The Pet Cemetery Murders: A Ghost Story (2026) s01e01 Episode Script
Episode One
[eerie music playing]
[Dep. Sheriff John Doran]
In 1985,
a woman was found, strangled,
suffocated, wrapped in chains
and thrown
in the Mississippi River.
She had died a horrible death.
She was identified
as the owner
of the Azalea Pet Cemetery
in Toca, Louisiana.
In its heyday,
the pet cemetery
was a real picturesque place.
Real tranquil, serene.
Like a botanical paradise.
A very popular destination
for people to go there
and bury their pets.
But what started out
to be a place of serenity
for these pet owners
turned out to be
a really macabre setting.
The case was always there,
when I started the
Sheriff's Office
as an unsolved murder.
Something was telling me that
I had to get to the truth here.
And find out
what happened to this woman.
It's just haunted me.
It was a lot of mystery
hovering over
this pet cemetery.
A lot of bad things happened
on that property,
and everybody we talked to
had some strange story
about this place.
Things that just
can't be explained.
People started to see
the woman's ghost.
(man speaking)
[ominous music playing]
[insects chirring]
[droning music playing]
[squawking]
[animals chittering]
[dogs barking]
[Cindy Graf]
We are south of New Orleans,
can't get much further south
than where we are.
If you go maybe 10 miles
down the road
you get to a big sign that says
"The End of the World"
at Delacroix Island.
The name of the town
right here is Toca,
so when you saw Toca
on one side of the sign
you was out of Toca
on the other side of the sign.
That's how small it was.
It was from the church
to right here.
That's Toca.
[Cindy] We moved here in '74.
[Robert Graf] We were here when
the pet cemetery was active.
It had "Azalea Pet Cemetery"
written across the top.
[Robert] There was no other
pet cemeteries nowhere.
[Cindy] They had tombs
with animals on top.
They had a big dog
on one of 'em.
And there was a big
Victorian home back there.
[Robert] Everybody, you know,
has to have a pet.
And you don't want to throw it
out the window when it dies,
so you had to get rid of it
some kind of way.
So, the pet cemetery
happened to be
the only place
to take care of 'em.
[music box melody playing]
[Melissa Jeffirs] I happened
to live right next door
to it at the time,
and the pet cemetery
had this aura about it.
The stories were
in St. Bernard Parish,
"Okay, you wanna go
to a haunted house?"
And the pet cemetery
would come up.
You know, it looked spooky.
There was ghost stories.
You know, kids would always
wanna come and, you know,
walk in the pet cemetery
and kind of check it out.
I always, you know,
would say a prayer
if I was walking from my house
to my mother-in-law's house.
Just if I had that spooky,
uh, feeling at the time.
[Robert] We heard about
the stories, the rumors.
You know, the ghost.
You know, whether it's true
or not, that's the word.
[laughs] Welcome to Louisiana.
[Melissa] It was spooky because
the lady that lived there
was alone most of the time.
[wistful music playing]
[Tony Fernandez]
Dorothy Thompson,
the owner of the property,
had very little interaction
with the people here.
Because you could go
to any of her neighbors,
you knew who they were,
you knew a lot about them.
But in the case
of the pet cemetery, no.
The place was always
mysterious, isolated.
Very little was known,
and not a lot of people
spoke about it.
I'd see her in passing.
She was an elderly lady,
but she didn't really say much.
She was withdrawn
and kind of, you know,
stayed to herself a lot.
[Patricia Newman]
Dorothy was a lovely person.
She was very open
and vivacious and outgoing
and laughing if she knew you.
If she didn't know you
then she was very reserved.
We would talk on the phone
constantly, every day,
to say how the day went,
what she was doing,
what she intended on doing,
what dog she buried,
what cat she buried.
She was like
another mother to me.
And she loved the pets.
She'd say that they're always
there for you,
whether you had happy times
or sad times.
You know, your pet is there
all the time.
They never judge you,
they never complain about you,
and they're certainly
not repeating your stories
to someone, you know?
[spooky music playing]
One day, we heard about
Dorothy going missing.
It was scary.
We didn't know the circumstance.
[crickets chirping]
[Patricia] What happened
is Dorothy broke her hip,
so she stayed at my house
and I took care of her.
And then a few months later,
the doctor says
she can go home.
So I brought her home.
I said, "I will come
tomorrow morning
"and pick up your clothes
"or anything that has
to be washed
and anything you need
from the store."
So, she went home.
And the next day,
I went there to pick her up.
The house was locked.
I was knocking
and knocking and knocking.
Well, after a prolonged
period of time
I was like, "I don't know
why she's not answering the door
when I'm knocking."
I was worried
that she fell on the floor,
or maybe she hit her head
in the bathroom
or something
like that happened.
So, I called the police.
[phone ringing]
[Sheriff Jack Stephens]
When the call came in,
Pat Newman told us
that Dorothy was expecting,
uh, Patricia Newman
to pick her up.
They had something
scheduled to do,
some errands to run.
And those are things
that, really,
that were that normal
for them to do,
and she wouldn't have just
walked away
and not certainly
talked to her about it.
Where could she
have gone at night?
She didn't drive.
She didn't say
she was going anywhere.
So I knew
something was wrong.
[Jack]
Pat Newman had been something
of a community activist before,
so she wasn't unknown to us.
I mean, she was vocal
about things.
I mean, she participated
in helping senior citizens,
things down here.
And she described the fact
that Dorothy had no family
and no friends, really.
And she just wouldn't
have gone off like that.
So, we had a strong suspicion
that there was
some foul play involved.
[siren wailing]
Missing persons
weren't common here
in St. Bernard Parish.
So when I received the report,
we went down to the residence.
When we got down the driveway,
if you look straight ahead
you can see the pet cemetery.
To the right of us
was the actual residence
of Ms. Thompson.
It was a huge,
historic mansion.
It was kind of creepy.
It was like you could feel
the past and the history
in that-- in that
Dorothy Thompson residence.
[Patricia] The whole thing
was locked from the inside.
Dorothy had a habit.
When she was at home by herself
she would lock that one lock.
That lock was not tampered with.
[squawking]
[Det. Brian Vallelungo]
Instead of entering
through the front of the house
on the porch,
we entered through a side door
in the back.
Didn't appear to be
any sign of a struggle,
but you could hear
somebody talking.
[ominous music playing]
[person speaking quietly
and indistinctly]
Who's in here?
And it was a TV
that happened to be on.
It was very strange.
There was a glass of wine
and nobody there.
[Patricia]
Nothing was messed up,
so it didn't look like
she had a fight with anybody.
You know, what transpired
from the time I dropped her off
till the next morning?
What was going on, you know?
I don't know, I really felt
something had happened.
You know,
people don't just vanish.
You know, they don't just
go off the face of the earth.
We had flyers made
with a picture
of her possible physical ID,
and we placed these flyers
in different business places
within St. Bernard Parish.
Restaurants,
convenience stores, banks,
pharmacies.
But we got no leads whatsoever.
None.
So, we went
to one of the most
frequent places
that Ms. Thompson would go,
and that would've been
the, uh, Peoples Bank
in Poydras, Louisiana.
We find out that the last time
that she was seen,
according to the people
at the bank,
was April 13th,
three days before
Ms. Thompson came up missing.
And she was with a gentleman
named Kenneth Pommier.
And she actually withdrew
$100 cash
to give to Mr. Pommier.
