*Remastered: 91: The Sherry Murders, The Dixie Mafia & Corruption in Biloxi

WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.560 --> 00:00:05.080
Southern fried True crime covers cases that
are not suitable for young listeners, and

2
00:00:05.120 --> 00:00:14.000
there may also be some explicit language
used. Listener discretion is advised. In

3
00:00:14.039 --> 00:00:19.719
the late nineteen eighties, Biloxi,
Mississippi, was teaming with corruption run unofficially

4
00:00:19.960 --> 00:00:25.800
by the Dixie Mafia. It wasn't
exactly a secret. By nineteen eighty three,

5
00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:31.920
the FBI was investigating Biloxi and Harrison
County, where it's located. Vincent

6
00:00:32.000 --> 00:00:37.320
and Margaret Sherry were pillars of Biloxi. One local commented that if you just

7
00:00:37.359 --> 00:00:43.039
said Vincent Margaret, everyone knew who
you met. Vince, a conservative Democrat,

8
00:00:43.520 --> 00:00:47.679
was a circuit court judge and a
criminal defense attorney. Some of his

9
00:00:47.799 --> 00:00:53.200
former clients were in the Dixie Mafia. His wife, Margaret, an old

10
00:00:53.200 --> 00:00:58.960
school Republican, was a former city
councilwoman with ambitions to be mayor. She

11
00:00:59.039 --> 00:01:03.679
wanted to clean up crime and corruption
in Biloxi. They might have seemed like

12
00:01:03.719 --> 00:01:07.959
an odd couple. Vince had defended
the very criminals, Margaret wanted put away.

13
00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:14.120
But they were like bookends, perfectly
complimenting each other. Both were natural

14
00:01:14.159 --> 00:01:19.079
born politicians, gregarious, and well
respected in their community. When they were

15
00:01:19.159 --> 00:01:23.760
murdered in their home in September of
nineteen eighty seven. It immediately looked like

16
00:01:23.760 --> 00:01:30.200
a professional hit. This was no
bar glory, but who was the real

17
00:01:30.239 --> 00:01:34.560
target? The judge, with former
connections to the Dixie Mafia or his wife

18
00:01:34.840 --> 00:01:40.079
determined to become mayor and exposed the
corruption in Biloxi, as well as shut

19
00:01:40.079 --> 00:01:45.879
down illegal brothels and gambling run by
the Dixie Mafia. It would take years

20
00:01:45.920 --> 00:01:51.719
to unravel the conspiracy and the steely
determination of their oldest daughter to see it

21
00:01:51.879 --> 00:01:59.359
through. Welcome to Episode ninety one, The Sherry Murders, Dixie Mafia,

22
00:01:59.439 --> 00:02:07.000
and corruption in Biloxi. Sitting on
the Gulf of Mexico, Biloxi, Mississippi

23
00:02:07.000 --> 00:02:13.280
today is well known for its beaches
and casinos, but legal gambling didn't come

24
00:02:13.319 --> 00:02:19.400
to Mississippi until the nineteen nineties.
First settled by the French in sixteen ninety

25
00:02:19.479 --> 00:02:23.520
nine, it went from French rule
to British rule in seventeen sixty three,

26
00:02:23.840 --> 00:02:30.120
to Spanish rule from seventeen seventy nine
to eighteen ten. Then in eighteen eleven,

27
00:02:30.319 --> 00:02:35.199
Biloxi came under control of the United
States of America as part of the

28
00:02:35.240 --> 00:02:43.159
Mississippi territory. Mississippi was admitted to
the Union in eighteen seventeen. Despite this,

29
00:02:43.599 --> 00:02:49.120
Biloxi remained largely French in character.
It became a summer resort with the

30
00:02:49.159 --> 00:02:54.439
advantages of close proximity to New Orleans
and ease of travel by water. The

31
00:02:54.520 --> 00:03:01.039
beachfront of Biloxi lies directly on the
Mississippi Sound, with barrier islands scattered off

32
00:03:01.080 --> 00:03:07.560
the coast and into the Gulf of
Mexico. Rich farmers and businessmen built summer

33
00:03:07.599 --> 00:03:15.599
homes there, and soon hotels and
rental cottages started dotting the beaches. Biloxi's

34
00:03:15.680 --> 00:03:21.000
casino history dates back to a period
in the nineteen forties when open, if

35
00:03:21.039 --> 00:03:25.639
technically illegal, gambling took place in
a casino within the Broadwater Beach Resort.

