The Pet Cemetery Murders: A Ghost Story (2026) s01e02 Episode Script
Episode Two
[ethereal music playing]
[John Doran]
The State of Louisiana,
it's a blend of a lot
of different cultures,
good people, good food,
and a lot of history.
This is a part of the world
where a lot of people
believe in ghosts,
spirits and supernatural stuff.
That's the lore,
that's the myth.
And the lore and the myth
of that pet cemetery
is that the place was haunted.
That it was evil.
[ethereal music continues]
I'm Catholic.
I believe in my faith.
I go to church at least
once or twice a week.
And I pray.
And that's what I believe.
But when it comes
to ghosts and spirits,
I didn't buy into it.
Okay
But Jose Cruz believes
he saw Dorothy's ghost
floating around in his room,
at the foot of his bed,
all wrapped in chains.
[dour music playing]
[knock on door]
[door creaking]
[doorknob jiggling]
[John] We have a guy here
telling us this woman's ghost
is coming to him
seeking justice.
[John]
The pet cemetery case,
it was bizarre to begin with.
[eerie music playing]
The whole case was bizarre.
And it just kept getting
stranger and stranger.
I couldn't make it up
even if I tried.
[eerie music continues]
[calm music playing]
[light bulb buzzing]
[recorder beeps]
-We on, right? Okay.
-Okay.
[John] Jose Cruz,
he's a sketchy guy already.
And he's acting real nervous,
and I can just tell that
he's holding something back.
[John Doran speaking]
[Mark Jackson] Brandon Nodier
was the handyman
at the pet cemetery.
Jose Cruz tells us
that Brandon,
back in 1985,
told him what he did.
He just came out
and blathered to me that, uh
he killed the old lady
in the pet cemetery.
[Mark] He killed the old lady,
put her in the back
of his truck
and dumped her in the river.
[John Doran speaking]
[Jose Cruz speaking]
[John] You know I've dealt with
a lot of characters like him.
Probably survives
on the fringes of society.
He's one of these guys,
you know.
They kind of run
in the shadows.
You know, I'm thinking,
this guy knows a lot of detail.
I'm not sure
he wasn't somehow involved.
[John] We always thought
that there were at least
two people
involved in this murder
because the body was found
with almost 200 pounds of chain
wrapped around it.
One man, I don't believe,
could have lifted that up.
So maybe he's the second guy.
[John] But he's taken
a chance himself.
He's involved in this.
I mean, he could be
easily charged himself
as an accomplice with this.
[John] I still wasn't convinced
that he wasn't involved.
We weren't sure
which way to go at that point.
We asked him, uh, you know,
why was he coming forward?
What did he want?
And he didn't need anything.
Just said he wanted
to come forward
because it was
on his conscience.
The old lady showed up
at his bed.
[John] At the end
of the interview,
he doesn't reveal
that he's the murderer.
He just reveals
about this ghost.
[John] After we're done
with the interview,
he says, "Look, guys, I know
you guys think I'm crazy."
He says, "But I-- 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."
You know, I said,
"I don't think you're crazy.
"I think you believe
you saw her ghost,
"but how do I tell
the district attorney
"that my potential witness
says he's been seeing
the victim's ghost?"
[eerie music playing]
I'm not buying into any
of that supernatural business.
My mom was a different story.
She was a very smart woman,
but she believed that there was
some supernatural force
and that she was
in tune with that.
She saw something in our house
that basically warned her
that something bad
was about to happen.
Right after that,
my father died
at 51 years old
of a heart attack.
She met with a priest,
the priest told her
it's a warning spirit
is what it is.
She didn't tell us this until
years after my dad had died
because she said, "I don't want
you kids to think I'm crazy,
and y'all gonna put me in some
kinda home or something."
She was alive when we were
investigating this crime.
And she didn't like
anything about it.
She told me, you know,
"Leave that damn
investigation alone.
"You don't want to be
fooling around
with that stuff down there."
[solemn music playing]
We weren't chasing a ghost.
We were chasing
a real murderer,
and it was a real victim.
There was no boogeyman for us.
After this interview with Cruz,
I looked into Nodier's
criminal history.
He had a long history
of arrests, burglaries,
and some violent behavior.
He had pulled a knife
on somebody,
aggravated assaults.
Although I don't think
he had been in prison
for any of that stuff,
he was a violent individual.
I spoke to some
of the neighbors around there
to get a sense
of what were the dynamics
going on in that house?
What was Brandon Nodier
doing there?
[Cindy Graf] In the early '80s,
Brandon moved in with Dorothy
to be the caretaker.
I thought it was good
when he moved in
because I felt that
it would be good
for the community and Dorothy.
It would help her.
She needed work done
in the house.
He did the burials
and cut the grass.
[Robert Graf]
He was there for a few years.
But he was a shyster.
I remember Brandon
patching a roof one day,
and he put a big sheet
of plywood on top of the hole.
Don't repair proper.
Don't patch the hole
and then fix it.
He was not a real carpenter.
He was just a cover-up.
[hammer banging]
Brandon had a wife
named Bonnie,
and she was around
as well with him.
They had a couple of kids
between four and six years old
at the time.
The few interactions that I had
with Brandon wasn't nice.
It was not a good feeling.
You know, they--
they wasn't friendly.
They didn't stop and talk.
Um, they were kind of
on their own.
[dogs barking]
You could hear fights going on.
He would be yelling
at the children.
He was just not a nice guy.
And his wife Bonnie
never really spoke much.
Occasionally, you know,
she'd look at you,
but you can tell
that she was in a situation
that she shouldn't be in.
[Patricia Newman]
Brandon brought a lot of ruckus,
and he took some of the peace
from the pet cemetery.
He would go like,
through these tantrums,
and then he would
become abusive.
[John] Nobody had anything good
to say about him.
He started to look capable of--
of committing this murder.
I told the district attorney
what we had.
Played the video for him.
What he basically says is that,
"Even if I believe what this
guy's saying, that's hearsay.
It's just not enough."
The other problem
was is that Jose Cruz
did not want to go on record
where he would have
to testify in court.
He wasn't willing to do that.
He was deathly afraid
of Brandon.
The district attorney said,
"You're gonna need a lot more
to move forward with this.
"Bring me a solid motive,
and then we may have
something to work with."
That's when we started
talking to Patricia Newman.
I knew everybody, you know.
It was a very small community.
[dramatic music playing]
You know, something happens,
you get on the phone.
In three minutes,
you knew what happened.
And then if there were secrets,
then you call this person,
and this person
knew the secrets.
So, for this to have happened
and nobody knew, I found absurd.
