Speaker 5: You know, like it was too slow for her. She
Speaker 5: went to New York City. She stayed there for ten years.
Speaker 6: She liked that.
Speaker 2: We talked to Miranda. She talked about Brandy's trouble times
Speaker 2: when she was a teenager. After living in different places
Speaker 2: on and off, at some point, her family thinks about
Speaker 2: a year before her death, Brandy came back to kinder. Now,
Speaker 2: her daughter, Holly, who was just ten years old when
Speaker 2: her mom was brutally murdered, has been reaching out to
Speaker 2: true crime podcasters, media, and anyone else who she thinks
Speaker 2: may help spread the word and hopefully get answers and justice.
Speaker 2: Holly was raised by her aunt and uncle. She said
Speaker 2: that while it was hard to grow up without her mother,
Speaker 2: Brandy made what she believes was the most loving and
Speaker 2: unselfish decision that she could have in those circumstances to
Speaker 2: give her children up so that they could be raised
Speaker 2: in more stable homes.
Speaker 6: You know, she had a baby very very young and
Speaker 6: gave them up for adoption. I know she had some
Speaker 6: issues within her own family. Two three times she had
Speaker 6: to make that impossible decision to let somebody else take
Speaker 6: care for baby and when I drop my son off
Speaker 6: at daycare, I feel mom guilt and I can only
Speaker 6: imagine what she went through with that. But she did
Speaker 6: the right thing and I will always admire her for that.
Speaker 6: She had her issues. She had schizo effective disorder, which
Speaker 6: at the time she had a bipolar in schizophrenia, but
Speaker 6: now what we call it is gizo effective disorder.
Speaker 2: Both Miranda and Holly believed that Brandy, due to circumstances,
Speaker 2: might have turned to sex work a few times in
Speaker 2: her life. Now, I want to be clear, I do
Speaker 2: not judge her for her lifestyle, but I do believe
Speaker 2: it's important to mention here because if that is the case,
Speaker 2: there could be a larger pool of suspects to consider.
Speaker 2: From what we understand, it appears that Brandy was not
Speaker 2: taking medication for her schizo effective disorder, but at times
Speaker 2: she did self medicate with alcohol.
Speaker 6: She kind of just never felt at peace in this world,
Speaker 6: and I think her demons kind of reared its head
Speaker 6: through drinking. You know. I remember her writing these for
Speaker 6: a couple of and I didn't know this at the time.
Speaker 6: My nana has told me this when I had gotten older,
Speaker 6: but she wrote me from rehabs that she was in
Speaker 6: or like Jill's, you know.
Speaker 2: Miranda said that her and Brandy's parents agreed with Brandy's
Speaker 2: decision to give up her son at age seventeen because
Speaker 2: even then Brandy was struggling with substance abuse.
Speaker 5: Even then, Brandy had some mantal illness.
Speaker 3: She drank young, so like.
Speaker 7: Sixteen seventeen, and that's when she would have her her
Speaker 7: manic failed.
Speaker 6: When she would drink.
Speaker 7: As long as she was sober, they needn't have any.
Speaker 4: You know, she was good.
Speaker 2: There is still a lot of very basic information that
Speaker 2: Holly doesn't know about her mother's life. There are a
Speaker 2: lot of blank spaces and blank years.
Speaker 6: I don't know if she was working. I don't know
Speaker 6: really what she did for work.
Speaker 8: It's not like she had like a trade or whatever.
Speaker 6: So yeah, I think she's pretty broke most of the time.
Speaker 2: Holly said that when Brandy came back to kinder Louisiana,
Speaker 2: she was pregnant.
Speaker 3: She was living with her uncle.
Speaker 2: She gave birth to her baby son in July two
Speaker 2: thousand and five, and then she moved into her own apartment,
Speaker 2: and for a while, Brandy appeared to be on a
Speaker 2: more stable path.
Speaker 8: I remember talking to her after she had my little brother.
Speaker 6: And we were both so excited for him to come
Speaker 6: into this world because I always wanted a baby brother.
Speaker 8: And she thought that, you know, maybe that would help
Speaker 8: her get her stuff together. But after she got displaced
Speaker 8: from the hurricane, after she she took on those people
Speaker 8: that were displaced by the hurricane, I think that kind
Speaker 8: of knocked her back down a little bit, and I
Speaker 8: think she started drinking again.