36
00:03:27.360 --> 00:03:32.479
Open gambling ended in the nineteen fifties. It became known as the poor Man's

37
00:03:32.599 --> 00:03:39.080
riviera for the tourist industry, but
otherwise commercially, Biloxi was dominated by the

38
00:03:39.080 --> 00:03:45.639
shrimp and oyster industry. In the
early nineteen sixties, the Gulf Coast became

39
00:03:45.639 --> 00:03:52.439
a new Southern vacation destination for Northerners
as an alternative to Florida, with Biloxi

40
00:03:52.680 --> 00:03:59.439
at the center hotels hired French chefs
and upgraded their amenities and offered some of

41
00:03:59.479 --> 00:04:04.199
the best seafood in the country.
In the late sixties and early seventies,

42
00:04:04.520 --> 00:04:11.599
the Dixie Mafia began and Biloxi was
soon their home base. The FBI defines

43
00:04:11.719 --> 00:04:16.839
the Dixie Mafia as a loose confederation
of thugs and crooks who conducted their criminal

44
00:04:16.879 --> 00:04:21.959
activity in the southeastern United States.
One word got out the Biloxi, with

45
00:04:23.040 --> 00:04:27.800
its history of strip clubs and illicit
gambling, was a safe haven. The

46
00:04:27.879 --> 00:04:33.959
criminals settled in The poor Man's Riviera
had become a ced strip of nightclubs and

47
00:04:34.079 --> 00:04:42.639
motels which also served as strip clubs
and gambling dens. Mike Gillett, Jr.

48
00:04:42.879 --> 00:04:46.000
Was known as the godfather of Biloxi. He owned many of the motels

49
00:04:46.000 --> 00:04:50.839
and clubs. His strip clubs often
had brothels running in the back rooms,

50
00:04:51.319 --> 00:04:57.279
and he ran a tight ship known
as Mister Mike. He was the most

51
00:04:57.360 --> 00:05:02.040
well known and trusted member of the
Dixie Mafia. There wasn't much structure to

52
00:05:02.079 --> 00:05:09.560
their organization of everything from petty crimes
to armed robbery and murders, but they

53
00:05:09.600 --> 00:05:15.639
had one motto, thou shalt not
snitch to the cops. Also known as

54
00:05:15.639 --> 00:05:20.439
the Cornbread Cosa Nostra, the Dixie
Mafia ran prostitution and pornography rings. They

55
00:05:20.480 --> 00:05:27.399
were drug smugglers and distributors, and
of course, contract killers. In nineteen

56
00:05:27.439 --> 00:05:32.560
eighty three, the FBI started investigating
Biloxi and Harrison County. They found that

57
00:05:32.600 --> 00:05:40.519
the entire Harrison County Sheriff's office was
a criminal enterprise. Special Agent Keith Bell

58
00:05:40.639 --> 00:05:46.680
said they were doing anything and everything
illegal down there for money. Sheriff Hobbs

59
00:05:46.680 --> 00:05:50.800
and officers loyal to him would release
prisoners from the county jail, safeguard drug

60
00:05:50.839 --> 00:05:57.079
shipments, and hide fugitives. Anything
you can think of they were involved in.

61
00:05:59.439 --> 00:06:02.839
There were a few non corrupt police
officers and they helped the FBI end

62
00:06:02.839 --> 00:06:10.319
the corruption. In nineteen eighty four, Sheriff Leroy Hobbs was convicted of racketeering

63
00:06:10.759 --> 00:06:15.480
and was sentenced to twenty years in
prison. Vincent and Margaret Sherry had settled

64
00:06:15.480 --> 00:06:21.399
in Biloxi in nineteen seventy one after
traveling the world. Vince had enlisted in

65
00:06:21.439 --> 00:06:26.480
the Air Force in nineteen fifty one, where he spent seven years as an

66
00:06:26.480 --> 00:06:31.800
intelligence officer and served as a judge
advocate for thirteen years. He retired at

67
00:06:31.800 --> 00:06:38.720
the rank of colonel. Born in
February nineteen twenty nine in King's, New

68
00:06:38.800 --> 00:06:44.639
York, Vincent Sherry grew up in
Paducah, Kentucky. He attended Western Kentucky

69
00:06:44.759 --> 00:06:49.480
University, where he received a Bachelor
of Arts degree, Middle Tennessee State University

70
00:06:49.920 --> 00:06:56.160
where he received a Master of Arts
degree, the University of Southern Mississippi where

71
00:06:56.199 --> 00:07:00.800
he received a PhD, And George
Washington University where he received a Bachelor of

72
00:07:00.879 --> 00:07:05.560
Law's degree. He had earned what
they used to call a juris doctor.