I was at the police station
and I even told
the head
of the police department.
I used some foul language.
And I was like, "This is--
You have to be kidding me."
[siren wailing]
So then I went
to the state police.
They went back
from the beginning,
and they were just
going over everything
like a professional
investigation.
What time was that?
[John] Patricia Newman,
she just happens
to mention one day that,
you know, "Why don't
you guys give a ring
to the state police?"
I didn't know at that time that
they had a homicide division.
'Cause the state police,
their primary duty here
in Louisiana is the highways.
It took us months
to get that report.
And that's when we found out
about the lawsuit.
As it turns out,
Bonnie and Brandon Nodier
were embroiled
in a bitter lawsuit
about the pet cemetery
with Dorothy Thompson.
Brandon realized
that Dorothy was alone.
She was a vulnerable,
you know, elderly woman.
And she was broke
at the time.
The pet cemetery
had lost its luster.
But Brandon knew the land
was worth
a significant amount of money
so he hatched
this little scheme
to acquire that property.
He convinced Dorothy
to sell the property
that the pet cemetery sits on
to Bonnie Nodier.
There's an act of sale done.
The agreement is that Dorothy
is to be paid $20,000,
and they were gonna
allow her to live there
for the rest of her life.
[Patricia] Brandon was supposed
to give her $50 a month,
and then never gave it to her.
You're supposed to follow
what's in the contract.
If it says $50 every month,
you give $50 every month.
If you don't,
it is a broken contract.
That's what happened.
[truck horn blaring]
[John] Dorothy, with the help
of Pat Newman,
decides, "No, we need
to file a lawsuit
because this is fraud."
After that, things started to
happen around the pet cemetery.
[blades whirring]
[Patricia] He rolled over
her cat with the lawnmower.
And he was hollering
and screaming,
and she would just go
in her room and lock her door.
Can you imagine somebody
harassing you like that
in your own home?
When I spoke with him
several times about Dorothy,
getting along with Dorothy,
he was very nice with me.
But yet, he was different
with Dorothy.
I'm sure when I left,
he probably hollered
and screamed for five days.
[John] There's a temporary
restraining order
that the judge issues,
and he evicts the Nodiers
off of the property
pending the outcome
of this lawsuit.
And then ten days before
the case is set to go to trial,
Dorothy disappears.
[water gurgling]
[Patricia] It didn't have
to end that way.
I was devastated.
I was very upset, very upset.
Because Brandon
was still living in the house.
It didn't make sense to me.
A person who is a suspect
is gonna move
right back in there.
That doesn't make sense.
[John]
The state police report
was like the golden
document for us.
That land dispute could be
what this whole case is about.
But then I read
some weird shit as well.
It says on December 6, 1985,
the state police
conducted a conference
with the psychic Donna Jean.
The psychic
drew a sketch of the killer
and advised
that the perpetrator
abducted Dorothy Thompson
from her residence
with the assistance
of two associates.
The perpetrators
then transported the victim
in a dark blue pickup truck.
[Jose Cruz speaking]
[John] She even draws
a picture of that.
It's so bizarre, I
I can't even fathom how she
would have known any of that.
The psychic explained
that the victim
was tortured
for several days
and that Thompson suffered
a great deal of pain.
"The victim then accidentally
died from the physical torture,
and the perpetrators
disposed of the body."
The troopers displayed
the driver's license photograph
of Brandon Nodier
to the psychic
and asked her if Nodier
killed Dorothy Thompson.
The psychic definitely stated
that Brandon Nodier
was the offender.
I've never used a psychic
in any of my investigations.
But they took this serious
enough that they met with her
on several occasions,
showed her pictures,
and go to great lengths
to detail this in their report
about, you know, the accuracy
of what she was telling them.
[siren wailing]
The state police devise a plan
to get Nodier in
to question him.
They locate him
at the pet cemetery.
They coax him back
to their office in New Orleans.
They begin to question him
for about three hours
without his attorney
being present.
Trooper Beck stated that all
of the evidence demonstrated
that Brandon Nodier had
killed Ms. Dorothy Thompson.
The suspect's reaction
consisted of a blank stare
at the troopers,
a slight nodding of the head,
and the verbal response of,
"uh-huh."
He wasn't acting
in the normal way you would
if you were being out-and-out
accused of-- of murder.
Trooper Beck continued
to question Nodier
in regard to the reason
he committed this act
against the victim.
Nodier was slow in responding
and then began to deny
that he killed Mrs. Thompson.
They believed he was guilty,
and they thought
that they were pretty close
to getting a confession.
But his attorney called
and shut it all down.
Pat Newman
was a courageous woman.
And after Dorothy
was found murdered,
she steps in as the executrix
to the estate,
and she picks up where Dorothy
left off with the lawsuit
to get Bonnie
and Brandon Nodier
off of the property.
[Patricia] Years later,
Brandon was still living
in the house.
I was mad that-that-- How could
you let him back out there?
He is in question
for the person who murdered her.
He goes back in there,
his wife goes back in there.
Dorothy's belongings
weren't removed.
But the lawyers told me
that the pet cemetery
was still under
Bonnie's name.
Because remember, Dorothy was
trying to break that contract,
and then she died.
And I was wondering,
how can you allow this?
[dramatic music playing]
[Joey Simon]
My name's Joey Simon,
and I'm a private investigator.
Patricia Newman had hired me
in March of '87, I believe,
to serve a court order
on Brandon Nodier.
She had been fighting
with Brandon Nodier
for a long time
about trying to get possession
of the pet cemetery.
The Sheriff's Office
tried serving him,
and they were unable to do so.
And I told her that
if I can't serve him,
no one can.
I did surveillance on him
for a long time,
I followed Nodier and Bonnie
all the way to New Orleans.
I got out the car, I told him,
"Mr. Nodier,
I have a subpoena for you."
He pointed at me and said,
"Hey, I'll kill you
just like I killed her."
His wife came out the car,
and she started laughing.
You know, and I said,
"Mr. Nodier, I ain't here
to play no games.
"I ain't here to do anything
"but to serve you a subpoena.
I'm an officer of the court."
I gave him the subpoena,
and that was it.
[dog barking distantly]
During the time
that I was speaking to him
behind his truck,
they had chains, wire, trash,
garbage bags
and stuff like that.
So I called
the police department.
Detectives showed me
the crime scene photos
of Ms. Dorothy Thompson,
wire wrapped around her--
her neck.
Also chains wrapped around her,
like they were using her
for an anchor.
It looks like the same chains
that were in the back
of his truck.