Speaker 2: What Holly's talking about is that when Hurricane Katrina hit
Speaker 2: in two thousand and five, a lot of people evacuated
Speaker 2: to Kinder, Louisiana. Brandy took in refugees in her apartment,
Speaker 2: but that decision resulted in her being evicted, so she
Speaker 2: left her newborn son with her uncle. I'm not actually
Speaker 2: sure if she left her son with her uncle before
Speaker 2: or after she was evicted, but in any case, her
Speaker 2: son was not with her when she left and moved
Speaker 2: in to the Late Charles Civic Center, about forty minutes
Speaker 2: away from Kinder, where many people in Louisiana were sheltering
Speaker 2: after having to evacuate their homes from the storm.
Speaker 3: And I want to back up a minute here.
Speaker 2: And go over some of the chaos that was happening
Speaker 2: in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina made landfall in August twenty ninth,
Speaker 2: two thousand and five. To help give some context for
Speaker 2: Brandy's final days, this storm was absolutely devastating for the
Speaker 2: state of Louisiana. After Katrina hit New Orleans, thirty thousand
Speaker 2: evacuees built the New Orleans Supernome. They were trapped inside
Speaker 2: there for days with no power and running out of supplies,
Speaker 2: and then FEMA left the area for their own safety.
Speaker 2: I remember seeing footage of this on television and it
Speaker 2: was absolutely horrifying. There was a breakdown in law and order.
Speaker 2: There were no working bathrooms, there were feces on walls,
Speaker 2: fights breaking out over food and water, and multiple reports
Speaker 2: of rape and sexual assault. Some of the more horrific rumors,
Speaker 2: like bodies of children piling up in the basement, were
Speaker 2: later disputed by law enforcement. A report on NPR pointed
Speaker 2: out that while some of them were outrageous claims may
Speaker 2: have been proven false, others, like sexual assaults, were almost
Speaker 2: certainly underreported. According to the state Department of Health and Hospitals,
Speaker 2: there were ten deaths in the Superdome, including two suspected murders,
Speaker 2: and then, while the state was still reeling from the
Speaker 2: horrific impacts both environmental and social, of Katrina, Hurricane Rita
Speaker 2: hit just a few weeks later. Hurricane Rita made landfall
Speaker 2: on September twenty fourth, two thousand and five.
Speaker 3: In Cameron Parish.
Speaker 2: It was a Category three storm with storm surges of
Speaker 2: up to eighteen feet and sixteen inches of rain. Even
Speaker 2: though it didn't get as much media attention at the time,
Speaker 2: the devastating flooding caused by Rita literally white towns off
Speaker 2: the map. Parishes in southwest Louisiana were overwhelmed, Levies and
Speaker 2: New Orleans finally broke. There was a rise in crime
Speaker 2: and a loss of police manpower. Rita, by the way,
Speaker 2: has been called the forgotten storm because most people remember
Speaker 2: Katrina and the images of people on top of their
Speaker 2: cars begging for someone from the government to come help,
Speaker 2: or the images of people at the Superdome.
Speaker 3: In New Orleans.
Speaker 2: The storm surge flooded downtown Lake Charles and damaged the
Speaker 2: Civic Center, where the evacuees were seeking shelter and where
Speaker 2: Brandy was living after being evicted from her apartment, and
Speaker 2: it was here at the Civic Center where Brandy's life,
Speaker 2: which had been on the road stability, started to spiral
Speaker 2: out of control. After she was evicted from her apartment,
Speaker 2: Brandy moved into the Lake Charles Civic Center, where a
Speaker 2: lot of evacuees from the hurricanes were staying, and it
Speaker 2: was around this time that Brandy started drinking again.
Speaker 5: She's staying at the Civic Center, she gets picked up
Speaker 5: or disturbing the peace, so they kick her out of
Speaker 5: the civic center, so she makes a makeshift shelter outside
Speaker 5: of the city center.
Speaker 2: So drinking broke the civic center's rules. Brandy was kicked
Speaker 2: out of the civic Center, but she stayed close to
Speaker 2: the building. According to reports, she set up camp in
Speaker 2: the area of the pier, which was just a few
Speaker 2: feet away from the Civic Center. Polly said she was
Speaker 2: unsure who her mom's friends were at the time of
Speaker 2: the storm, or even if Brandy had a cell phone,
Speaker 2: but there was someone hanging out with Brandy at her
Speaker 2: shelter on November fourth. Police have said that this was
Speaker 2: a man named Jeremiah Salazar, and according to Holly, they
Speaker 2: had been hanging out prior to that. Miranda said detectives
Speaker 2: told her how they figured out that JEREMIAHS and Brandy
Speaker 2: had been hanging out.