73
00:07:08.720 --> 00:07:14.000
Vince was licensed to practice law in
Virginia, Kentucky, and Mississippi. He

74
00:07:14.040 --> 00:07:17.560
was also able to practice in the
Court of Customs and Patent Appills, the

75
00:07:17.639 --> 00:07:24.199
US Tax Court, and the Court
of Military Appills. He also taught at

76
00:07:24.199 --> 00:07:29.120
the University of Southern Mississippi for eight
years. He taught upper division and graduate

77
00:07:29.160 --> 00:07:35.480
political science and criminal justice classes.
If it isn't already apparent, Vincent Sherry

78
00:07:35.600 --> 00:07:42.600
was a brilliant man. He spoke
five languages and did his doctoral thesis on

79
00:07:42.680 --> 00:07:47.720
the judicial system of South Vietnam.
He was like a walking encyclopedia, and

80
00:07:47.800 --> 00:07:54.319
he loved using obscure words to keep
his family on their toes. His daughter

81
00:07:54.439 --> 00:07:59.879
Lynd said that her father fervently believed
ignorance, not evil, to be humanities

82
00:08:00.040 --> 00:08:05.560
worst sin. In nineteen eighty one, he began a criminal law practice in

83
00:08:05.600 --> 00:08:11.480
Biloxi with his partner Pete Hallett.
They defended many Dixie Mafia members, including

84
00:08:11.519 --> 00:08:18.160
the Godfather Mister Mike, and Hallett's
big client was another big gun named Kirksey

85
00:08:18.279 --> 00:08:24.079
Nix in prison for life. Nicks
ran all illegal activity inside the prison and

86
00:08:24.120 --> 00:08:30.439
a lot on the outside. Pete
Hallett defended him from nineteen seventy nine to

87
00:08:30.560 --> 00:08:35.519
nineteen eighty eight. By July of
nineteen eighty six, when Vince was appointed

88
00:08:35.559 --> 00:08:39.639
as a Circuit court judge, he
and Pete Hallett had built a lucrative practice.

89
00:08:41.000 --> 00:08:45.240
His skills as a defense attorney really
helped him as a judge. He

90
00:08:45.320 --> 00:08:50.000
was considered very fair, not partial
to either side, and so kind to

91
00:08:50.039 --> 00:08:54.080
defendants that they actually sent him thank
you cards and Christmas cards after he sent

92
00:08:54.120 --> 00:08:58.919
them to prison. Pete Hallett later
said it was because he talked to defend,

93
00:09:00.639 --> 00:09:05.799
explaining carefully why he was sending them
to prison, but Vince Sherry wasn't

94
00:09:05.879 --> 00:09:09.440
without his faults. He had a
mercurial temper that wasn't helped by his high

95
00:09:09.480 --> 00:09:16.759
blood pressure and frequent headaches. He
and Margaret could fight viciously, and he

96
00:09:16.879 --> 00:09:22.759
had very high standards for his children
and could often seem distant. He also

97
00:09:22.840 --> 00:09:26.000
had a sharp sense of humor,
almost biting at times, with a gift

98
00:09:26.039 --> 00:09:31.159
for choosing spot on nicknames for people
whether they liked it or not, but

99
00:09:31.240 --> 00:09:37.080
his family still adored and revered him. He was well known and beloved in

100
00:09:37.080 --> 00:09:41.240
the community as a very generous man, kind to strangers and a friend to

101
00:09:41.320 --> 00:09:48.159
all. And though he wasn't necessarily
handsome in a classic sense, he was

102
00:09:48.279 --> 00:09:54.639
magnetic, much to his wife's annoyance, as many women were drawn to him.

103
00:09:54.720 --> 00:09:58.200
Margaret Joyce Smith was born in July
of nineteen twenty nine in Mooring Sport,

104
00:09:58.279 --> 00:10:05.120
Louisiana, but grew up in Kentucky
in Bowling Green. She attended Western

105
00:10:05.279 --> 00:10:11.320
Kentucky University and was a schoolteacher for
a while. She and Vince met at

106
00:10:11.360 --> 00:10:15.679
Western, and they married in nineteen
fifty, both at age twenty one,

107
00:10:15.720 --> 00:10:20.720
before Vince joined the Air Force.
Margaret was a force to be reckoned with

108
00:10:20.799 --> 00:10:24.960
as well. She was a Biloxi
City councilwoman from nineteen eighty one to nineteen

109
00:10:24.960 --> 00:10:30.240
eighty five, and she ran for
mayor as a Republican in nineteen eighty five,

110
00:10:30.759 --> 00:10:37.080
but lost to incumbent Mayor Gerald Blessie, who was her sworn nemesis.