[eerie music playing]
[Patricia]
My lawyer eventually got
Brandon and Bonnie
off the property.
And they moved down
to New Orleans.
And I think
that Brandon thought
that he'd got away with it.
[John] Knowing somebody
is guilty of something
and proving it
is two very different things.
He pretty much had gotten away
with the perfect crime.
[insects chirring]
There's an unbelievable
amount of tragedy
that occurred on this
particular piece of land.
I'm a bit of a historian,
so I became fascinated
with the history
of the entire thing.
And so I started digging
a little bit deeper.
Then I realized
that the horrible things
that happened on this property
go back hundreds of years
with slaves being
massacred there
the talk of a Native American
burial ground there.
[birds cawing]
[Jeffery Darensbourg]
This area was such a mixture
of Indigenous Groups.
Some 40 Indigenous Nations
were living
across South Louisiana.
The Houma, Acolapissa.
Biloxi, Choctaw people.
I'm part of a vast
group of people in Louisiana
who are descended
from European colonists,
enslaved Africans,
and also the Indigenous
populations here.
Before colonization,
Indigenous Nations here lived
in multinational settlements.
Nations would often live
in the same town,
respecting
each other's cultures.
They would take in immigrants,
they would take in refugees.
A lot of this changed
when incursions were made here
by Europeans in 1699.
Europeans brought a tremendous
number of virulent diseases
to which Indigenous Peoples
here did not have resistance.
There was also the introduction
of European slavery here.
Places in Louisiana,
a quarter to a third
of the enslaved population
would have been
Indigenous People.
What happened
to Indigenous People
was a genocide.
And there were
Indigenous People buried
all over what we call
St. Bernard Parish.
When we're talking
about the pet cemetery,
people like say, like,
"Maybe that piece of land
is cursed.
"Maybe bad things have happened
because of it being
on a burial ground."
Well, the notion that "an Indian
burial ground is cursed,"
well, it's not the Native People
who are cursing.
Native People
sustained this land.
Native People
developed the land.
There was deep evil done
to Indigenous People.
And so, when people say,
"Well, Indian burial ground
is cursed," like by whom?
It wouldn't be cursed
by the Indigenous People.
Cursed by the people
who did the evil.
[blowing high-pitched notes]
[John] A lot of history here.
A lot of bad history.
This is going to be where
Dorothy's house was, I think.
See the wood?
See the bricks?
That's gotta be a part
of the house right here.
That's gotta be a big piece
of the porch, railing.
This house has certainly
seen a lot.
As it turns out, Dorothy's
death was not the first murder
to take place
at the pet cemetery.
It wasn't even the second.
Not even the third murder.
You know, I thought
from the start
Dorothy was just
a nice old lady.
But actually,
she had a violent story.
[thunder rumbling]
[distant police sirens]
[Ben Alexander-Bloch] I came
to New Orleans after Katrina.
It felt like a good place
to be a young journalist.
You know, to follow
the narratives
to sort of help
the city rebuild.
But then I heard about a death,
a murder in this pet cemetery.
It did make me
think of the movie.
I saw Pet Sematary
as too young a kid,
and, you know,
had a few nightmares.
But somehow,
because of that movie,
it does seem sort of gothic.
I was intrigued.
So I went out to the site
and talked to folks nearby.
As you get deeper
into St. Bernard,
in this bayou,
pet cemetery region,
this is where St. Bernard
disappears into the ocean.
[birds squawking]
I start running
Dorothy's name
through our archives
and police and court records,
just to get a little bit
more about her backstory.
But then I find that in 1970,
15 years before Dorothy
was killed,
there was another murder
on the property.
[dramatic music playing]
And then eight years later,
another body.
Whoa, like,
what's going on here, right?
They were both
Dorothy's husbands.
You know, it was
definitely a shock,
the fact that two of her
husbands died on the property.
There suddenly does seem
like a certain agency about her.
You know, you don't
necessarily see her
as this classic victim,
Dorothy, right?
[John] In 40 years
in law enforcement,
I've never had a case where
there was numerous
horrific deaths
on one piece of property.
The more you dig
into this pet cemetery
and Dorothy
you know, you find out
just all these bizarre things,
and it makes you wonder,
how did these people
all come together
in this-- in this one little
piece of the earth?
[gloomy music playing]
[Michael Binder] I grew up
in St. Bernard Parish,
and I've followed
the pet cemetery story
since 2012 when I was
a freshman in high school.
I'm a visual artist.
I primarily work
in darkroom photography.
And that was when
I started just going
and photographing
every headstone
I could find and whatever else.
A couple years ago,
I took a job
in St. Bernard
at the elementary school
in part so I could go there
and do research after work.
I started going to the library,
going through microfilm,
through newspaper archives
and court records.
And I was like, holy shit.
There is, like, this ghostly
presence there.
It surrounds Dorothy
and her husbands
who died
in strange circumstances.
Her first husband,
he disappeared.
Her second husband,
Logan Banks,
she met sometime
in the '60s.
And on Thanksgiving in 1970,
police were called out.
[gunshot]
Dorothy had shot him.
Banks had a reputation
of being physical with women.
And she claimed self-defense.
It wasn't really investigated,
and they just
kind of left it at that.
Eventually, she married
Donald Robinson.
He worked the grounds for
Dorothy and her mother, Grace.
He worked there
for at least two years.
And one day
[gunshots]
one of the neighbors
hears two gunshots.
Donald had been shot twice
in the back off the back porch.
Police came, and they
knock on the door
at the pet cemetery.
And Dorothy was inside taking
a bath and didn't hear a thing.
So they ruled it a suicide by
two gunshot wounds to the back.
[John] They wrote this up
as a suicide,
but there's no way
that that's a suicide.
I've handled enough suicides
that I can look at it
and tell you that.
Somebody shot this guy.
This was a murder.
[chuckles]
Well, of course, you know,
um, most of the things
that happened,
there could be two explanations,
you know?
[John] The detective
that handled the case
had been one
of my old supervisors.
So, I called him up
and I said,
"You remember that case
down at the pet cemetery
back in 1970?"
And he remembered it
right away.
And the first question
he asked me was,
"Who's asking about that?"
I said, "Nobody, just me.
I just-- I'm just curious.
It's just curiosity."
And he says, "Look, man,
"my supervisor
at the time told me,
'Look, just write that up as a
suicide and get out of there.'"
He said, "And I can tell you,
John, this is the creepiest,
scariest place
I've ever been in my life."
And this man was a tough man.
He said, "I wrote that up
as fast as I could
"and I got the hell
out of there.
"And I never went back.
And I don't want
to talk about it anymore."
And he hung up on me.