It makes you think.
Possible suspect, but no proof.
There's no substantial evidence
at that point.
It could've been
a perfectly innocent thing.
When Kenny Pommier
was interviewed,
he said that he answered an ad
in the paper by Ms. Thompson.
She actually hired him to do
some work around the property,
cutting grass, keeping
the place up as you will.
At the end of the interview
we asked him,
"Did you have anything to do
with Ms. Thompson's
disappearance?"
He replied, "No."
He had just met
Ms. Thompson the day before,
and he had no motive.
So, we got to a dead end.
We had nothing.
[Patricia]
Every day when I got up, it's,
"Where is Dorothy?"
"Dorothy would not, she wouldn't
have walked down the road."
"If she was going someplace
she would've called me."
How do you lose a person?
How do you lose a person?
How did they just disappear
off the face of the earth?
It ate at me like I can't even
tell you what it did.
Because she was
a very close friend of mine.
So, I went to several psychics.
No one gave me answers,
but one of them did say,
"If she crossed water,
she's dead."
[dour music playing]
[boat motor whirring]
[water gurgling]
[Jack] The Coast Guard
contacted the Sheriff's Office
on May 2nd, 1985,
notified them
that they'd discovered a body.
We had put them on notice
that we were
basically looking for someone
who had gone missing,
and if you're gonna
dump a body,
the Mississippi River's
not a bad place to dump it.
There's a lot of scavengers
that work that whole area,
marine and mammal.
This is the location
where the body was found,
and if you look at the map,
this is our jurisdiction.
Alright, and the body
was found down here.
[police radio chatter]
It was discovered maybe two
weeks after the report came in.
Now that doesn't mean
it hadn't popped up.
It could've been
floating in the river.
I mean, it's a big,
big body of water.
Basically, found its way
to this bank.
Gruesome discovery by an area
that's primarily commercial
and recreational fishing area.
And you think about two guys
out just for a weekend fish,
and finding something
like this,
I'm sure it was fairly
traumatic for them.
She was bound with maybe a
couple hundred pounds of chains
and some other rope
and things like that.
Someone intended the body
never to be found.
And so it was immediately
classified a homicide.
A decomposing human body smells
unlike anything
that you've ever smelled.
There are crime scenes
that you go on sometimes
where you just have
to throw your clothes away
because the smell permeates
your clothes so much
you can't get rid of it.
The first thing I think about
when we handle a homicide
is the absolute horror and fear
that the victim had to go
through in order to die.
And this was a gruesome death.
We notified Patricia Newman.
We didn't really think that she
was gonna have the ability
to recognize the body because
of the state of decomposition,
but she-- she did go.
[Patricia]
I thought about it and I said,
"Well, okay."
So, I went to the morgue.
They take you in the room,
and the body was on the
slab, I guess.
Whatever you want to call it.
I was very calm.
And so, here is a body
that was in the water.
So it's swollen.
So you're taking a body
that is very wide,
and you're shrinking it
to the size of your person,
the person that you know,
and then you are saying,
"Well, the hair is wet.
"Her hair wet
would've been straight.
This has a little curl to it."
I think that's what put
a little doubt in my mind.
[Jack] She didn't think
that the body was Dorothy.
Maybe it was just
a mental block.
She just didn't want
to see Dorothy
in that condition, of course.
Could it have been Dorothy?
Yes, it could've been Dorothy.
[Jack] Autopsy performed
by Dr. Monroe S. Samuels
on May 3rd, 1985.
The remains measured
5.5" in height,
weight, an estimated
130, 140 pounds.
But the results of the autopsy
was that it was
Dorothy Thompson.
He identified
some upper dental work
that she had done,
and also a hip pin.
And identified the cause
of death as probable asphyxia.
Not an easy way to die.
[solemn music playing]
[Kristine Wood] When I heard
about Dorothy's death,
I was very upset about it.
Even though I didn't feel
she was my mother,
as I grew up
with my grandparents,
she was my birth mother.
I grieved for her,
to think that at the end
of such an incredibly
difficult life,
that she had to experience
a violent end.
[sighs]
"I only knew my mother
for a brief period
"when I was a young child.
"I now have a picture
of my mother, Dorothy Lou.
"In the photo she must be
about 16 years old.
"Her hair is dark brown,
almost black.
"Her mouth, full and sad,
"with only a hint of a smile
for the camera.
She's very beautiful"
I started writing
about my mother
when I was in college.
[wistful music playing]
Um
This is my mom, Dorothy Lou.
That looks like my sister.
And that looks like my brother.
And that would be me.
Dorothy Lou was, to me,
when I was a little girl,
a beautiful lady.
She just looked like
Marilyn Monroe.
She had lipstick on, makeup,
and she was beautiful.
I'm fascinated with this photo.
I love seeing her smiling.
I I did not know
that part of her.
My father, Charles Robert Wood,
was in the military.
And I have no idea
how these two people met.
Maybe if he was stationed
in the military in New Orleans.
But sometime in the '40s
those two people fell in love,
and I think they were a bit
of a dangerous combination.
My father fought
in the Pacific,
and somewhere along the line
developed a drug habit.
I think he probably
is the person
who introduced
my mother to drugs.
I know drugs were active
in their lives increasingly.
They both went to prison
for a robbery.
My mother was working
in a place,
and then my father came in
and robbed the place.
So, I went to live
with my paternal grandparents.
They had a farm
on Grizzly Island
in California.
I was surrounded by nature,
beautiful marshland.
I was given the gift of peace.
But then Dorothy was released,
and she came to live
with us for a while.
And those times
were really terrible.
Her addiction was deep.
Even after my grandmother
helped her withdraw
from heroin,
my mother was still drinking,
drinking, drinking,
which probably is why
I had very little connection
with her, emotionally.
At some point in '61,
she took off
and went back to Louisiana
to live with her mother,
Grace Thompson,
who lived on a pet cemetery.
[birds tweeting]
And that was the last time
I saw her.
[Patricia] Her mother was Grace,
and she ran the pet cemetery.
Dorothy loved her children.
But when she came
to live with her mother,
she was a mess.
And Grace said
it was no place
to raise children
at a pet cemetery.
So, she thought
with the relatives,
they would have
a fabulous life.
So that's why she didn't
have her children.
That's Dorothy.
And this is Grace. Look at 'em.
They look alike.
The only reason I knew this was
Grace is 'cause of the macaw.
She had that on her shoulder.
Grace was very talented.
She played the piano,
she ran the cemetery.
She was just an outstanding
person, you know?
[interviewer] Mrs. Thompson,
do the owners of these pets
forget about 'em
after you bury 'em?
No, they're here every, uh
Most of them are here Sundays
and bring flowers,
and they
They run their, uh, mowers
around their graves,
and, uh, they buy, uh,
the monuments.
And they treat them
just like they were children
that they had buried.
[interviewer]
What type of people
are these, Mrs. Thompson? Uh
Well, I call them
the salt of the earth
because they really
love their pets, and they, uh
They really feel
for 'em and, of course,
when you take it all in all,
why, the only thing
that will really
stick by you through life
and never do to you something
that you're not looking for,
is a dog or a cat
or any of those things.
[Patricia]
Grace was the animal lover.
Dorothy loved animals,
but Grace loved--
She hated to see animals
dead in the road.
And that's why she started
the pet cemetery.
[interviewer] Did you ever
get the feeling that
pets are better
than people sometimes?