111
00:10:37.120 --> 00:10:41.480
She outwardly hated him and made no
bones about it. Margaret was an old

112
00:10:41.480 --> 00:10:48.519
style Republican and bless He was a
Liberal Democrat and a decorated Vietnam War veteran.

113
00:10:48.960 --> 00:10:54.600
He described himself as a reformer and
he was popular in Biloxi's poor black

114
00:10:54.639 --> 00:11:00.799
community. Biloxi's economy at the time
was in the shedder. The fancy old

115
00:11:00.799 --> 00:11:07.320
hotels on the waterfront were practically bankrupt
due to a huge slump and tourism.

116
00:11:07.320 --> 00:11:11.879
Mayor Gerald Blessie had a plan for
a new waterfront with a new two hundred

117
00:11:11.000 --> 00:11:18.240
room hotel and a French style marketplace. Naturally, the old hotel owners opposed

118
00:11:18.320 --> 00:11:22.919
this, knowing they would definitely be
thrown out of business, and well to

119
00:11:22.960 --> 00:11:28.240
do Biloxians off West Beach and North
would rather see municipal funds used to pay

120
00:11:28.320 --> 00:11:35.759
streets and fill potholes, but Blessi's
plan proposed fourteen hundred new jobs while promising

121
00:11:35.799 --> 00:11:43.000
to preserve the history and culture of
Biloxi. It was definitely a city divided,

122
00:11:43.559 --> 00:11:46.039
with a margin of only five hundred
votes, letting Blessie keep his job.

123
00:11:48.559 --> 00:11:52.639
But Margaret wasn't going anywhere. She
planned to run again for mayor in

124
00:11:52.759 --> 00:11:56.799
nineteen eighty nine. In the meantime, she showed up to every city council

125
00:11:56.840 --> 00:12:03.399
meeting to oppose Mayor Blessi and his
policies, and she used the voter referendum

126
00:12:03.440 --> 00:12:11.840
process to accomplish blocking his proposals and
goals. She often accused him of associating

127
00:12:11.840 --> 00:12:16.799
with crime and vice leaders of the
underworld and backroom deals. She accused him

128
00:12:16.840 --> 00:12:22.840
of misspending government funds, something the
FBI did look into because Biloxi officials had

129
00:12:22.879 --> 00:12:30.200
released one hundred and sixty thousand dollars
of HUD grant funds to start development costs

130
00:12:30.600 --> 00:12:37.159
without federal approval. The mayor and
company basically claimed that they had verbal authorization

131
00:12:37.879 --> 00:12:43.360
and they just didn't have it in
writing. Despite this and an IRS audit,

132
00:12:43.559 --> 00:12:50.559
Blessi mostly came out clean, but
many people believed that after Vince had

133
00:12:50.559 --> 00:12:54.080
been appointed to the bench, Margaret
had a damn good chance of winning in

134
00:12:54.159 --> 00:12:58.320
nineteen eighty nine. Gerald Blessie,
in turn, also made no secret of

135
00:12:58.360 --> 00:13:03.559
his hate for Margaret Sherry. He
called her a racist and pointed out to

136
00:13:03.600 --> 00:13:09.000
the press that her husband was the
one who profited from crime as a criminal

137
00:13:09.000 --> 00:13:15.759
defense attorney. It was ugly and
it was very public. When the Sherry's

138
00:13:15.799 --> 00:13:20.159
were found murdered. Their granddaughter,
Kathy was devastated. She was especially close

139
00:13:20.200 --> 00:13:26.799
to her grandmother and had even helped
with her first mayoral campaign. She talked

140
00:13:26.840 --> 00:13:33.080
on the phone to Margaret all the
time about Biloxi corruptions and scandals. When

141
00:13:33.120 --> 00:13:37.000
her mother, Lynne broke the news
to her, Kathy remarked, where the

142
00:13:37.039 --> 00:13:43.320
hell was Gerald Blessie. I'm going
to pause now for a short commercial break.