[footsteps crunching leaves]
[Michael]
I've been to the pet cemetery
around 100 times.
I think I'd say
I'm obsessed with it.
Um, I don't think obsession
is necessarily
the worst thing, though.
There was one time
where I spent the night there.
I was in a tent,
and I had a candle.
And I was making notes
in my journal,
and I heard something rustling.
[leaves rustling]
I peered up through
the window in my tent.
[horror sting]
I saw this translucent man.
And it was-- it was gone
just like that.
So, there's only one picture
I've been able to find
of Dorothy's third husband,
Donald Robinson,
when he's still alive,
and it looked
a hell of a lot like him.
[Patricia] He wound up as one
of the victims, I think, huh?
Yeah.
[birds chirping]
I never thought
Dorothy was violent.
It started off good, like most
marriages do start off,
and then the real person
comes out,
and I think
that was the problem.
The way that she described it
was they became
abusive at the end.
[Ben] You know,
you don't necessarily see her
as this pure snow woman, right?
You could almost think of her
as this femme fatale figure,
in a way.
It appears she has a lot of men
come into her life who die.
We know of two husbands
who have died on the property.
It seems like there
may have been others.
But there were a couple
of other people I think
that went missing by the bridge.
You know,
when you enter her property,
you have to cross
a little bridge.
And I think that, uh, maybe
there was--
there might have been
a couple of more people
that disappeared, you know?
When I was growing up,
the word was that someone
had been murdered there.
That the lady that owned it
had killed her husband there.
Anyone you speak to
from where I came from,
would say, "Oh, pet cemetery?
"I know about that place.
That lady killed her husband."
[dour music playing]
[interviewer]
Mrs. Thompson,
what's going to happen
to this animal graveyard
once you're no longer here?
Well, when I'm no longer here,
it goes to my daughter.
The will's already made,
and it's with Mister, uh, Dorsey
at the SPCA.
After she-- she dies,
it goes to them.
[Michael]
Grace died in August of 1979.
Dorothy, not long after that,
put an ad
in The Times-Picayune
for a live-in groundskeeper,
and Brandon showed up
and moved his family
into the house.
The pet cemetery really went
on the decline after that.
[Patricia]
After her mother died,
she was devastated.
She was devastated.
She didn't know what happened
when Grace died.
She didn't know what Mama had,
what Mama didn't have,
what to do, what not to do.
You know, Mother--
Mother did everything.
The cemetery looked
nothing like it did
when Grace was living.
[sniffling]
He suffered so much.
Oh, my goodness.
[Michael]
Instead of the satin coffins
that they were known for,
they just buried dogs
in plastic bags.
Brandon admitted
that he didn't know
if he was putting
the correct headstones
to corresponding graves.
He wasn't sure
if the right ones
were going where
they were supposed to.
There were people
who complained
their animals
hadn't been buried yet.
And Dorothy said she just
hadn't gotten around to it.
They're still sitting
in her bedroom.
She seemed very preoccupied
with whatever else
was going on in her life,
which we know
was substance use.
She spent most of her life
in various addictions.
Grace was sort of
the only constant person
throughout Dorothy's
entire life.
Dorothy was never really
in a great place.
But after her mother's death,
it just got a lot worse.
[unsettling music playing]
[John] In 2012,
about three years
after Cruz came forward,
even though we knew
much more than we had before,
it still wasn't enough.
So, we-- we hit a brick wall
once again.
[birds squawking]
[Mark]
The case wasn't looking good.
We didn't have
no physical evidence.
The only thing we had was a guy
that had seen a ghost.
And, you know,
you can't bring that to court.
[John] I told Mark,
"Let's just step back
"and just let it rest
for a while
and let's see what happens."
And he suggested to me,
"Why don't you let me take a
crack at Nodier's wife, Bonnie?"
We were getting information,
you know,
that Bonnie was worn out
and, you know, just was tired.
Maybe she'll just say
"You know what?
Fuck him, I'm coming in
and I'm gonna give him up."
[Mark] Bonnie was probably
our last shot.
If nothing happened,
the case is probably
gonna go back cold again.
We put together a plan
to go sit by her house.
They had a pickup truck
in the driveway,
and then Bonnie
drove a little car.
I was probably at the house
maybe 15, 20 minutes.
Then Bonnie came out,
got in her car.
I pulled her over right near
the Jackson Barracks.
I explained to her that I had
a witness that came forward,
and now was her time
to talk to us.
Next time we seen her,
we were probably gonna have
a warrant for her
and Brandon Nodier for murder.
She went ballistic.
Screaming and hollering
out on the street.
She said she wanted
an attorney.
[John] She makes it clear
that she had nothing to do
with this murder.
But what it did accomplish
is that she went
right back to Brandon.
Plan A was that maybe
she's gonna cooperate.
Maybe she says, "You know what?
I'll come in with you
and I'll tell you
what happened."
Plan B is she's going to run
right back and tell Brandon,
and maybe he'll make a mistake.
Mark told me, "Look, there's
also this pickup truck
parked on his property."
It was a 1970-or-so model,
blue.
We speculated
that that's the truck.
If it is indeed the truck
that he transported
Dorothy's body in,
with the new technology,
there may still be Dorothy's
DNA in the back of that truck.
But by the time we were able
to get a search warrant
the truck is gone, and Brandon
is nowhere to be found.
He's panicking now.
[calm music playing]
[Mark] I think it was
a few weeks later.
We get a call,
St. Tammany Parish Jail,
saying that a guy
wanted to talk.
He said he had information
about an old murder
that happened
at the pet cemetery.
[keys jingling]
[John] I had no idea
who this guy was.
I had never heard his name.
[lock beeps]
He was in jail at the time
for manufacturing gasoline bombs
and blowing up cars and stuff.
What does he have to do
with this pet cemetery case?
He doesn't go on record
right away.
He just tells us the story.
[mysterious music playing]
[James Tregler] It was not long
after the murder.
One Sunday morning,
my dog is sleeping
on the back porch
and my cat's sleeping
in the chair next to me.
It's dead quiet.
Nobody's around.
[door slams and squeaks]
Somebody slammed the door
shut as hard as they could.
Slammed shut
and then vibrated back open.
There was definitely
a presence there.
It was Dorothy.
[water splashing]
Time stopped. My whole life
flashed before me.
Memories are coming back.
I saw her on the floor dead.
It was like I was
out of my body watching it.
I was just numb.
You know, just shaking numb.
And just blank.
[water gurgling]
I knew, either I tell
what happened,
or I'm going to hell.
[mysterious music continues]
[truck doors closing]
I wanted this sin off my soul.