Speaker 7: The only things that I know about him is what
Speaker 7: the detective told me, Like, we didn't know him.
Speaker 9: We were all this place, we were all homeless.
Speaker 4: I was living in Alabama when she died, So this
Speaker 4: is how they got to kid him. So when Brandy
Speaker 4: was found, her fingerprints was in the system because she
Speaker 4: had been arrested a few days before, so they were
Speaker 4: able to identify her really fast because of it. But
Speaker 4: when they ran her name or they might have found.
Speaker 9: This ticket because she was living off that pier m HM.
Speaker 7: Instead there was another ticket tied to that ticket for
Speaker 7: her in sala'sorber going to Tacoma, Washington together. Well, her
Speaker 7: body comes up, so they think that he's going to
Speaker 7: change his course, but they have police waiting to see
Speaker 7: if he's going to or not.
Speaker 2: After Brandy was murdered, Apparently, JEREMIAHS did follow through on
Speaker 2: his plans to go to Tacoma, but detectives were able
Speaker 2: to arrest him and extradied him back to Louisiana. He
Speaker 2: denied having anything to do with Brandy's murder and what
Speaker 2: happened the night of November fourth, leading into the early
Speaker 2: morning hours of November fifth, is still a mystery. Miranda
Speaker 2: and Holly were told by detectives that Brandy and Jeremiahs
Speaker 2: went to a bar close to the civic Center called
Speaker 2: Crystals on the night of November fourth. Now, reviews of
Speaker 2: this bar online indicate that it was apparently a gay bar,
Speaker 2: but it was also one of the only bars that
Speaker 2: was openly after the hurricane hit.
Speaker 3: They believe something happened at that bar.
Speaker 2: Now, one theory that Brandy's family told us detectives mentioned
Speaker 2: to them was that Jeremias could have gotten annoyed when
Speaker 2: he saw Brandy talking to or possibly flirting with another man,
Speaker 2: and that Jeremiahs left that bar without Brandy. Holly talks
Speaker 2: about this now, again, this is just speculation on her part.
Speaker 2: She's describing what members of her family have heard from
Speaker 2: the Lake Charles Police detectives over the years.
Speaker 6: I think that they were probably more just like drinking buddies,
Speaker 6: or they might have had a relationship, but all of
Speaker 6: that has been kind of kept in the dark from us.
Speaker 7: And.
Speaker 6: My family in Louisiana didn't know who who he was either.
Speaker 6: They had never heard of.
Speaker 10: Him, but it wasn't unusual for her to kind of
Speaker 10: keep it, yeah, cease communication for some weeks or.
Speaker 6: Some months, you know.
Speaker 9: And it just said they had a relationship, that didn't
Speaker 9: say what typ.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think that it was. I think it was
Speaker 6: somewhat romantic, actually, but that's just me speculating.
Speaker 9: And she was seen going to the bar Crystals with
Speaker 9: him from midnight to two am, and then he left,
Speaker 9: she staved and drank, and then the theory is that
Speaker 9: she became intimate with another man. He came back and
Speaker 9: saw that he became upset.
Speaker 2: We don't know for sure what happened after Brandy went
Speaker 2: to this bar. What we do know is that the
Speaker 2: next morning, November fifth, that jogger found Brandy's body. We
Speaker 2: also don't know much about the condition of Brandy's body.
Speaker 2: We have sent boy a request for the case file,
Speaker 2: but so far we've been denied due to this being
Speaker 2: an open investigation. Polly has requested a copy of Brandy's
Speaker 2: autopsy as a family member, but so far we have
Speaker 2: not heard back.
Speaker 3: We will keep you posted.
Speaker 2: The Lake Charles Police Department was able to identify Brandy
Speaker 2: through fingerprints. They told Brandy's family the murder had been violent,
Speaker 2: and that they believed that Brandy had been strangled, exphyxiated,
Speaker 2: and thrown into the lake. Police found a few clues
Speaker 2: there was a Halloween mask near Brandy's body, but even
Speaker 2: though according to Brandy's family, she had DNA inside her,
Speaker 2: detectives apparently concluded there was no evidence of sexual assault.