143
00:13:50.519 --> 00:13:56.440
On Monday, September fourteenth, nineteen
eighty seven, Vince and Margaret had

144
00:13:56.440 --> 00:14:01.519
a fairly normal day. Vince went
to court that morning for his normal docket,

145
00:14:01.919 --> 00:14:05.159
and then got a haircut, and
then he filled up his car with

146
00:14:05.240 --> 00:14:07.840
gas because he and Margaret were going
to bat and Rouge the next day to

147
00:14:07.960 --> 00:14:13.320
visit their youngest daughter, Leslie at
college. He chatted for a while with

148
00:14:13.399 --> 00:14:18.600
his law partner Pete Hallett. Before
he got home and went for a jog.

149
00:14:20.000 --> 00:14:24.240
Margaret did some work herself. She
was constantly telling friends and family that

150
00:14:24.320 --> 00:14:28.120
she was about to expose major corruption
in city hall. She did some work

151
00:14:28.159 --> 00:14:33.240
on her upcoming mayoral campaign, and
then she went shopping for a few new

152
00:14:33.320 --> 00:14:39.679
dresses and electric calculators for her office. She spoke to three different friends later

153
00:14:39.720 --> 00:14:43.039
that day about how she was working
with the FBI and planned to help put

154
00:14:43.080 --> 00:14:48.159
Mayor Gerald Blessie in jail. One
of her friends warned her she shouldn't talk

155
00:14:48.240 --> 00:14:54.759
like that without proof. Margaret answered, don't you understand I have the goods.

156
00:14:54.120 --> 00:14:58.919
I have documentation. She told her
friends she intended to make her claim

157
00:15:00.240 --> 00:15:03.919
public at the city council meeting the
next day, when the city's new budget

158
00:15:03.960 --> 00:15:09.720
was set to be adopted. According
to author Edward Humes and his book Mississippi

159
00:15:09.799 --> 00:15:15.679
Mud, her last call was cut
off abruptly. The friend had heard Vince

160
00:15:15.679 --> 00:15:20.639
in the background complaining about being hungry
and wanting to go to dinner, so

161
00:15:20.720 --> 00:15:24.440
she assumed Margaret just hung up to
deal with him. The next day.

162
00:15:24.600 --> 00:15:28.840
No one missed them. Everyone knew
they were supposed to be in Baton Rouge.

163
00:15:30.559 --> 00:15:33.960
Leslie didn't raise the alarm, so
maybe she thought they had changed their

164
00:15:33.000 --> 00:15:37.320
minds. One of their dogs was
scheduled to have a cataract removed, so

165
00:15:37.399 --> 00:15:43.559
maybe that had delayed them. By
Wednesday morning, though Vince was due in

166
00:15:43.639 --> 00:15:48.200
court, the court's staff called his
law partner, Pete Hallett a little before

167
00:15:48.279 --> 00:15:54.559
nine am. When Vince Hutton shown
up. Pete tried to call the Sherry

168
00:15:54.639 --> 00:15:58.240
house, but he didn't get an
answer. At eleven am, he went

169
00:15:58.279 --> 00:16:03.159
over to the house with his law
firm associate, Charles Leaguer. He stepped

170
00:16:03.200 --> 00:16:07.360
in the house briefly and then shouted
for the neighbor to call the police.

171
00:16:07.000 --> 00:16:12.360
He told Charles Leaguer that Vince and
Margaret were both dead. Police went in

172
00:16:12.440 --> 00:16:17.960
the house and found the Sherry's docks
and Moe barking and growling next to Vince's

173
00:16:17.960 --> 00:16:22.320
body, protecting him. When they
walked to the bedroom, Mo raced in

174
00:16:22.360 --> 00:16:29.600
there and stood over Margaret, barking
and burying his fans. Later this detail

175
00:16:29.679 --> 00:16:33.759
was hard for police and the Sherry
kids. Vince and Margaret had two docsins

176
00:16:34.200 --> 00:16:38.480
Mo and Fritz, who they doated
on. They called them the boys.

177
00:16:40.720 --> 00:16:44.320
Lynn and her siblings felt like the
boys never would have led a stranger in

178
00:16:44.360 --> 00:16:49.559
the house without barking or biting them, even they ferociously protected their masters.