[lulling dramatic
music playing]
[John Doran]
The State of Louisiana,
it's a blend of a lot
of different cultures,
good people, good food,
and a lot of history.
This is a part of the world
where a lot of people
believe in ghosts,
spirits and supernatural stuff.
That's the lore,
that's the myth.
And the lore and the myth
of that pet cemetery
is that the place was haunted.
That it was evil.
[ethereal music continues]
I'm Catholic.
I believe in my faith.
I go to church at least
once or twice a week.
And I pray.
And that's what I believe.
But when it comes
to ghosts and spirits,
I didn't buy into it.
Okay
But Jose Cruz believes
he saw Dorothy's ghost
floating around in his room,
at the foot of his bed,
all wrapped in chains.
[dour music playing]
[knock on door]
[door creaking]
[doorknob jiggling]
[John] We have a guy here
telling us this woman's ghost
is coming to him
seeking justice.
[John]
The pet cemetery case,
it was bizarre to begin with.
[eerie music playing]
The whole case was bizarre.
And it just kept getting
stranger and stranger.
I couldn't make it up
even if I tried.
[eerie music continues]
[calm music playing]
[light bulb buzzing]
[recorder beeps]
-We on, right? Okay.
-Okay.
[John] Jose Cruz,
he's a sketchy guy already.
And he's acting real nervous,
and I can just tell that
he's holding something back.
[John Doran speaking]
[Mark Jackson] Brandon Nodier
was the handyman
at the pet cemetery.
Jose Cruz tells us
that Brandon,
back in 1985,
told him what he did.
He just came out
and blathered to me that, uh
he killed the old lady
in the pet cemetery.
[Mark] He killed the old lady,
put her in the back
of his truck
and dumped her in the river.
[John Doran speaking]
[Jose Cruz speaking]
[John] You know I've dealt with
a lot of characters like him.
Probably survives
on the fringes of society.
He's one of these guys,
you know.
They kind of run
in the shadows.
You know, I'm thinking,
this guy knows a lot of detail.
I'm not sure
he wasn't somehow involved.
[John] We always thought
that there were at least
two people
involved in this murder
because the body was found
with almost 200 pounds of chain
wrapped around it.
One man, I don't believe,
could have lifted that up.
So maybe he's the second guy.
[John] But he's taken
a chance himself.
He's involved in this.
I mean, he could be
easily charged himself
as an accomplice with this.
[John] I still wasn't convinced
that he wasn't involved.
We weren't sure
which way to go at that point.
We asked him, uh, you know,
why was he coming forward?
What did he want?
And he didn't need anything.
Just said he wanted
to come forward
because it was
on his conscience.
The old lady showed up
at his bed.
[John] At the end
of the interview,
he doesn't reveal
that he's the murderer.
He just reveals
about this ghost.
[John] After we're done
with the interview,
he says, "Look, guys, I know
you guys think I'm crazy."
He says, "But I-- 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."
You know, I said,
"I don't think you're crazy.
"I think you believe
you saw her ghost,
"but how do I tell
the district attorney
"that my potential witness
says he's been seeing
the victim's ghost?"
[eerie music playing]
I'm not buying into any
of that supernatural business.
My mom was a different story.
She was a very smart woman,
but she believed that there was
some supernatural force
and that she was
in tune with that.
She saw something in our house
that basically warned her
that something bad
was about to happen.
Right after that,
my father died
at 51 years old
of a heart attack.
She met with a priest,
the priest told her
it's a warning spirit
is what it is.
She didn't tell us this until
years after my dad had died
because she said, "I don't want
you kids to think I'm crazy,
and y'all gonna put me in some
kinda home or something."
She was alive when we were
investigating this crime.
And she didn't like
anything about it.
She told me, you know,
"Leave that damn
investigation alone.
"You don't want to be
fooling around
with that stuff down there."
[solemn music playing]
We weren't chasing a ghost.
We were chasing
a real murderer,
and it was a real victim.
There was no boogeyman for us.
After this interview with Cruz,
I looked into Nodier's
criminal history.
He had a long history
of arrests, burglaries,
and some violent behavior.
He had pulled a knife
on somebody,
aggravated assaults.
Although I don't think
he had been in prison
for any of that stuff,
he was a violent individual.
I spoke to some
of the neighbors around there
to get a sense
of what were the dynamics
going on in that house?
What was Brandon Nodier
doing there?
[Cindy Graf] In the early '80s,
Brandon moved in with Dorothy
to be the caretaker.
I thought it was good
when he moved in
because I felt that
it would be good
for the community and Dorothy.
It would help her.
She needed work done
in the house.
He did the burials
and cut the grass.
[Robert Graf]
He was there for a few years.
But he was a shyster.
I remember Brandon
patching a roof one day,
and he put a big sheet
of plywood on top of the hole.
Don't repair proper.
Don't patch the hole
and then fix it.
He was not a real carpenter.
He was just a cover-up.
[hammer banging]
Brandon had a wife
named Bonnie,
and she was around
as well with him.
They had a couple of kids
between four and six years old
at the time.
The few interactions that I had
with Brandon wasn't nice.
It was not a good feeling.
You know, they--
they wasn't friendly.
They didn't stop and talk.
Um, they were kind of
on their own.
[dogs barking]
You could hear fights going on.
He would be yelling
at the children.
He was just not a nice guy.
And his wife Bonnie
never really spoke much.
Occasionally, you know,
she'd look at you,
but you can tell
that she was in a situation
that she shouldn't be in.
[Patricia Newman]
Brandon brought a lot of ruckus,
and he took some of the peace
from the pet cemetery.
He would go like,
through these tantrums,
and then he would
become abusive.
[John] Nobody had anything good
to say about him.
He started to look capable of--
of committing this murder.
I told the district attorney
what we had.
Played the video for him.
What he basically says is that,
"Even if I believe what this
guy's saying, that's hearsay.
It's just not enough."
The other problem
was is that Jose Cruz
did not want to go on record
where he would have
to testify in court.
He wasn't willing to do that.
He was deathly afraid
of Brandon.
The district attorney said,
"You're gonna need a lot more
to move forward with this.
"Bring me a solid motive,
and then we may have
something to work with."
That's when we started
talking to Patricia Newman.
I knew everybody, you know.
It was a very small community.
[dramatic music playing]
You know, something happens,
you get on the phone.
In three minutes,
you knew what happened.
And then if there were secrets,
then you call this person,
and this person
knew the secrets.
So, for this to have happened
and nobody knew, I found absurd.
I was at the police station
and I even told
the head
of the police department.