Oh, yes.
I think that right now.
Yes, indeed.
Tell you the truth,
I don't like to be ugly,
but I don't like people much.
I-- I like the pets.
[Patricia]
And it was beautiful out there.
Beautiful flowers and,
you know,
she could grow anything.
[bees buzzing]
[Robert] Well, I remember
they had those,
we call 'em wisteria vines.
And they make
a big purple flower.
And it's a vine, and so, they--
when they grow upward
at a certain time of the year,
they blossom
and it gets real pretty.
So it-- it was the natural,
natural scent of the season.
[interviewer] Do you want
to be laid to rest here?
I sure would do.
I've got the place
right up here on the--
on the hill.
I don't want
any elaborate ceremony,
and I don't want
any big monuments or anything.
But I want to be with the pets.
[Patricia] Dorothy listened
to everything Mother said.
She loved Mother
and Mother's stories,
and she lived through Mother,
you know?
So, when Grace died,
she was devastated.
She was devastated.
I tried to help her
kind of regain herself to say,
"Hey, you know, she's gone
but you still
have to carry on from here."
But she didn't know
what to do, what not to do,
because her mother
did everything.
The cemetery looked nothing like
it did when Grace was living.
[mysterious music playing]
[Cindy] When Mrs. Thompson
passed on,
Dorothy became the proprietor.
And she had some issues.
She didn't have anyone
to help her.
I don't think she drove.
I don't think--
I've never seen her drive.
I don't think she had
a vehicle or she drove,
so she needed someone
to pick up the pets.
And, of course,
she couldn't dig the holes.
She'd say, "I'm looking
for someone to cut the grass."
"Well, I know Mr. So-and-So."
So then, Mr. So-and-So
would come out there,
and they'd agree on a price,
and he would come cut the grass.
And that's how she, you know,
conducted her business.
Dorothy always thought
the best of people.
And, of course, they wouldn't
do it the way that it should've
been done, you know?
Dorothy had met a guy
by the name of Elkin Childress
and befriended him.
She'd brought him down
to the pet cemetery
and had hired him, I think,
as a part-time custodian
or groundskeeper down there.
So, we picked the guy up.
[ominous music playing]
We kind of liked him
for the crime
because he was
a convicted felon.
He'd committed
an armed robbery, and again,
our attitude is anybody that
uses a gun to commit a crime
is capable of killing someone.
He's a danger—
He was a dangerous guy.
We started
to question Childress
about his activity there.
And he told us
that there was a story
that she had buried $500,000
in one of those, uh,
one of the gravesites
back there.
[insects chirring]
And he admitted that he had
been digging up some graves
basically trying to find
the $500,000.
[eerie music playing]
I mean, when-- when somebody
starts saying
that this lady
has a half a million dollars
buried in one of those
pet graves back there, we think,
"Man, that's just-- that's
urban legend shit, you know?"
But, uh, as we got
into it more,
we had found that some of the
gravesites had been excavated.
So, it heightened
our suspicion about him.
But he adamantly denies
that he had anything to do
with her disappearance.
Part of his explanation,
or part of his defense, really,
is that he's not the one that's
after Dorothy's money,
but Pat-- Pat is,
Pat Newman's
after Dorothy's money.
Excuse me?
[Jack]
How would Pat Newman benefit
from Dorothy's disappearance?
[Brian] At that point,
we interviewed Ms. Newman,
and we did find out
she had become the executor
and power of attorney
of Ms. Thompson.
[Patricia]
I think Dorothy trusted me.
That's why she did that.
She wanted to make sure
if something happened
that somebody ran the cemetery
the way that they ran it.
'Cause I even told her,
"I don't want to live
at the cemetery."
The spirits and I
probably would have problems.
[laughs]
[Brian]
We found that Ms. Newman
had the property valued
at $150,000.
Was she doing this
for future financial gain
when Ms. Thompson passed?
Or just to have an idea
of what the property was worth?
The lawyer did that,
trying to figure, I guess,
how much he had to be paid
and what was-- it was worth.
And, you know,
what to charge, or whatever.
When we learned
about her possible gains,
it makes you think.
You know,
does she have a motive?
Yeah. But we had
no substantial evidence.
During the investigation,
we learned that there
was other people
that did some work
for Ms. Thompson
at the pet cemetery.
And there was a gentleman
by the name of Brandon Nodier.
He was another groundskeeper,
and he kind of kept
the pet cemetery up,
and was sort of a handyman
around the residence as well.
Out of the people
that we interviewed,
he was the only one
that came in with his attorney.
It always throws a red flag.
I'm not saying he's guilty.
Some people come in
and they prefer
to have their attorney present
during the interview,
I'm assuming so they don't
incriminate themselves.
We asked,
"Did you have anything to do
with Ms. Thompson's
disappearance?"
His attorney said, "No."
At the end, we didn't have
any reason to believe
that Nodier had anything to do
with Ms. Thompson's
disappearance.
[Jack] While I guess
we never did dismiss
Elkin Childress,
we didn't like him
as much as we did
when we first picked him up
'cause it looked like his story
was starting to check out.
But he died sometime--
sometime after that,
not long, under fairly
suspicious conditions.
It was classified
as a drowning.
I don't think there was ever
any real conclusive evidence
that there was
foul play involved.
Although it was hard to believe
that there was not.
Of course, the question that
was most important to us was,
was any of that related
to the disappearance
and murder of Dorothy?
And we never could
put that together.
It went cold.
We wore ourselves out,
and we couldn't figure out
who else to interview
or talk to.
[Brian] Kind of puts a weight
bearing on you
as a detective.
You have someone on the loose
that committed this homicide.
There's always a concern
when you can't
solve a homicide case of,
who's next?
[Jack] You get to a point
in any investigation
where you basically
just punch yourself out.
What can we do now?
Is there anything else?
Any other person
we can question?
Any other piece
of physical evidence
that we need to take a look at?
And everybody scratched
their heads and said,
"We don't know.
We've looked at everything.
We've talked to everybody,
and it's just a dead end."
[discordant music playing]
[John]
I joined the Sheriff's Office
at 20 years old
as a patrol officer.
And after about
four and a half years,
I was promoted to detective,
and that was
my introduction to
To the-- To the Detective Bureau
and Investigations.
[dramatic music playing]
You were kind of just
thrown right into the fire.
And I handled my first homicide
when I was 24 years old.
And here I am 40 years later
still doing the same thing.
[Jack]
I knew John's pedigree.
He was motivated.
In fact, it was his initiative
that brought up
these cold cases.
[John]
Technology was changing.
By 2004, cold cases
had become a popular thing
because of DNA.
And I said, "Why not us?"
You know?
We have some
cold case homicides
that we could certainly
take a look at.
But, you know, any crime,
but particularly a major crime
like a homicide,
the further you get away
from the event,
the more unlikely it gets that
you're gonna clear that case.
And John said,
"Look, Sheriff, you know
we're not gonna be able
to solve every crime
that happens."
But he says, "We're gotta do
the best we can."
[John] We didn't really have
very many cold case murders.
We had less than a dozen or so.
And the pet cemetery case
happened to be
one of 'em in there.
And it had, for the most part,
been forgotten about.
After reading it,
my antennas went up.
And then when I saw this photo,
I thought,
"I remember that lady."
I had cut grass there
when I was 15 years old.
[discordant music playing]
I remembered the place.