Speaker 2: Holly remembers the funeral and the shock of losing her
Speaker 2: mother so suddenly, and of saying goodbye to her. Over
Speaker 2: the years, Holly has reached out to her older brother,
Speaker 2: the one who was given up for adoption when Brandy
Speaker 2: was seventeen. Holly talked about the emotion of finding him
Speaker 2: and telling him that he had a sister and that
Speaker 2: his biological mother had been brutally murdered.
Speaker 6: He didn't know about my mom.
Speaker 5: We're not super super closed.
Speaker 6: I think I talked to him like last Christmas, but
Speaker 6: I remember my mom telling me about him and I
Speaker 6: had always loved him, and just telling him that, Hey, like,
Speaker 6: I know this is a lot for you, but I
Speaker 6: just want you to know that I have always thought
Speaker 6: about you. I have always cared about you. Your mom
Speaker 6: always loved you. She talked about you, and I think
Speaker 6: he had a really good life. His adoptive mom did
Speaker 6: a great job. He is happy.
Speaker 2: From what Holly has been told by detectives, the last
Speaker 2: time that Brandy was seen alive was between midnight and
Speaker 2: two am on November fifth, two thousand and five, at
Speaker 2: the nightclub with a man. From witness descriptions, police were
Speaker 2: able to draw sketch of a man whom Brandy was
Speaker 2: seen hanging out with at the club. From that and
Speaker 2: from other clues, they identified JEREMIAHS.
Speaker 3: Salzark.
Speaker 2: At the time, he had long brown hair. He was
Speaker 2: also six feet tall. We don't know much about JEREMIAHS.
Speaker 3: Either.
Speaker 2: We know that he's from Leveland, Texas, and that he
Speaker 2: did have some prior arrests, but we can't find a
Speaker 2: record of him being arrested for anything violent. There were
Speaker 2: some drug charges, also some glittering and indecent exposure charges that,
Speaker 2: based on his history, could possibly have come from him
Speaker 2: camping out in populated areas. By the time detectives identified him,
Speaker 2: JEREMIAHS had already left Louisiana.
Speaker 3: He was on his way to Tacoma, Washington, so they
Speaker 3: drove back.
Speaker 1: He called.
Speaker 4: There was an s There was an evidence for an indictment, so.
Speaker 3: Late Charles police went to Washington.
Speaker 2: They went through the process of having JEREMIAHS arrested and
Speaker 2: extradited back to Louisiana. Police said they believed JEREMIAHS and
Speaker 2: Brandy knew each other. Sergeant Mark Krause with the Lake
Speaker 2: Charles Police Department told a news station, quote, there was
Speaker 2: some relationship, whether it be friends or something more substantial
Speaker 2: between the two, and that's where we began our investigation
Speaker 2: end quote. And three months after Brandy's body was found
Speaker 2: in that lake behind the Civic Center, JEREMIAHS. Salazar was
Speaker 2: charged with her murder. In January of two thousand and six,
Speaker 2: four months after Brandy was brutally murdered in Lake Charles, JEREMIAHS.
Speaker 2: Salazar was charged with Brandy's murder. Police got him extradited
Speaker 2: from Washington State. He was brought back to Louisiana and
Speaker 2: incarcerated in the Calcashu Jail. His bond was set at
Speaker 2: a million dollars. But then there was a shocking turn
Speaker 2: of events in this case. At first, the grand jury
Speaker 2: returned true bill, meaning they believe there was enough evidence
Speaker 2: to indict Jeremiahs. But then they met again this time,
Speaker 2: they returned a no bill, which means they no longer
Speaker 2: believed that there was enough evidence to charge him. I
Speaker 2: want to put in a quick caveat here. There's a
Speaker 2: lot we don't know about this DNA sample. We don't
Speaker 2: know how much of a sample there was, how much
Speaker 2: of it was degraded, or if there were issues with testing.
Speaker 2: There's no evidence that that was the case, but I
Speaker 2: just want to put it out there. I found an
Speaker 2: interview with the district attorney in the case from back
Speaker 2: in twenty eleven, six years after Brandy's murder on American Press.