179
00:16:51.919 --> 00:16:56.279
They thought it had to be someone
the Sherry's knew. They pointed out to

180
00:16:56.320 --> 00:17:00.919
the cops that the dogs had not
attacked Pete Hallett. Later investigators would come

181
00:17:00.960 --> 00:17:04.799
to believe that Vince opened the door
to the killer who put a gun in

182
00:17:04.839 --> 00:17:10.000
his face, so he showed the
dogs into his bedroom where Margaret was and

183
00:17:10.079 --> 00:17:15.680
quickly shut the door. Margaret probably
just thought someone was at the door Vince

184
00:17:15.720 --> 00:17:18.599
needed to talk to, so we
got the dogs out of the way.

185
00:17:18.400 --> 00:17:23.720
There's no indication she was alarmed.
And then Vince came back to face the

186
00:17:23.759 --> 00:17:30.240
man who shot him from two feet
away, sending him flailing backwards, sprang

187
00:17:30.319 --> 00:17:33.559
blood on the walls and ceiling.
He was shot in the mouth, shattering

188
00:17:33.599 --> 00:17:40.240
his teeth. Margaret had been undressing
for the evening. She was clad only

189
00:17:40.279 --> 00:17:42.759
in her bra and underwear, and
she had one earring in her hand,

190
00:17:44.039 --> 00:17:48.359
as if she had been removing her
jewelry. There was no blood spray.

191
00:17:48.160 --> 00:17:52.960
She was shot four times point blank
in the head, and just one stream

192
00:17:52.960 --> 00:17:56.640
of blood flowed from her temple onto
her body. She was slumped against the

193
00:17:56.640 --> 00:18:00.359
bed with her feet under the dresser, like she had just slid down.

194
00:18:02.839 --> 00:18:06.480
There were two bullets in the wall, so if she heard those, she

195
00:18:06.599 --> 00:18:08.720
may have had a moment to turn
and see her killer, but she may

196
00:18:08.759 --> 00:18:15.200
not have heard them at all.
Police found a rubber foam around their wounds

197
00:18:15.240 --> 00:18:18.960
and the floor around their bodies.
It looked as though someone had shot through

198
00:18:18.960 --> 00:18:23.880
a pillow or used a homemade silencer, which made sense as Margaret was clearly

199
00:18:23.920 --> 00:18:29.119
caught off guard. She hadn't heard
the shots her husband had suffered, and

200
00:18:29.200 --> 00:18:32.119
probably not the two that went in
the wall near where she was standing.

201
00:18:33.440 --> 00:18:37.039
With one bullet left in the gun, the assassin went back to where Vince

202
00:18:37.119 --> 00:18:41.880
lay. From the amount of blood
around his body, detectives believed he had

203
00:18:41.880 --> 00:18:47.960
been alive when the killer went for
Margaret. The killer then shot Vince in

204
00:18:48.000 --> 00:18:52.440
the face again, hitting just below
his right eye, finishing him off.

205
00:18:52.839 --> 00:18:56.759
The dogs had not been harmed as
the killer fled, and they had been

206
00:18:56.799 --> 00:19:03.079
in the house for a day guarding
their dead master's Multiple departments helped search the

207
00:19:03.119 --> 00:19:10.880
crime scene. The FBI, Mississippi
Highway Patrol, Harrison County Sheriff's Department and

208
00:19:10.960 --> 00:19:15.799
the Biloxi Police Department, but it
was the Biloxi Police who took the lead

209
00:19:15.839 --> 00:19:22.319
on the investigation. Pete Hallett's official
story to police and the Sherry kids was

210
00:19:22.359 --> 00:19:26.240
that he looked in through the sliding
glass store and saw the dogs, and

211
00:19:26.319 --> 00:19:30.400
he also saw that there was dog
excrement on the rug. He said that

212
00:19:30.440 --> 00:19:34.079
alarmed him, so he tried the
handle and it opened. He said he

213
00:19:34.119 --> 00:19:38.319
walked in far enough to see Vince's
body before coming outside and telling a neighbor

214
00:19:38.359 --> 00:19:44.799
to call the police. When Lynn's
Posito, the oldest Sherry daughter, pressed

215
00:19:44.839 --> 00:19:49.160
Pete, insisting her imagination was worse
than not knowing, he just said he

216
00:19:49.200 --> 00:19:52.880
only saw her father, that he
had clearly been shot, and he had

217
00:19:52.920 --> 00:19:56.920
not gone in because he didn't want
to see her. Moll, the oldest

218
00:19:56.920 --> 00:20:00.759
Sherry child, Eric Sherry, had
called Lynn from his home in Florida.