I remember the smell of it.
I remembered
the way things looked.
You know, it was just
this old house.
But when I met Dorothy,
she seemed pretty--
She was pretty nice to us.
She let us in the house,
she offered us
something to drink
and she wrote us a check.
I came home, and my mother
was curious where I had been.
When I told her,
she was livid.
She said,
"Do not go down there again.
That place is evil."
My mother, you know,
she went to school down there,
and there's always been
hundreds of stories
about this place.
Evil spirits,
ghost sightings.
A lot of the locals
down in Toca
believe that that land
is cursed.
"Sour ground," they call it.
That there's some evil entity
or something
that exists down there.
[grass rustling]
[Leola Anderson]
I remember driving on
what we call Bayou Road
and seeing the pet cemetery.
As a child, I never was told
about the history,
the trauma of that land.
There's hidden secrets,
buried secrets,
right here where I live.
Toca is named
after Judge Philippe Toca.
He was known as an evil,
merciless enslaver.
Judge Toca owned
the Toca plantation
where people were enslaved.
And he's also at the center
of the St. Bernard Parish
massacre.
1863 is
the Emancipation Proclamation.
Formerly enslaved people
are now free
and now in a position to vote.
During this phase, we have
the most African Americans
that have been now elected
to public office.
These formerly enslaved people
are realizing
the power that they have
when they band together.
But there is a certain
demographic of people,
Southeastern white America,
not all, but a good number,
that don't want to see
African Americans
on equal footing.
And so, in 1868
during election time,
to show white dominance,
white superiority,
Philippe Toca, the judge,
is ordering this massacre.
They just, you know,
grabbed freed people
and killed them.
[tense music playing]
We believe it's somewhere
between 30 to 100.
It's a state-sponsored
hunting for people.
This massacre occurs
on the plot of land
that's now the pet cemetery.
I believe that the land
holds the trauma,
and the people
hold the trauma.
The fear of the St. Bernard
massacre
remains in some people
to this day.
Some of them don't even want
to enter the parish,
especially the pet cemetery.
[unsettling music playing]
[John] When I started working
on this case, I kept thinking,
"Dorothy Thompson deserved
some form of justice here."
So, we had to just kind of
go back to bare bones,
start from the beginning,
establish a timeline,
establish a motive.
Just old-time police tactics.
There were four
prime suspects in this case.
Kenny Pommier, who had she
just recently hired.
He comes up with an alibi,
and it just didn't seem
like he fit.
And my second thought,
it was Elkin Childress
'cause this-- this was
a bad dude, man.
He had some violent history.
But when they go to look
for him, they find out that
he had drowned, mysteriously,
uh, under a houseboat.
And they ruled it
an accidental drowning,
but under
suspicious circumstances.
Third person was,
was Brandon Nodier
because he had worked there.
But, you know,
they couldn't prove anything.
You had Elkin Childress
pointing the finger
at Patricia Newman.
And, of course, the detectives
initially, you know, thought
she was a viable suspect
because she inherited the land.
Oh, come on.
Come on.
He thought it was me?
Now, do I look like
I'm the type of person
I'm gonna go do that?
I can't even pick up those
heavy chains, I don't think.
But, I mean,
that's ludicrous, what
[John] This lady was--
was trying to do everything
to help Dorothy.
And not only that, she was
the one screaming the loudest
from the mountaintops
To-- To catch herself?
It just didn't make any sense.
Whoever committed this crime
was an evil person.
This was a heinous crime.
This took a psychopath,
sociopath, to kill this woman
in this manner.
I was determined
to solve this case.
[news reporter 1]
A monster category-3 storm,
and possibly taking aim
at Southeast Louisiana.
Hurricane Katrina
continues to move west.
[news reporter 2]
St. Bernard Parish is under
a state of emergency.
[speaker] It's big,
and it's gonna take
everything we can throw at it.
This is the storm.
It's moving very rapidly
off to the west.
[wind roaring]
[crashing]
[John] August 29th, 2005.
Hurricane Katrina
makes landfall.
[branches snapping]
[John] That levee broke.
It was just a deluge of water
came tearing down the street.
[boat motor revving]
[John] Turned cars
and school buses over.
[metallic rattling]
[John] I just really thought
that I was gonna die that day.
I thought we were
all gonna drown.
[helicopter blades whirring]
[Leola] I remember
looking at TV,
thinking,
"Is our house under water?"
Those who have lived
in the place
we still have the memories,
but we can never show those
things to our-- our children.
You know, my son would
never know what that's like
to walk through
my grandmother's house
because it no longer exists.
I can only tell him about it.
(reporter speaking)
[somber music playing]
I lost my grandmother,
uh, during the storm.
It was devastating.
[voice breaking]
It was the worst time
of my experience.
Um, when you think
of "forever home,"
this was my forever home.
[John]
Katrina basically passes
directly over
St. Bernard Parish.
[mournful music playing]
And destroys the area
where the pet cemetery sits.
[Melissa] It demolished
the home at the pet cemetery.
The woods have grown over it.
Katrina changed
everything for everybody.
Not only for our family,
but everybody
in St. Bernard Parish.
Everything that
I owned personally, I lost.
Other than the clothes
on my back, I lost everything.
[water sloshing]
At the time the storm hit,
you know,
we were about
saving our own lives.
But as we started to rebuild,
I started realizing
all of our files were housed
in that
Detective Bureau station.
We had about 20 feet of water
in that building,
so anything
that we had in there
that was of any value
was destroyed
including
the pet cemetery file.
We lost the crime scene photos,
which is of Dorothy,
we lost all the remaining
evidence that we had.
And, you know,
we were just devastated.
At that point, we just thought
that that case was--
was dead forever,
was gone.
[somber music playing]
2009, we were back up and
running as a detective unit.
One of my detectives
working the desk
says, "Look, this guy called,
"something about
some pet cemetery,
and he says
he's gonna call back."
I said, "Well, when he does,
make sure you tell me, okay?"
[detective]
Which one y'all doing?
-You got the one--
-The pet cemetery one.
He called back,
and it's sort of
this ominous call.
It's a male voice.
He's not identifying himself,
but he says he's got information
about the pet cemetery,
the murder,
and about the lady there.
I said, "Look, would you be
willing to meet with us?"
[police sirens wailing]
At first, he was
a little resistant,
but I convinced him.
So we drive,
myself and Mark Jackson,
the lieutenant
that works with me.
And we pick him up
right on the outskirts
of the French Quarter,
kind of in the Marigny area.
[Det. Mark Jackson] He was
sitting on the street corner.
Real nervous and antsy.
And-- And we talked to him,
and-- and he agreed
to come to our office.
He was almost crying
when he was in our car.
Said he had information that
he wanted to get off his chest.
[dramatic music playing]
[John]
I'm thinking to myself
that maybe he's our guy.
[clock ticking]
I thought he was gonna say,
"Look, I killed her."
[clock ticking continues]
[recorder beeps]
[door creaking]
[door opening]
[John]
We have a guy here telling us,
"I've been seeing her ghost
for the last month every night."
(Jose Cruz speaking)
(John speaking)
"Wrapped in chains,
floating at the foot of my bed."
[ticking]
Roaming the earth,
seeking justice.
And she's coming to him
to get to us.
He says, "I know you guys
think I'm crazy,
"but it was her ghost
that I saw.
"I'm telling you
it was her ghost,
and it scared the
ever-living shit out of me."