Speaker 2: In that interview, the DA says that DNA testing quote
Speaker 2: excluded Jeremiahs. The district attorney said at that time the
Speaker 2: grand jury felt that there was not sufficient probable cause
Speaker 2: to go forward, but he added that if law enforcement
Speaker 2: got any new evidence, they could reindict Jeremiahs or indict
Speaker 2: another defendant. Miranda said she had regular contact with the
Speaker 2: detectives on the case until Jeremias was taken in front
Speaker 2: of the grand jury. She said the no bill decision
Speaker 2: was devastating for their family. So now there were a
Speaker 2: couple of questions outstanding. Some detectives apparently thought maybe Brandy
Speaker 2: had sexual intercourse with someone else, someone other than JEREMIAHS,
Speaker 2: and that JEREMIAHS had attacked her in a jealous rage,
Speaker 2: But of course a very real other possibility is that
Speaker 2: it was someone else. Entirely after Jeremiah was released, no
Speaker 2: new suspects were ever arrested. In the same interview where
Speaker 2: Brandy's father had mentioned that they had to bury her
Speaker 2: in a turtleneck, he pointed out there had been a
Speaker 2: police officer murdered and brought to justice within a few
Speaker 2: days at around the same time Brandy was murdered. He said,
Speaker 2: just because Brandy was homeless and had mental health issues
Speaker 2: and addiction issues, that did not mean that her case
Speaker 2: was any less important. The Lake Charles Police Department said
Speaker 2: that they had tried to solve this case. They had
Speaker 2: even gone so far as to go to another state
Speaker 2: file charges extradite someone back, and they said they would
Speaker 2: pursue any additional information that was given. However, the reality
Speaker 2: is that in Louisiana, both during and after Katrina and
Speaker 2: even today, law enforcement has a vast number of cases
Speaker 2: they need to clear, and new ones are piling up
Speaker 2: every day. Another thing that Holly has wondered over the years,
Speaker 2: is if Brandy's case could have any connection to other cases,
Speaker 2: including the eight women who were killed in Jefferson Davis
Speaker 2: Parish that's right next to Calcashu Parish. They're known as
Speaker 2: the jeff Davis a or the Jennings. A. Journalist Ethan
Speaker 2: Brown wrote a book about these unsolved murders and corruption
Speaker 2: in the parish. It's called Murder in the Bayou. The
Speaker 2: first body was found on May twentieth, tive. A twenty
Speaker 2: eight year old named Loretta Lynn Chase and Lewis was
Speaker 2: found in a canal in Jennings in the Jefferson Davis Parish.
Speaker 3: Loretta was addicted to crack.
Speaker 2: A lot of these cases were linked to the drug
Speaker 2: trade that went down Interstate ten. There's also By the Way,
Speaker 2: an investigation discovery show based on Ethan's book, also called
Speaker 2: Murder in the Bayeux. On June eighteenth, two thousand and five,
Speaker 2: a thirty year old sex worker named Ernestine Marie Daniels
Speaker 2: Patterson was also found in a canal south of Jennings.
Speaker 2: Her throat had been slashed, her wrists were bound together.
Speaker 2: This was a violent struggle to the death in Ernestine's case,
Speaker 2: two men were arrested in charge with her murder, but
Speaker 2: the charges were later dropped. On March eighteenth, two thousand
Speaker 2: and seven, the nude body of twenty one year old
Speaker 2: Kristin Lopez was found in a canal near Jennings. Kristin
Speaker 2: was wearing only one sock on her left foot. Again,
Speaker 2: two people were arrested in charge with Christian's murder, but
Speaker 2: they were later released due to lack of evidence. Over
Speaker 2: the next year and a half, four more victims were
Speaker 2: found in that area. Twenty six year old Whitney Dubois,
Speaker 2: twenty three year old Laconia Muggy Brown, twenty four year
Speaker 2: old Crystal shab Bin Wazino, and seventeen year old Britney Gary.
Speaker 2: All of these women were found in or around Jennings.
Speaker 2: All of them reportedly had ties to sex work. Almost
Speaker 2: all of the killings, according to police, were believed to
Speaker 2: be caused by strangling or asphyxia. Only one Ernestine's involved
Speaker 2: a stabbing. In August of two thousand and nine, twenty
Speaker 2: six year old Nicole Gilliery was found. This was in
Speaker 2: a neighboring parish, Acadia Parish, but also near the iten.
Speaker 3: So a task.