I used some foul language.
And I was like, "This is--
You have to be kidding me."
[siren wailing]
So then I went
to the state police.
They went back
from the beginning,
and they were just
going over everything
like a professional
investigation.
What time was that?
[John] Patricia Newman,
she just happens
to mention one day that,
you know, "Why don't
you guys give a ring
to the state police?"
I didn't know at that time that
they had a homicide division.
'Cause the state police,
their primary duty here
in Louisiana is the highways.
It took us months
to get that report.
And that's when we found out
about the lawsuit.
As it turns out,
Bonnie and Brandon Nodier
were embroiled
in a bitter lawsuit
about the pet cemetery
with Dorothy Thompson.
Brandon realized
that Dorothy was alone.
She was a vulnerable,
you know, elderly woman.
And she was broke
at the time.
The pet cemetery
had lost its luster.
But Brandon knew the land
was worth
a significant amount of money
so he hatched
this little scheme
to acquire that property.
He convinced Dorothy
to sell the property
that the pet cemetery sits on
to Bonnie Nodier.
There's an act of sale done.
The agreement is that Dorothy
is to be paid $20,000,
and they were gonna
allow her to live there
for the rest of her life.
[Patricia] Brandon was supposed
to give her $50 a month,
and then never gave it to her.
You're supposed to follow
what's in the contract.
If it says $50 every month,
you give $50 every month.
If you don't,
it is a broken contract.
That's what happened.
[truck horn blaring]
[John] Dorothy, with the help
of Pat Newman,
decides, "No, we need
to file a lawsuit
because this is fraud."
After that, things started to
happen around the pet cemetery.
[blades whirring]
[Patricia] He rolled over
her cat with the lawnmower.
And he was hollering
and screaming,
and she would just go
in her room and lock her door.
Can you imagine somebody
harassing you like that
in your own home?
When I spoke with him
several times about Dorothy,
getting along with Dorothy,
he was very nice with me.
But yet, he was different
with Dorothy.
I'm sure when I left,
he probably hollered
and screamed for five days.
[John] There's a temporary
restraining order
that the judge issues,
and he evicts the Nodiers
off of the property
pending the outcome
of this lawsuit.
And then ten days before
the case is set to go to trial,
Dorothy disappears.
[water gurgling]
[Patricia] It didn't have
to end that way.
I was devastated.
I was very upset, very upset.
Because Brandon
was still living in the house.
It didn't make sense to me.
A person who is a suspect
is gonna move
right back in there.
That doesn't make sense.
[John]
The state police report
was like the golden
document for us.
That land dispute could be
what this whole case is about.
But then I read
some weird shit as well.
It says on December 6, 1985,
the state police
conducted a conference
with the psychic Donna Jean.
The psychic
drew a sketch of the killer
and advised
that the perpetrator
abducted Dorothy Thompson
from her residence
with the assistance
of two associates.
The perpetrators
then transported the victim
in a dark blue pickup truck.
[Jose Cruz speaking]
[John] She even draws
a picture of that.
It's so bizarre, I
I can't even fathom how she
would have known any of that.
The psychic explained
that the victim
was tortured
for several days
and that Thompson suffered
a great deal of pain.
"The victim then accidentally
died from the physical torture,
and the perpetrators
disposed of the body."
The troopers displayed
the driver's license photograph
of Brandon Nodier
to the psychic
and asked her if Nodier
killed Dorothy Thompson.
The psychic definitely stated
that Brandon Nodier
was the offender.
I've never used a psychic
in any of my investigations.
But they took this serious
enough that they met with her
on several occasions,
showed her pictures,
and go to great lengths
to detail this in their report
about, you know, the accuracy
of what she was telling them.
[siren wailing]
The state police devise a plan
to get Nodier in
to question him.
They locate him
at the pet cemetery.
They coax him back
to their office in New Orleans.
They begin to question him
for about three hours
without his attorney
being present.
Trooper Beck stated that all
of the evidence demonstrated
that Brandon Nodier had
killed Ms. Dorothy Thompson.
The suspect's reaction
consisted of a blank stare
at the troopers,
a slight nodding of the head,
and the verbal response of,
"uh-huh."
He wasn't acting
in the normal way you would
if you were being out-and-out
accused of-- of murder.
Trooper Beck continued
to question Nodier
in regard to the reason
he committed this act
against the victim.
Nodier was slow in responding
and then began to deny
that he killed Mrs. Thompson.
They believed he was guilty,
and they thought
that they were pretty close
to getting a confession.
But his attorney called
and shut it all down.
Pat Newman
was a courageous woman.
And after Dorothy
was found murdered,
she steps in as the executrix
to the estate,
and she picks up where Dorothy
left off with the lawsuit
to get Bonnie
and Brandon Nodier
off of the property.
[Patricia] Years later,
Brandon was still living
in the house.
I was mad that-that-- How could
you let him back out there?
He is in question
for the person who murdered her.
He goes back in there,
his wife goes back in there.
Dorothy's belongings
weren't removed.
But the lawyers told me
that the pet cemetery
was still under
Bonnie's name.
Because remember, Dorothy was
trying to break that contract,
and then she died.
And I was wondering,
how can you allow this?
[dramatic music playing]
[Joey Simon]
My name's Joey Simon,
and I'm a private investigator.
Patricia Newman had hired me
in March of '87, I believe,
to serve a court order
on Brandon Nodier.
She had been fighting
with Brandon Nodier
for a long time
about trying to get possession
of the pet cemetery.
The Sheriff's Office
tried serving him,
and they were unable to do so.
And I told her that
if I can't serve him,
no one can.
I did surveillance on him
for a long time,
I followed Nodier and Bonnie
all the way to New Orleans.
I got out the car, I told him,
"Mr. Nodier,
I have a subpoena for you."
He pointed at me and said,
"Hey, I'll kill you
just like I killed her."
His wife came out the car,
and she started laughing.
You know, and I said,
"Mr. Nodier, I ain't here
to play no games.
"I ain't here to do anything
"but to serve you a subpoena.
I'm an officer of the court."
I gave him the subpoena,
and that was it.
[dog barking distantly]
During the time
that I was speaking to him
behind his truck,
they had chains, wire, trash,
garbage bags
and stuff like that.
So I called
the police department.
Detectives showed me
the crime scene photos
of Ms. Dorothy Thompson,
wire wrapped around her--
her neck.
Also chains wrapped around her,
like they were using her
for an anchor.
It looks like the same chains
that were in the back
of his truck.
[eerie music playing]
[Patricia]
My lawyer eventually got
Brandon and Bonnie
off the property.