[dramatic music playing]
[eerie music playing]
[Dep. Sheriff John Doran]
In 1985,
a woman was found, strangled,
suffocated, wrapped in chains
and thrown
in the Mississippi River.
She had died a horrible death.
She was identified
as the owner
of the Azalea Pet Cemetery
in Toca, Louisiana.
In its heyday,
the pet cemetery
was a real picturesque place.
Real tranquil, serene.
Like a botanical paradise.
A very popular destination
for people to go there
and bury their pets.
But what started out
to be a place of serenity
for these pet owners
turned out to be
a really macabre setting.
The case was always there,
when I started the
Sheriff's Office
as an unsolved murder.
Something was telling me that
I had to get to the truth here.
And find out
what happened to this woman.
It's just haunted me.
It was a lot of mystery
hovering over
this pet cemetery.
A lot of bad things happened
on that property,
and everybody we talked to
had some strange story
about this place.
Things that just
can't be explained.
People started to see
the woman's ghost.
(man speaking)
[ominous music playing]
[insects chirring]
[droning music playing]
[squawking]
[animals chittering]
[dogs barking]
[Cindy Graf]
We are south of New Orleans,
can't get much further south
than where we are.
If you go maybe 10 miles
down the road
you get to a big sign that says
"The End of the World"
at Delacroix Island.
The name of the town
right here is Toca,
so when you saw Toca
on one side of the sign
you was out of Toca
on the other side of the sign.
That's how small it was.
It was from the church
to right here.
That's Toca.
[Cindy] We moved here in '74.
[Robert Graf] We were here when
the pet cemetery was active.
It had "Azalea Pet Cemetery"
written across the top.
[Robert] There was no other
pet cemeteries nowhere.
[Cindy] They had tombs
with animals on top.
They had a big dog
on one of 'em.
And there was a big
Victorian home back there.
[Robert] Everybody, you know,
has to have a pet.
And you don't want to throw it
out the window when it dies,
so you had to get rid of it
some kind of way.
So, the pet cemetery
happened to be
the only place
to take care of 'em.
[music box melody playing]
[Melissa Jeffirs] I happened
to live right next door
to it at the time,
and the pet cemetery
had this aura about it.
The stories were
in St. Bernard Parish,
"Okay, you wanna go
to a haunted house?"
And the pet cemetery
would come up.
You know, it looked spooky.
There was ghost stories.
You know, kids would always
wanna come and, you know,
walk in the pet cemetery
and kind of check it out.
I always, you know,
would say a prayer
if I was walking from my house
to my mother-in-law's house.
Just if I had that spooky,
uh, feeling at the time.
[Robert] We heard about
the stories, the rumors.
You know, the ghost.
You know, whether it's true
or not, that's the word.
[laughs] Welcome to Louisiana.
[Melissa] It was spooky because
the lady that lived there
was alone most of the time.
[wistful music playing]
[Tony Fernandez]
Dorothy Thompson,
the owner of the property,
had very little interaction
with the people here.
Because you could go
to any of her neighbors,
you knew who they were,
you knew a lot about them.
But in the case
of the pet cemetery, no.
The place was always
mysterious, isolated.
Very little was known,
and not a lot of people
spoke about it.
I'd see her in passing.
She was an elderly lady,
but she didn't really say much.
She was withdrawn
and kind of, you know,
stayed to herself a lot.
[Patricia Newman]
Dorothy was a lovely person.
She was very open
and vivacious and outgoing
and laughing if she knew you.
If she didn't know you
then she was very reserved.
We would talk on the phone
constantly, every day,
to say how the day went,
what she was doing,
what she intended on doing,
what dog she buried,
what cat she buried.
She was like
another mother to me.
And she loved the pets.
She'd say that they're always
there for you,
whether you had happy times
or sad times.
You know, your pet is there
all the time.
They never judge you,
they never complain about you,
and they're certainly
not repeating your stories
to someone, you know?
[spooky music playing]
One day, we heard about
Dorothy going missing.
It was scary.
We didn't know the circumstance.
[crickets chirping]
[Patricia] What happened
is Dorothy broke her hip,
so she stayed at my house
and I took care of her.
And then a few months later,
the doctor says
she can go home.
So I brought her home.
I said, "I will come
tomorrow morning
"and pick up your clothes
"or anything that has
to be washed
and anything you need
from the store."
So, she went home.
And the next day,
I went there to pick her up.
The house was locked.
I was knocking
and knocking and knocking.
Well, after a prolonged
period of time
I was like, "I don't know
why she's not answering the door
when I'm knocking."
I was worried
that she fell on the floor,
or maybe she hit her head
in the bathroom
or something
like that happened.
So, I called the police.
[phone ringing]
[Sheriff Jack Stephens]
When the call came in,
Pat Newman told us
that Dorothy was expecting,
uh, Patricia Newman
to pick her up.
They had something
scheduled to do,
some errands to run.
And those are things
that, really,
that were that normal
for them to do,
and she wouldn't have just
walked away
and not certainly
talked to her about it.
Where could she
have gone at night?
She didn't drive.
She didn't say
she was going anywhere.
So I knew
something was wrong.
[Jack]
Pat Newman had been something
of a community activist before,
so she wasn't unknown to us.
I mean, she was vocal
about things.
I mean, she participated
in helping senior citizens,
things down here.
And she described the fact
that Dorothy had no family
and no friends, really.
And she just wouldn't
have gone off like that.
So, we had a strong suspicion
that there was
some foul play involved.
[siren wailing]
Missing persons
weren't common here
in St. Bernard Parish.
So when I received the report,
we went down to the residence.
When we got down the driveway,
if you look straight ahead
you can see the pet cemetery.
To the right of us
was the actual residence
of Ms. Thompson.
It was a huge,
historic mansion.
It was kind of creepy.
It was like you could feel
the past and the history
in that-- in that
Dorothy Thompson residence.
[Patricia] The whole thing
was locked from the inside.
Dorothy had a habit.
When she was at home by herself
she would lock that one lock.
That lock was not tampered with.
[squawking]
[Det. Brian Vallelungo]
Instead of entering
through the front of the house
on the porch,
we entered through a side door
in the back.
Didn't appear to be
any sign of a struggle,
but you could hear
somebody talking.
[ominous music playing]
[person speaking quietly
and indistinctly]
Who's in here?
And it was a TV
that happened to be on.
It was very strange.
There was a glass of wine
and nobody there.
[Patricia]
Nothing was messed up,
so it didn't look like
she had a fight with anybody.
You know, what transpired
from the time I dropped her off
till the next morning?
What was going on, you know?
I don't know, I really felt
something had happened.
You know,
people don't just vanish.
You know, they don't just
go off the face of the earth.
We had flyers made
with a picture
of her possible physical ID,
and we placed these flyers
in different business places
within St. Bernard Parish.
Restaurants,
convenience stores, banks,
pharmacies.
But we got no leads whatsoever.
None.
So, we went
to one of the most
frequent places
that Ms. Thompson would go,
and that would've been
the, uh, Peoples Bank
in Poydras, Louisiana.
We find out that the last time
that she was seen,
according to the people
at the bank,
was April 13th,
three days before
Ms. Thompson came up missing.
And she was with a gentleman
named Kenneth Pommier.
And she actually withdrew
$100 cash
to give to Mr. Pommier.
It makes you think.
Possible suspect, but no proof.