Speaker 2: Force was formed between local law enforcement and federal and
Speaker 2: state authorities, but progress was slow and they seemed to
Speaker 2: have a lot of different theories about who was killing
Speaker 2: these women. It's interesting because the sheriff and Jefferson Davis
Speaker 2: Parish Sheriff Edwards said he believed the killings could be
Speaker 2: the work of a common offender, which a lot of
Speaker 2: people took to mean one serial killer work in the area.
Speaker 2: But after reviewing a lot of public information and reading
Speaker 2: Ethan Brown's excellent book, I agree with him. I think
Speaker 2: the evidence does not point to one single serial killer.
Speaker 2: What we do see are a lot of allegations of
Speaker 2: police corruption and certain members of local law enforcement possibly
Speaker 2: being involved in drug deals, and of law enforcement looking
Speaker 2: the other way when certain types of crimes occurred. In fact,
Speaker 2: one of the most shocking statistics I saw in Ethan
Speaker 2: Brown's book was one about homicide clearance rates. He said,
Speaker 2: in Calcashu Parish, where Brandy was murdered, the homicide clearance
Speaker 2: rate is seven percent. I couldn't believe I read that right.
Speaker 2: I had to read that a couple times. That means, presumably,
Speaker 2: if that's correct, in that pair, you have a ninety
Speaker 2: three percent chance of getting away with murder, which I
Speaker 2: find shocking. Holly hasn't been sure what to think. There
Speaker 2: seemed to be no evidence that jeremiahs had actually harm Brandy,
Speaker 2: But could he, as detectives apparently wondered, have hurt her
Speaker 2: mother because she had consensual sex with someone else? Or
Speaker 2: could someone else, maybe the person whose DNA is inside Brandy,
Speaker 2: have assaulted and murdered her. Holly hasn't been sure what
Speaker 2: to think. There seemed to be no evidence that Jeremiah
Speaker 2: harm Brandy, But could he, as detectives apparently wondered, have
Speaker 2: hurt her mother because Brandy had consensual sex with someone else?
Speaker 2: Or could someone else, maybe the person whose DNA is
Speaker 2: inside Brandy, have assaulted and murdered her. Her mother's death
Speaker 2: wasn't Holly's last brush with tragedy. In two thousand and four,
Speaker 2: her father, Daniel Cercy, was murdered tenty sixteen. A man
Speaker 2: named Sean Pinson, who is twenty eight years old at
Speaker 2: the time of the murder, was sentenced to seventy years
Speaker 2: in prison for Daniel's murder. Daniel's body was bound at
Speaker 2: the hands and feet with zip tized speaker wire and
Speaker 2: an electrical cord. According to an arrest report, there were
Speaker 2: cleaning supplies and a scented candle and a fan being
Speaker 2: directed through the chimney to mass the odor. The arrest
Speaker 2: report stated that Sean had given a friend money to
Speaker 2: buy supplies, including bleach and an air freshener from Walmart.
Speaker 2: A former employee and friend of Shawn's testified that Shawn
Speaker 2: told him he wasn't going to lie anymore and that
Speaker 2: Sean had led him to see Daniel's body. Holly said
Speaker 2: to this day she questions whether there may have been
Speaker 2: other people involved in her father's death, people who have
Speaker 2: never been brought to justice.
Speaker 6: I do believe that there are others walking free Almongos
Speaker 6: that were involved did my dad's death. But one thing
Speaker 6: that I have had to realize, and it took me
Speaker 6: a long time to realize, is that I'm not going
Speaker 6: to know everything. I'm not going to know everything about
Speaker 6: my mom, I'm not going to know everything about my
Speaker 6: dad's case, and I just have to kind of make
Speaker 6: my own closure. And this is like a form of
Speaker 6: me doing that, you know, with the Justice for Brandy
Speaker 6: Dyson and reaching out to the podcast I'm just trying
Speaker 6: to make some foremost closure because really, my son had
Speaker 6: both of his grandparents taken away from him. They will
Speaker 6: never know him, and that makes me so sad for
Speaker 6: all of them. So yeah, I've had to like make closure.
Speaker 6: I've had to become at peace with not knowing every again.
Speaker 2: Police had denied our foy requests. Holly, since she's next
Speaker 2: of Ken, is trying to get access to Brandy's autopsy.