And they moved down
to New Orleans.
And I think
that Brandon thought
that he'd got away with it.
[John] Knowing somebody
is guilty of something
and proving it
is two very different things.
He pretty much had gotten away
with the perfect crime.
[insects chirring]
There's an unbelievable
amount of tragedy
that occurred on this
particular piece of land.
I'm a bit of a historian,
so I became fascinated
with the history
of the entire thing.
And so I started digging
a little bit deeper.
Then I realized
that the horrible things
that happened on this property
go back hundreds of years
with slaves being
massacred there
the talk of a Native American
burial ground there.
[birds cawing]
[Jeffery Darensbourg]
This area was such a mixture
of Indigenous Groups.
Some 40 Indigenous Nations
were living
across South Louisiana.
The Houma, Acolapissa.
Biloxi, Choctaw people.
I'm part of a vast
group of people in Louisiana
who are descended
from European colonists,
enslaved Africans,
and also the Indigenous
populations here.
Before colonization,
Indigenous Nations here lived
in multinational settlements.
Nations would often live
in the same town,
respecting
each other's cultures.
They would take in immigrants,
they would take in refugees.
A lot of this changed
when incursions were made here
by Europeans in 1699.
Europeans brought a tremendous
number of virulent diseases
to which Indigenous Peoples
here did not have resistance.
There was also the introduction
of European slavery here.
Places in Louisiana,
a quarter to a third
of the enslaved population
would have been
Indigenous People.
What happened
to Indigenous People
was a genocide.
And there were
Indigenous People buried
all over what we call
St. Bernard Parish.
When we're talking
about the pet cemetery,
people like say, like,
"Maybe that piece of land
is cursed.
"Maybe bad things have happened
because of it being
on a burial ground."
Well, the notion that "an Indian
burial ground is cursed,"
well, it's not the Native People
who are cursing.
Native People
sustained this land.
Native People
developed the land.
There was deep evil done
to Indigenous People.
And so, when people say,
"Well, Indian burial ground
is cursed," like by whom?
It wouldn't be cursed
by the Indigenous People.
Cursed by the people
who did the evil.
[blowing high-pitched notes]
[John] A lot of history here.
A lot of bad history.
This is going to be where
Dorothy's house was, I think.
See the wood?
See the bricks?
That's gotta be a part
of the house right here.
That's gotta be a big piece
of the porch, railing.
This house has certainly
seen a lot.
As it turns out, Dorothy's
death was not the first murder
to take place
at the pet cemetery.
It wasn't even the second.
Not even the third murder.
You know, I thought
from the start
Dorothy was just
a nice old lady.
But actually,
she had a violent story.
[thunder rumbling]
[distant police sirens]
[Ben Alexander-Bloch] I came
to New Orleans after Katrina.
It felt like a good place
to be a young journalist.
You know, to follow
the narratives
to sort of help
the city rebuild.
But then I heard about a death,
a murder in this pet cemetery.
It did make me
think of the movie.
I saw Pet Sematary
as too young a kid,
and, you know,
had a few nightmares.
But somehow,
because of that movie,
it does seem sort of gothic.
I was intrigued.
So I went out to the site
and talked to folks nearby.
As you get deeper
into St. Bernard,
in this bayou,
pet cemetery region,
this is where St. Bernard
disappears into the ocean.
[birds squawking]
I start running
Dorothy's name
through our archives
and police and court records,
just to get a little bit
more about her backstory.
But then I find that in 1970,
15 years before Dorothy
was killed,
there was another murder
on the property.
[dramatic music playing]
And then eight years later,
another body.
Whoa, like,
what's going on here, right?
They were both
Dorothy's husbands.
You know, it was
definitely a shock,
the fact that two of her
husbands died on the property.
There suddenly does seem
like a certain agency about her.
You know, you don't
necessarily see her
as this classic victim,
Dorothy, right?
[John] In 40 years
in law enforcement,
I've never had a case where
there was numerous
horrific deaths
on one piece of property.
The more you dig
into this pet cemetery
and Dorothy
you know, you find out
just all these bizarre things,
and it makes you wonder,
how did these people
all come together
in this-- in this one little
piece of the earth?
[gloomy music playing]
[Michael Binder] I grew up
in St. Bernard Parish,
and I've followed
the pet cemetery story
since 2012 when I was
a freshman in high school.
I'm a visual artist.
I primarily work
in darkroom photography.
And that was when
I started just going
and photographing
every headstone
I could find and whatever else.
A couple years ago,
I took a job
in St. Bernard
at the elementary school
in part so I could go there
and do research after work.
I started going to the library,
going through microfilm,
through newspaper archives
and court records.
And I was like, holy shit.
There is, like, this ghostly
presence there.
It surrounds Dorothy
and her husbands
who died
in strange circumstances.
Her first husband,
he disappeared.
Her second husband,
Logan Banks,
she met sometime
in the '60s.
And on Thanksgiving in 1970,
police were called out.
[gunshot]
Dorothy had shot him.
Banks had a reputation
of being physical with women.
And she claimed self-defense.
It wasn't really investigated,
and they just
kind of left it at that.
Eventually, she married
Donald Robinson.
He worked the grounds for
Dorothy and her mother, Grace.
He worked there
for at least two years.
And one day
[gunshots]
one of the neighbors
hears two gunshots.
Donald had been shot twice
in the back off the back porch.
Police came, and they
knock on the door
at the pet cemetery.
And Dorothy was inside taking
a bath and didn't hear a thing.
So they ruled it a suicide by
two gunshot wounds to the back.
[John] They wrote this up
as a suicide,
but there's no way
that that's a suicide.
I've handled enough suicides
that I can look at it
and tell you that.
Somebody shot this guy.
This was a murder.
[chuckles]
Well, of course, you know,
um, most of the things
that happened,
there could be two explanations,
you know?
[John] The detective
that handled the case
had been one
of my old supervisors.
So, I called him up
and I said,
"You remember that case
down at the pet cemetery
back in 1970?"
And he remembered it
right away.
And the first question
he asked me was,
"Who's asking about that?"
I said, "Nobody, just me.
I just-- I'm just curious.
It's just curiosity."
And he says, "Look, man,
"my supervisor
at the time told me,
'Look, just write that up as a
suicide and get out of there.'"
He said, "And I can tell you,
John, this is the creepiest,
scariest place
I've ever been in my life."
And this man was a tough man.
He said, "I wrote that up
as fast as I could
"and I got the hell
out of there.
"And I never went back.
And I don't want
to talk about it anymore."
And he hung up on me.
[footsteps crunching leaves]
[Michael]
I've been to the pet cemetery
around 100 times.