There's no substantial evidence
at that point.
It could've been
a perfectly innocent thing.
When Kenny Pommier
was interviewed,
he said that he answered an ad
in the paper by Ms. Thompson.
She actually hired him to do
some work around the property,
cutting grass, keeping
the place up as you will.
At the end of the interview
we asked him,
"Did you have anything to do
with Ms. Thompson's
disappearance?"
He replied, "No."
He had just met
Ms. Thompson the day before,
and he had no motive.
So, we got to a dead end.
We had nothing.
[Patricia]
Every day when I got up, it's,
"Where is Dorothy?"
"Dorothy would not, she wouldn't
have walked down the road."
"If she was going someplace
she would've called me."
How do you lose a person?
How do you lose a person?
How did they just disappear
off the face of the earth?
It ate at me like I can't even
tell you what it did.
Because she was
a very close friend of mine.
So, I went to several psychics.
No one gave me answers,
but one of them did say,
"If she crossed water,
she's dead."
[dour music playing]
[boat motor whirring]
[water gurgling]
[Jack] The Coast Guard
contacted the Sheriff's Office
on May 2nd, 1985,
notified them
that they'd discovered a body.
We had put them on notice
that we were
basically looking for someone
who had gone missing,
and if you're gonna
dump a body,
the Mississippi River's
not a bad place to dump it.
There's a lot of scavengers
that work that whole area,
marine and mammal.
This is the location
where the body was found,
and if you look at the map,
this is our jurisdiction.
Alright, and the body
was found down here.
[police radio chatter]
It was discovered maybe two
weeks after the report came in.
Now that doesn't mean
it hadn't popped up.
It could've been
floating in the river.
I mean, it's a big,
big body of water.
Basically, found its way
to this bank.
Gruesome discovery by an area
that's primarily commercial
and recreational fishing area.
And you think about two guys
out just for a weekend fish,
and finding something
like this,
I'm sure it was fairly
traumatic for them.
She was bound with maybe a
couple hundred pounds of chains
and some other rope
and things like that.
Someone intended the body
never to be found.
And so it was immediately
classified a homicide.
A decomposing human body smells
unlike anything
that you've ever smelled.
There are crime scenes
that you go on sometimes
where you just have
to throw your clothes away
because the smell permeates
your clothes so much
you can't get rid of it.
The first thing I think about
when we handle a homicide
is the absolute horror and fear
that the victim had to go
through in order to die.
And this was a gruesome death.
We notified Patricia Newman.
We didn't really think that she
was gonna have the ability
to recognize the body because
of the state of decomposition,
but she-- she did go.
[Patricia]
I thought about it and I said,
"Well, okay."
So, I went to the morgue.
They take you in the room,
and the body was on the
slab, I guess.
Whatever you want to call it.
I was very calm.
And so, here is a body
that was in the water.
So it's swollen.
So you're taking a body
that is very wide,
and you're shrinking it
to the size of your person,
the person that you know,
and then you are saying,
"Well, the hair is wet.
"Her hair wet
would've been straight.
This has a little curl to it."
I think that's what put
a little doubt in my mind.
[Jack] She didn't think
that the body was Dorothy.
Maybe it was just
a mental block.
She just didn't want
to see Dorothy
in that condition, of course.
Could it have been Dorothy?
Yes, it could've been Dorothy.
[Jack] Autopsy performed
by Dr. Monroe S. Samuels
on May 3rd, 1985.
The remains measured
5.5" in height,
weight, an estimated
130, 140 pounds.
But the results of the autopsy
was that it was
Dorothy Thompson.
He identified
some upper dental work
that she had done,
and also a hip pin.
And identified the cause
of death as probable asphyxia.
Not an easy way to die.
[solemn music playing]
[Kristine Wood] When I heard
about Dorothy's death,
I was very upset about it.
Even though I didn't feel
she was my mother,
as I grew up
with my grandparents,
she was my birth mother.
I grieved for her,
to think that at the end
of such an incredibly
difficult life,
that she had to experience
a violent end.
[sighs]
"I only knew my mother
for a brief period
"when I was a young child.
"I now have a picture
of my mother, Dorothy Lou.
"In the photo she must be
about 16 years old.
"Her hair is dark brown,
almost black.
"Her mouth, full and sad,
"with only a hint of a smile
for the camera.
She's very beautiful"
I started writing
about my mother
when I was in college.
[wistful music playing]
Um
This is my mom, Dorothy Lou.
That looks like my sister.
And that looks like my brother.
And that would be me.
Dorothy Lou was, to me,
when I was a little girl,
a beautiful lady.
She just looked like
Marilyn Monroe.
She had lipstick on, makeup,
and she was beautiful.
I'm fascinated with this photo.
I love seeing her smiling.
I I did not know
that part of her.
My father, Charles Robert Wood,
was in the military.
And I have no idea
how these two people met.
Maybe if he was stationed
in the military in New Orleans.
But sometime in the '40s
those two people fell in love,
and I think they were a bit
of a dangerous combination.
My father fought
in the Pacific,
and somewhere along the line
developed a drug habit.
I think he probably
is the person
who introduced
my mother to drugs.
I know drugs were active
in their lives increasingly.
They both went to prison
for a robbery.
My mother was working
in a place,
and then my father came in
and robbed the place.
So, I went to live
with my paternal grandparents.
They had a farm
on Grizzly Island
in California.
I was surrounded by nature,
beautiful marshland.
I was given the gift of peace.
But then Dorothy was released,
and she came to live
with us for a while.
And those times
were really terrible.
Her addiction was deep.
Even after my grandmother
helped her withdraw
from heroin,
my mother was still drinking,
drinking, drinking,
which probably is why
I had very little connection
with her, emotionally.
At some point in '61,
she took off
and went back to Louisiana
to live with her mother,
Grace Thompson,
who lived on a pet cemetery.
[birds tweeting]
And that was the last time
I saw her.
[Patricia] Her mother was Grace,
and she ran the pet cemetery.
Dorothy loved her children.
But when she came
to live with her mother,
she was a mess.
And Grace said
it was no place
to raise children
at a pet cemetery.
So, she thought
with the relatives,
they would have
a fabulous life.
So that's why she didn't
have her children.
That's Dorothy.
And this is Grace. Look at 'em.
They look alike.
The only reason I knew this was
Grace is 'cause of the macaw.
She had that on her shoulder.
Grace was very talented.
She played the piano,
she ran the cemetery.
She was just an outstanding
person, you know?
[interviewer] Mrs. Thompson,
do the owners of these pets
forget about 'em
after you bury 'em?
No, they're here every, uh
Most of them are here Sundays
and bring flowers,
and they
They run their, uh, mowers
around their graves,
and, uh, they buy, uh,
the monuments.
And they treat them
just like they were children
that they had buried.
[interviewer]
What type of people
are these, Mrs. Thompson? Uh
Well, I call them
the salt of the earth
because they really
love their pets, and they, uh
They really feel
for 'em and, of course,
when you take it all in all,
why, the only thing
that will really
stick by you through life
and never do to you something
that you're not looking for,
is a dog or a cat
or any of those things.
[Patricia]
Grace was the animal lover.
Dorothy loved animals,
but Grace loved--
She hated to see animals
dead in the road.
And that's why she started
the pet cemetery.
[interviewer] Did you ever
get the feeling that
pets are better
than people sometimes?
Oh, yes.
I think that right now.
