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Showtime just entered the world of true crime docuseries in a big way with the premiere of Murder in the Bayou. In its first episode the series took an unflinching look at its central case, and the figures involved.
Directed by Matthew Galkin and based on Ethan Brown’s book Murder in the Bayou: Who Killed the Women Known as the Jeff Davis 8?, the five-part docuseries dives into one of the most shocking and unexplored cases in the American South. From 2005 to 2009 eight young women were found dead around the small town of Jennings, Louisiana. All eight came from similar poverty levels, and many of them struggled with addiction and had histories of prostitution. Some of them even knew one another with at least two victims sharing a familial connection. But to this day no one has been arrested for the murder of these women.
From the connections between these first four victims to how Frankie Richard ties into this horrible real-life story, here’s what you need to know about the first episode of Murder in the Bayou, “A Body in a Canal.”
Loretta Chaisson was acting odd two days before she went missing.
Loretta Chaisson was the first victim of what’s commonly known as the Jeff Davis 8, a series of unsolved murders in Jefferson Davis Parish, Louisiana. On May 20, 2005, the 28-year-old’s body was found in a canal.
It wasn’t unusual for the young wife and mother to disappear. Chaisson was an addict and would often leave her family or husband for periods at a time. But leading up to her death she was acting more strangely than usual. Three days before her body was found she allegedly told her friend Roxanne Alexander that “she was going to leave, and she wasn’t coming back.” Even more mysteriously two days before her disappearance she gave another friend Jessica Kratzer her purse and instructed her to hide it. According to Kratzer, Chaisson seemed distracted by something she saw at the bar.
The last time Chaisson was seen she was getting into a car with Frankie Richard, a known pimp and local shady character. By all accounts she got into his car willingly.
Ernestine Daniels' injuries were different than the first victims'.
It’s not difficult to understand why the Jeff Daniels 8 are traditionally clumped together. Jennings, Louisiana, the city where all of the bodies were found, is a place that’s small enough for everyone to know everyone else. One murder is shocking in and of itself. Eight naturally led people to guess that there was a serial killer on the loose.
But there’s reason to believe Ernestine Daniels’ killer may have been different than Loretta Chaisson’s. Though Daniels’ body was found in a nearby body of water roughly a month after the first victim’s, her body was far more decomposed. She had to be identified using bone samples, implying that Daniels may have been killed before Chaisson. Also the injuries to Daniels were more violent and in line with what authorities suspected a homicide case may look like. Many of the other victims’ bodies were too decomposed for coroners to determine a cause of death.
Kristen Gary Lopez was sleeping with Frankie Richards' brother.
The third victim was Kristen Gary Lopez. Though her body was found in March of 2007, two years after Chaisson and Daniels, she was also heavily decomposed and had to be identified using dental records. Like the other victims she was found in a body of water, but it was further away than the first two.
Lopez was also known to disappear and go on drug benders. But in the days before her disappearance she was acting noticeably more paranoid than usual.
There’s another worrying detail in Lopez’s case. Lopez was close friends with Hannah Conner, the niece of Frankie Richard. On at least one occasion Conner caught Lopez sleeping with her father (who was Frankie’s brother). Conner alleges their relationship didn’t bother her. But this is the second victim that has a fairly direct connection to Richard.
The man who found Whitney Dubois body initially lied about it.
Found in May of 2007, Whitney Dubois was the first victim whose body was found on land. Like the others, her body was unrecognizable, but she had been placed on a roadway completely naked. Where she was placed would have been noticeable to anyone driving by.
Jamie Trahan was the person who first reported Dubois’ body to police, initially claiming that he called the authorities as soon as he saw her. That later proved to be a lie. The night before Trahan called the cops, he crashed a friend’s anniversary party at a motel. While they were driving around, this friend noted that Trahan intentionally swerved around the body, almost as if he knew it would be there and dismissed it as being a deer.
Trahan has admitted that he did lie about when he saw Dubois’ body. He claims he wanted to stash his drugs before contacting the cops. Trahan also denies being involved in Dubois’ murder.
Most of the Jeff Daniels 8 were linked by addiction and prostitution.
One episode in and we’ve only been introduced to half of the victims in this true crime saga. But we know at least three of them — Whitney Dubois, Kristen Gary Lopez, and Loretta Chaisson — were known to engage in prostitution. The biggest and best known pimp in Jennings was none other than Frankie Richard, a man whose name appears repeatedly in this series.
Frankie Richard and Hannah Conner were arrested, then released, for murder.
As the first episode of Murder in the Bayou notes, both Frankie Richard and his niece Hannah Conner were arrested in connection to these murders. But they didn’t stay in the legal system for long. About two weeks after their arrest both were quietly released and the charges against them were dropped. To this day many of the townspeople don’t know why Richard was allowed to walk free. Many still believe him to be the perpetrator of these crimes.
Frankie Richard maintains he had nothing to do with the Jeff Davis 8.
In a shocking twist at the end of “A Body in a Canal,” Murder in the Bayou shows an interview with its central suspect, Frankie Richard. “I did not have anything to do with any of them girls’ deaths,” Richard says. “These girls lost their lives because they seen something, heard something, knew something that they was not supposed to know.”
New episodes of Murder in the Bayou premiere on Showtime Fridays at 9/8c.