I think I'd say
I'm obsessed with it.
Um, I don't think obsession
is necessarily
the worst thing, though.
There was one time
where I spent the night there.
I was in a tent,
and I had a candle.
And I was making notes
in my journal,
and I heard something rustling.
[leaves rustling]
I peered up through
the window in my tent.
[horror sting]
I saw this translucent man.
And it was-- it was gone
just like that.
So, there's only one picture
I've been able to find
of Dorothy's third husband,
Donald Robinson,
when he's still alive,
and it looked
a hell of a lot like him.
[Patricia] He wound up as one
of the victims, I think, huh?
Yeah.
[birds chirping]
I never thought
Dorothy was violent.
It started off good, like most
marriages do start off,
and then the real person
comes out,
and I think
that was the problem.
The way that she described it
was they became
abusive at the end.
[Ben] You know,
you don't necessarily see her
as this pure snow woman, right?
You could almost think of her
as this femme fatale figure,
in a way.
It appears she has a lot of men
come into her life who die.
We know of two husbands
who have died on the property.
It seems like there
may have been others.
But there were a couple
of other people I think
that went missing by the bridge.
You know,
when you enter her property,
you have to cross
a little bridge.
And I think that, uh, maybe
there was--
there might have been
a couple of more people
that disappeared, you know?
When I was growing up,
the word was that someone
had been murdered there.
That the lady that owned it
had killed her husband there.
Anyone you speak to
from where I came from,
would say, "Oh, pet cemetery?
"I know about that place.
That lady killed her husband."
[dour music playing]
[interviewer]
Mrs. Thompson,
what's going to happen
to this animal graveyard
once you're no longer here?
Well, when I'm no longer here,
it goes to my daughter.
The will's already made,
and it's with Mister, uh, Dorsey
at the SPCA.
After she-- she dies,
it goes to them.
[Michael]
Grace died in August of 1979.
Dorothy, not long after that,
put an ad
in The Times-Picayune
for a live-in groundskeeper,
and Brandon showed up
and moved his family
into the house.
The pet cemetery really went
on the decline after that.
[Patricia]
After her mother died,
she was devastated.
She was devastated.
She didn't know what happened
when Grace died.
She didn't know what Mama had,
what Mama didn't have,
what to do, what not to do.
You know, Mother--
Mother did everything.
The cemetery looked
nothing like it did
when Grace was living.
[sniffling]
He suffered so much.
Oh, my goodness.
[Michael]
Instead of the satin coffins
that they were known for,
they just buried dogs
in plastic bags.
Brandon admitted
that he didn't know
if he was putting
the correct headstones
to corresponding graves.
He wasn't sure
if the right ones
were going where
they were supposed to.
There were people
who complained
their animals
hadn't been buried yet.
And Dorothy said she just
hadn't gotten around to it.
They're still sitting
in her bedroom.
She seemed very preoccupied
with whatever else
was going on in her life,
which we know
was substance use.
She spent most of her life
in various addictions.
Grace was sort of
the only constant person
throughout Dorothy's
entire life.
Dorothy was never really
in a great place.
But after her mother's death,
it just got a lot worse.
[unsettling music playing]
[John] In 2012,
about three years
after Cruz came forward,
even though we knew
much more than we had before,
it still wasn't enough.
So, we-- we hit a brick wall
once again.
[birds squawking]
[Mark]
The case wasn't looking good.
We didn't have
no physical evidence.
The only thing we had was a guy
that had seen a ghost.
And, you know,
you can't bring that to court.
[John] I told Mark,
"Let's just step back
"and just let it rest
for a while
and let's see what happens."
And he suggested to me,
"Why don't you let me take a
crack at Nodier's wife, Bonnie?"
We were getting information,
you know,
that Bonnie was worn out
and, you know, just was tired.
Maybe she'll just say
"You know what?
Fuck him, I'm coming in
and I'm gonna give him up."
[Mark] Bonnie was probably
our last shot.
If nothing happened,
the case is probably
gonna go back cold again.
We put together a plan
to go sit by her house.
They had a pickup truck
in the driveway,
and then Bonnie
drove a little car.
I was probably at the house
maybe 15, 20 minutes.
Then Bonnie came out,
got in her car.
I pulled her over right near
the Jackson Barracks.
I explained to her that I had
a witness that came forward,
and now was her time
to talk to us.
Next time we seen her,
we were probably gonna have
a warrant for her
and Brandon Nodier for murder.
She went ballistic.
Screaming and hollering
out on the street.
She said she wanted
an attorney.
[John] She makes it clear
that she had nothing to do
with this murder.
But what it did accomplish
is that she went
right back to Brandon.
Plan A was that maybe
she's gonna cooperate.
Maybe she says, "You know what?
I'll come in with you
and I'll tell you
what happened."
Plan B is she's going to run
right back and tell Brandon,
and maybe he'll make a mistake.
Mark told me, "Look, there's
also this pickup truck
parked on his property."
It was a 1970-or-so model,
blue.
We speculated
that that's the truck.
If it is indeed the truck
that he transported
Dorothy's body in,
with the new technology,
there may still be Dorothy's
DNA in the back of that truck.
But by the time we were able
to get a search warrant
the truck is gone, and Brandon
is nowhere to be found.
He's panicking now.
[calm music playing]
[Mark] I think it was
a few weeks later.
We get a call,
St. Tammany Parish Jail,
saying that a guy
wanted to talk.
He said he had information
about an old murder
that happened
at the pet cemetery.
[keys jingling]
[John] I had no idea
who this guy was.
I had never heard his name.
[lock beeps]
He was in jail at the time
for manufacturing gasoline bombs
and blowing up cars and stuff.
What does he have to do
with this pet cemetery case?
He doesn't go on record
right away.
He just tells us the story.
[mysterious music playing]
[James Tregler] It was not long
after the murder.
One Sunday morning,
my dog is sleeping
on the back porch
and my cat's sleeping
in the chair next to me.
It's dead quiet.
Nobody's around.
[door slams and squeaks]
Somebody slammed the door
shut as hard as they could.
Slammed shut
and then vibrated back open.
There was definitely
a presence there.
It was Dorothy.
[water splashing]
Time stopped. My whole life
flashed before me.
Memories are coming back.
I saw her on the floor dead.
It was like I was
out of my body watching it.
I was just numb.
You know, just shaking numb.
And just blank.
[water gurgling]
I knew, either I tell
what happened,
or I'm going to hell.
[mysterious music continues]
[truck doors closing]
I wanted this sin off my soul.
[lulling dramatic
music playing]