Yes, indeed.
Tell you the truth,
I don't like to be ugly,
but I don't like people much.
I-- I like the pets.
[Patricia]
And it was beautiful out there.
Beautiful flowers and,
you know,
she could grow anything.
[bees buzzing]
[Robert] Well, I remember
they had those,
we call 'em wisteria vines.
And they make
a big purple flower.
And it's a vine, and so, they--
when they grow upward
at a certain time of the year,
they blossom
and it gets real pretty.
So it-- it was the natural,
natural scent of the season.
[interviewer] Do you want
to be laid to rest here?
I sure would do.
I've got the place
right up here on the--
on the hill.
I don't want
any elaborate ceremony,
and I don't want
any big monuments or anything.
But I want to be with the pets.
[Patricia] Dorothy listened
to everything Mother said.
She loved Mother
and Mother's stories,
and she lived through Mother,
you know?
So, when Grace died,
she was devastated.
She was devastated.
I tried to help her
kind of regain herself to say,
"Hey, you know, she's gone
but you still
have to carry on from here."
But she didn't know
what to do, what not to do,
because her mother
did everything.
The cemetery looked nothing like
it did when Grace was living.
[mysterious music playing]
[Cindy] When Mrs. Thompson
passed on,
Dorothy became the proprietor.
And she had some issues.
She didn't have anyone
to help her.
I don't think she drove.
I don't think--
I've never seen her drive.
I don't think she had
a vehicle or she drove,
so she needed someone
to pick up the pets.
And, of course,
she couldn't dig the holes.
She'd say, "I'm looking
for someone to cut the grass."
"Well, I know Mr. So-and-So."
So then, Mr. So-and-So
would come out there,
and they'd agree on a price,
and he would come cut the grass.
And that's how she, you know,
conducted her business.
Dorothy always thought
the best of people.
And, of course, they wouldn't
do it the way that it should've
been done, you know?
Dorothy had met a guy
by the name of Elkin Childress
and befriended him.
She'd brought him down
to the pet cemetery
and had hired him, I think,
as a part-time custodian
or groundskeeper down there.
So, we picked the guy up.
[ominous music playing]
We kind of liked him
for the crime
because he was
a convicted felon.
He'd committed
an armed robbery, and again,
our attitude is anybody that
uses a gun to commit a crime
is capable of killing someone.
He's a danger—
He was a dangerous guy.
We started
to question Childress
about his activity there.
And he told us
that there was a story
that she had buried $500,000
in one of those, uh,
one of the gravesites
back there.
[insects chirring]
And he admitted that he had
been digging up some graves
basically trying to find
the $500,000.
[eerie music playing]
I mean, when-- when somebody
starts saying
that this lady
has a half a million dollars
buried in one of those
pet graves back there, we think,
"Man, that's just-- that's
urban legend shit, you know?"
But, uh, as we got
into it more,
we had found that some of the
gravesites had been excavated.
So, it heightened
our suspicion about him.
But he adamantly denies
that he had anything to do
with her disappearance.
Part of his explanation,
or part of his defense, really,
is that he's not the one that's
after Dorothy's money,
but Pat-- Pat is,
Pat Newman's
after Dorothy's money.
Excuse me?
[Jack]
How would Pat Newman benefit
from Dorothy's disappearance?
[Brian] At that point,
we interviewed Ms. Newman,
and we did find out
she had become the executor
and power of attorney
of Ms. Thompson.
[Patricia]
I think Dorothy trusted me.
That's why she did that.
She wanted to make sure
if something happened
that somebody ran the cemetery
the way that they ran it.
'Cause I even told her,
"I don't want to live
at the cemetery."
The spirits and I
probably would have problems.
[laughs]
[Brian]
We found that Ms. Newman
had the property valued
at $150,000.
Was she doing this
for future financial gain
when Ms. Thompson passed?
Or just to have an idea
of what the property was worth?
The lawyer did that,
trying to figure, I guess,
how much he had to be paid
and what was-- it was worth.
And, you know,
what to charge, or whatever.
When we learned
about her possible gains,
it makes you think.
You know,
does she have a motive?
Yeah. But we had
no substantial evidence.
During the investigation,
we learned that there
was other people
that did some work
for Ms. Thompson
at the pet cemetery.
And there was a gentleman
by the name of Brandon Nodier.
He was another groundskeeper,
and he kind of kept
the pet cemetery up,
and was sort of a handyman
around the residence as well.
Out of the people
that we interviewed,
he was the only one
that came in with his attorney.
It always throws a red flag.
I'm not saying he's guilty.
Some people come in
and they prefer
to have their attorney present
during the interview,
I'm assuming so they don't
incriminate themselves.
We asked,
"Did you have anything to do
with Ms. Thompson's
disappearance?"
His attorney said, "No."
At the end, we didn't have
any reason to believe
that Nodier had anything to do
with Ms. Thompson's
disappearance.
[Jack] While I guess
we never did dismiss
Elkin Childress,
we didn't like him
as much as we did
when we first picked him up
'cause it looked like his story
was starting to check out.
But he died sometime--
sometime after that,
not long, under fairly
suspicious conditions.
It was classified
as a drowning.
I don't think there was ever
any real conclusive evidence
that there was
foul play involved.
Although it was hard to believe
that there was not.
Of course, the question that
was most important to us was,
was any of that related
to the disappearance
and murder of Dorothy?
And we never could
put that together.
It went cold.
We wore ourselves out,
and we couldn't figure out
who else to interview
or talk to.
[Brian] Kind of puts a weight
bearing on you
as a detective.
You have someone on the loose
that committed this homicide.
There's always a concern
when you can't
solve a homicide case of,
who's next?
[Jack] You get to a point
in any investigation
where you basically
just punch yourself out.
What can we do now?
Is there anything else?
Any other person
we can question?
Any other piece
of physical evidence
that we need to take a look at?
And everybody scratched
their heads and said,
"We don't know.
We've looked at everything.
We've talked to everybody,
and it's just a dead end."
[discordant music playing]
[John]
I joined the Sheriff's Office
at 20 years old
as a patrol officer.
And after about
four and a half years,
I was promoted to detective,
and that was
my introduction to
To the-- To the Detective Bureau
and Investigations.
[dramatic music playing]
You were kind of just
thrown right into the fire.
And I handled my first homicide
when I was 24 years old.
And here I am 40 years later
still doing the same thing.
[Jack]
I knew John's pedigree.
He was motivated.
In fact, it was his initiative
that brought up
these cold cases.
[John]
Technology was changing.
By 2004, cold cases
had become a popular thing
because of DNA.
And I said, "Why not us?"
You know?
We have some
cold case homicides
that we could certainly
take a look at.
But, you know, any crime,
but particularly a major crime
like a homicide,
the further you get away
from the event,
the more unlikely it gets that
you're gonna clear that case.
And John said,
"Look, Sheriff, you know
we're not gonna be able
to solve every crime
that happens."
But he says, "We're gotta do
the best we can."
[John] We didn't really have
very many cold case murders.
We had less than a dozen or so.
And the pet cemetery case
happened to be
one of 'em in there.
And it had, for the most part,
been forgotten about.
After reading it,
my antennas went up.
And then when I saw this photo,
I thought,
"I remember that lady."
I had cut grass there
when I was 15 years old.
[discordant music playing]
I remembered the place.
I remember the smell of it.
I remembered
the way things looked.