Speaker 2: If we had the autopsy, we could possibly find out
Speaker 2: if there was water in Brandy's lungs, possibly what other
Speaker 2: tests were done, and if there is any other evidence
Speaker 2: that police may have overlooked. Plus we would know what
Speaker 2: types of samples they took. In the meantime, she's had
Speaker 2: frustrating encounters with the Lake Charles Police Department, especially when
Speaker 2: it comes to asking about the Jeff Davis A.
Speaker 6: There are eight unsolved cases thirty five miles away from
Speaker 6: where my mom was murdered, and I think that all
Speaker 6: of those people deserve kind their cases looked at. And
Speaker 6: I think this is not only I think it's is
Speaker 6: like not only a department full issue of Louisiana. It's
Speaker 6: a systematic issue because those women were also of a
Speaker 6: high risk lifestyle. Let me tell you exactly what they said.
Speaker 6: The case has not been reassigned. We have four violent
Speaker 6: crime detectives. We are investigating a homicide that occurred on twelve,
Speaker 6: twenty nine, and we're investigating another that occurred on twenty
Speaker 6: one before the weather of it here in els, to
Speaker 6: my knowledge, our agency has never been the lead investigating
Speaker 6: to since e on a case, only to pass it
Speaker 6: off to another inner agency. And I contacted crime stoppers
Speaker 6: in the parish and they informed me that LCPD needs
Speaker 6: to request to feature their case on Facebook. Would you
Speaker 6: be able to reach out to them on her behalf.
Speaker 6: I know how underfunded and understaffed police departments are, but
Speaker 6: that that does not give me peace, but does not
Speaker 6: giving me justice. And I would like somebody to care
Speaker 6: from the LCPD. It's just so that to me, I'm so,
Speaker 6: I'm a recovering addict. I have five years sober, and
Speaker 6: you know a lot of my addiction has dealt with
Speaker 6: the traumas of losing my parents, and like people like me,
Speaker 6: people like my parents don't deserve to be thrown away,
Speaker 6: you know.
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, Brandy's family needs someone to come forward, Someone who
Speaker 2: may have seen Brandy at that night club or who
Speaker 2: may have been in the area on November fourth or
Speaker 2: November fifth, two thousand and five. There are pieces of evidence,
Speaker 2: like the Halloween masks? What kind was it? Could it
Speaker 2: be traced? Was their DNA taken off the mask? Also,
Speaker 2: we have not received any part of the case file,
Speaker 2: so we don't know if it was something her killer wore,
Speaker 2: or if she was wearing it for some reason, or
Speaker 2: if it was just randomly there trash that someone chucked
Speaker 2: in the water from Halloween which had been four days earlier.
Speaker 2: There's a killer on the loose, one who got away
Speaker 2: with it in two thousand and five, and you very
Speaker 2: well could still be out there.
Speaker 6: Yeah, absolutely, Like what like, we've just let this person
Speaker 6: be on the streets and other people could be going
Speaker 6: through the same thing that I was, and they had them.
Speaker 6: I try to stay.
Speaker 8: Out of the what is uh? Yeah, there could be Oh.
Speaker 6: There's so many what if you know? And with no
Speaker 6: information or hardly any information, it's just it's hard.
Speaker 2: Next week, we're gonna dig deeper into Brandy's murder. We're
Speaker 2: going to try to retrace her steps on the night
Speaker 2: she was killed and explore the possibility of DNA testing
Speaker 2: and find out what the next steps could be. We're
Speaker 2: gonna try to do a deeper dive into these parts
Speaker 2: of Louisiana and find out why apparently in some corners
Speaker 2: of that state, people have a greater than ninety percent
Speaker 2: chance of getting away with murder. We want to understand
Speaker 2: why are so many disadvantaged women being killed and dumped here.
Speaker 2: I'm Katherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen
Speaker 2: Gone Murder Line is a production of School of Humans
Speaker 2: and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by me Catherine
Speaker 2: Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts. Special thanks to Amy
Speaker 2: Tubbs for her research assistance. Noah Kamer mixed and scored
Speaker 2: this episode. Our theme song is by Ben Salek. Executive
Speaker 2: producers are Virginia Presco, Brandon Barr, and LC Crowley. Listen
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Speaker 3: Channel on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 2: If you were interested in seeing documents and materials from
Speaker 2: the case, you can follow the show on Instagram at
Speaker 2: Helen gonpod. If you have a case you'd like me
Speaker 2: and my team to look into, you can reach out
Speaker 2: to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six
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Speaker 1: School of Humans