219
00:20:02.559 --> 00:20:07.200
One of his Biloxi friends had called
to all for condolences after he heard the

220
00:20:07.240 --> 00:20:11.680
news on the radio. This makes
me crazy, Biloxi police, if not

221
00:20:11.799 --> 00:20:17.079
Pete Hallett, should have immediately made
calls to the Sherry kids so they didn't

222
00:20:17.119 --> 00:20:22.000
find out this way. Eric said, he would call the youngest Leslie if

223
00:20:22.079 --> 00:20:26.759
Lynn would call vin Vincent Sherry,
the third had the worst temper, and

224
00:20:26.799 --> 00:20:30.279
they definitely did not want him finding
out from the news. When Lynn hung

225
00:20:30.359 --> 00:20:36.160
up with him, he was already
planning on buying a gun. Lynn then

226
00:20:36.200 --> 00:20:41.279
had the horrific responsibility of not only
telling her brother, but calling other family

227
00:20:41.279 --> 00:20:47.880
members to spread the word. After
one aunt dropped the receiver screaming, Lynn

228
00:20:47.960 --> 00:20:52.000
hung up and couldn't do it anymore. She was waiting for her husband to

229
00:20:52.039 --> 00:20:56.359
get home. Dick Sposito was her
rock, but he traveled a lot,

230
00:20:56.720 --> 00:21:00.279
so she hadn't even been able to
get on the phone with him right away.

231
00:21:00.559 --> 00:21:03.960
When he called back and she told
him, he immediately said he would

232
00:21:03.960 --> 00:21:08.480
get home as soon as possible,
but he was in Paris and couldn't get

233
00:21:08.519 --> 00:21:12.880
a flight until the next day,
so Lynne had a full day to wait

234
00:21:12.960 --> 00:21:18.200
for the comfort of her husband's arms, and she still had to tell her

235
00:21:18.279 --> 00:21:23.480
children, who adored their grandparents.
Lynn and her family lived in North Carolina,

236
00:21:23.960 --> 00:21:29.240
and so did her brother, Vin. Eric was in Florida and Leslie

237
00:21:29.279 --> 00:21:33.680
was in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
The message they gave each other was get

238
00:21:33.759 --> 00:21:38.839
home. Now as fast as you
can. Lynne went and picked up her

239
00:21:38.880 --> 00:21:44.880
sixteen year old daughter Kathy first,
who immediately made the remark about Margaret's nemesis,

240
00:21:45.279 --> 00:21:48.559
Mayor Gerald Blessy. A neighbor who
had come to sit with Lynn,

241
00:21:48.960 --> 00:21:52.400
offered to go pick up her youngest
seven year old Beth at the bus stop

242
00:21:52.759 --> 00:21:56.279
and keep her at her house for
a while until Lynn could tell the older

243
00:21:56.359 --> 00:22:03.039
kids and make more phone calls.
After picking up Kathie and breaking the news,

244
00:22:03.559 --> 00:22:07.240
Lynn picked up her thirteen year old
son Tommy from Junior High and told

245
00:22:07.279 --> 00:22:11.839
him as well, and then she
waited for her siblings. Leslie and Eric

246
00:22:11.880 --> 00:22:15.960
were driving into Biloxi while Lynne caught
the next flight to Biloxi with her kids.

247
00:22:18.319 --> 00:22:21.160
Vinn was waiting to fly on the
next day so he could bring his

248
00:22:21.200 --> 00:22:26.200
wife. Once they were all together, they headed straight to the Hallett and

249
00:22:26.240 --> 00:22:30.759
Sherry law office to meet with Pete
Hallett. He had told them to come

250
00:22:30.759 --> 00:22:34.839
to see him first, and they
trusted him. He had told Eric he

251
00:22:34.839 --> 00:22:40.559
would use his contacts to find out
as much as he could. Lynn left

252
00:22:40.599 --> 00:22:44.839
her two youngest children with a friend, but sixteen year old Kathi insisted on

253
00:22:44.920 --> 00:22:51.319
coming to Pete Hallett greeted them warmly, hugging Lynn. He promised he would

254
00:22:51.319 --> 00:22:55.599
help them in any way he could, But just as Eric was about to

255
00:22:55.640 --> 00:23:00.480
ask the first question, Pete cut
him off. He said, listen,

256
00:23:00.839 --> 00:23:03.519
there's something you need to understand.
There is nothing you can do to bring

257
00:23:03.519 --> 00:23:07.799
your parents back to life. Nothing. The best thing you can do is

258
00:23:07.880 --> 00:23:14.559
drop it. Shocked Eric and Lynn
asked, was it BLESSI? Is that

259
00:23:14.559 --> 00:23:18.440
why you want us to drop it? But Pete Hallett would not elaborate.