You know, it was just
this old house.
But when I met Dorothy,
she seemed pretty--
She was pretty nice to us.
She let us in the house,
she offered us
something to drink
and she wrote us a check.
I came home, and my mother
was curious where I had been.
When I told her,
she was livid.
She said,
"Do not go down there again.
That place is evil."
My mother, you know,
she went to school down there,
and there's always been
hundreds of stories
about this place.
Evil spirits,
ghost sightings.
A lot of the locals
down in Toca
believe that that land
is cursed.
"Sour ground," they call it.
That there's some evil entity
or something
that exists down there.
[grass rustling]
[Leola Anderson]
I remember driving on
what we call Bayou Road
and seeing the pet cemetery.
As a child, I never was told
about the history,
the trauma of that land.
There's hidden secrets,
buried secrets,
right here where I live.
Toca is named
after Judge Philippe Toca.
He was known as an evil,
merciless enslaver.
Judge Toca owned
the Toca plantation
where people were enslaved.
And he's also at the center
of the St. Bernard Parish
massacre.
1863 is
the Emancipation Proclamation.
Formerly enslaved people
are now free
and now in a position to vote.
During this phase, we have
the most African Americans
that have been now elected
to public office.
These formerly enslaved people
are realizing
the power that they have
when they band together.
But there is a certain
demographic of people,
Southeastern white America,
not all, but a good number,
that don't want to see
African Americans
on equal footing.
And so, in 1868
during election time,
to show white dominance,
white superiority,
Philippe Toca, the judge,
is ordering this massacre.
They just, you know,
grabbed freed people
and killed them.
[tense music playing]
We believe it's somewhere
between 30 to 100.
It's a state-sponsored
hunting for people.
This massacre occurs
on the plot of land
that's now the pet cemetery.
I believe that the land
holds the trauma,
and the people
hold the trauma.
The fear of the St. Bernard
massacre
remains in some people
to this day.
Some of them don't even want
to enter the parish,
especially the pet cemetery.
[unsettling music playing]
[John] When I started working
on this case, I kept thinking,
"Dorothy Thompson deserved
some form of justice here."
So, we had to just kind of
go back to bare bones,
start from the beginning,
establish a timeline,
establish a motive.
Just old-time police tactics.
There were four
prime suspects in this case.
Kenny Pommier, who had she
just recently hired.
He comes up with an alibi,
and it just didn't seem
like he fit.
And my second thought,
it was Elkin Childress
'cause this-- this was
a bad dude, man.
He had some violent history.
But when they go to look
for him, they find out that
he had drowned, mysteriously,
uh, under a houseboat.
And they ruled it
an accidental drowning,
but under
suspicious circumstances.
Third person was,
was Brandon Nodier
because he had worked there.
But, you know,
they couldn't prove anything.
You had Elkin Childress
pointing the finger
at Patricia Newman.
And, of course, the detectives
initially, you know, thought
she was a viable suspect
because she inherited the land.
Oh, come on.
Come on.
He thought it was me?
Now, do I look like
I'm the type of person
I'm gonna go do that?
I can't even pick up those
heavy chains, I don't think.
But, I mean,
that's ludicrous, what
[John] This lady was--
was trying to do everything
to help Dorothy.
And not only that, she was
the one screaming the loudest
from the mountaintops
To-- To catch herself?
It just didn't make any sense.
Whoever committed this crime
was an evil person.
This was a heinous crime.
This took a psychopath,
sociopath, to kill this woman
in this manner.
I was determined
to solve this case.
[news reporter 1]
A monster category-3 storm,
and possibly taking aim
at Southeast Louisiana.
Hurricane Katrina
continues to move west.
[news reporter 2]
St. Bernard Parish is under
a state of emergency.
[speaker] It's big,
and it's gonna take
everything we can throw at it.
This is the storm.
It's moving very rapidly
off to the west.
[wind roaring]
[crashing]
[John] August 29th, 2005.
Hurricane Katrina
makes landfall.
[branches snapping]
[John] That levee broke.
It was just a deluge of water
came tearing down the street.
[boat motor revving]
[John] Turned cars
and school buses over.
[metallic rattling]
[John] I just really thought
that I was gonna die that day.
I thought we were
all gonna drown.
[helicopter blades whirring]
[Leola] I remember
looking at TV,
thinking,
"Is our house under water?"
Those who have lived
in the place
we still have the memories,
but we can never show those
things to our-- our children.
You know, my son would
never know what that's like
to walk through
my grandmother's house
because it no longer exists.
I can only tell him about it.
(reporter speaking)
[somber music playing]
I lost my grandmother,
uh, during the storm.
It was devastating.
[voice breaking]
It was the worst time
of my experience.
Um, when you think
of "forever home,"
this was my forever home.
[John]
Katrina basically passes
directly over
St. Bernard Parish.
[mournful music playing]
And destroys the area
where the pet cemetery sits.
[Melissa] It demolished
the home at the pet cemetery.
The woods have grown over it.
Katrina changed
everything for everybody.
Not only for our family,
but everybody
in St. Bernard Parish.
Everything that
I owned personally, I lost.
Other than the clothes
on my back, I lost everything.
[water sloshing]
At the time the storm hit,
you know,
we were about
saving our own lives.
But as we started to rebuild,
I started realizing
all of our files were housed
in that
Detective Bureau station.
We had about 20 feet of water
in that building,
so anything
that we had in there
that was of any value
was destroyed
including
the pet cemetery file.
We lost the crime scene photos,
which is of Dorothy,
we lost all the remaining
evidence that we had.
And, you know,
we were just devastated.
At that point, we just thought
that that case was--
was dead forever,
was gone.
[somber music playing]
2009, we were back up and
running as a detective unit.
One of my detectives
working the desk
says, "Look, this guy called,
"something about
some pet cemetery,
and he says
he's gonna call back."
I said, "Well, when he does,
make sure you tell me, okay?"
[detective]
Which one y'all doing?
-You got the one--
-The pet cemetery one.
He called back,
and it's sort of
this ominous call.
It's a male voice.
He's not identifying himself,
but he says he's got information
about the pet cemetery,
the murder,
and about the lady there.
I said, "Look, would you be
willing to meet with us?"
[police sirens wailing]
At first, he was
a little resistant,
but I convinced him.
So we drive,
myself and Mark Jackson,
the lieutenant
that works with me.
And we pick him up
right on the outskirts
of the French Quarter,
kind of in the Marigny area.
[Det. Mark Jackson] He was
sitting on the street corner.
Real nervous and antsy.
And-- And we talked to him,
and-- and he agreed
to come to our office.
He was almost crying
when he was in our car.
Said he had information that
he wanted to get off his chest.
[dramatic music playing]
[John]
I'm thinking to myself
that maybe he's our guy.
[clock ticking]
I thought he was gonna say,
"Look, I killed her."
[clock ticking continues]
[recorder beeps]
[door creaking]
[door opening]
[John]
We have a guy here telling us,
"I've been seeing her ghost
for the last month every night."
(Jose Cruz speaking)
(John speaking)
"Wrapped in chains,
floating at the foot of my bed."
[ticking]
Roaming the earth,
seeking justice.
And she's coming to him
to get to us.
He says, "I know you guys
think I'm crazy,
"but it was her ghost
that I saw.
"I'm telling you
it was her ghost,
and it scared the
ever-living shit out of me."
[dramatic music playing]
[eerie music playing]