260
00:23:18.839 --> 00:23:25.519
As they were leaving, Kathi Spozito, Margaret's fiery granddaughter, said I don't

261
00:23:25.599 --> 00:23:30.480
trust him. Lynn tried to give
Pete the benefit of the doubt. He

262
00:23:30.599 --> 00:23:33.240
was her father's best friend, and
though he was well known and loved in

263
00:23:33.279 --> 00:23:40.200
Biloxi, Vince didn't have many close
friends. A joint funeral for the Sherry's

264
00:23:40.599 --> 00:23:45.839
was held on September nineteenth, nineteen
eighty seven, at Nativity Cathedral. Pete

265
00:23:45.839 --> 00:23:51.759
Hallett gave the eulogy. He reportedly
said he was so close to the couple

266
00:23:51.960 --> 00:23:56.759
that he considered them family. The
Clarion Ledger described the stories Hallett told in

267
00:23:56.799 --> 00:24:03.759
his eulogy as giving attendees both pause
and levity. Why has God deemed to

268
00:24:03.759 --> 00:24:08.200
take Vincent and Margaret away from us
and allow a wild animal to remain among

269
00:24:08.319 --> 00:24:14.599
us? He intoned from the podium. Hallett later passed out copies of his

270
00:24:14.680 --> 00:24:18.880
eulogy to members of the media.
He had his own political ambitions and didn't

271
00:24:18.880 --> 00:24:26.880
waste this moment for publicity. Despite
how tasteless it was. Pete Hallett had

272
00:24:26.920 --> 00:24:30.559
been dismissed almost immediately as a suspect. Even though he was the last to

273
00:24:30.640 --> 00:24:36.279
see Vince and the person to find
the bodies. They found his story credible.

274
00:24:37.720 --> 00:24:40.839
After some digging, they found that
Vince had been turned down on a

275
00:24:40.880 --> 00:24:45.960
life insurance policy for the law practice
due to his high blood pressure, so

276
00:24:47.160 --> 00:24:52.119
Pete didn't have a financial motive,
and besides, Vince was his best friend.

277
00:24:52.839 --> 00:24:57.079
As the investigation continued, some people
told the police that Vince had received

278
00:24:57.160 --> 00:25:03.119
threats since he had started practic sing
law in Biloxi, but Pete Hallett said

279
00:25:03.480 --> 00:25:07.480
Vince never told him about any threats. He said, if there had been

280
00:25:07.519 --> 00:25:11.400
threats, I am positive he would
have told me. But starting in nineteen

281
00:25:11.440 --> 00:25:17.440
eighty one, the Sherry couple received
letters from someone named Bryce Hundeman, who

282
00:25:17.480 --> 00:25:22.720
opposed some of the couple's political opinions. In nineteen eighty six, Vince put

283
00:25:22.720 --> 00:25:26.759
an ad in the paper that said, in all caps, invitation to Bryce

284
00:25:26.839 --> 00:25:32.039
Hundeman. As you probably know,
I have been appointed to the Circuit Judges

285
00:25:32.119 --> 00:25:37.160
bench to replace Judge Griffin. In
view of your long interest in my professional

286
00:25:37.200 --> 00:25:41.440
activities, I certainly hope to see
you at my installation reception. When townspeople

287
00:25:41.480 --> 00:25:45.960
were getting frustrated that the murders weren't
solved within a few days, the Biloxi

288
00:25:47.039 --> 00:25:51.519
Public Safety director said, it will
take time. It was a professional job.

289
00:25:51.920 --> 00:25:56.559
It'll be very difficult for us to
solve. Only a few days after

290
00:25:56.640 --> 00:26:00.440
the murders, Gulf Coast businessmen put
their money together to make a fifty thousand

291
00:26:00.400 --> 00:26:07.599
dollars reward for information that would be
around one hundred and eleven thousand today.

292
00:26:07.880 --> 00:26:11.720
The Sherrys lived across the street from
a golf course. In hopes of finding

293
00:26:11.799 --> 00:26:15.559
evidence, the police searched the golf
course and a pawd on the course,

294
00:26:15.799 --> 00:26:22.079
but found nothing. The police immediately
said that Mayor Gerald Blessy had been out

295
00:26:22.079 --> 00:26:27.640
of town during the murders, and
also the next night uncharacteristically missing a council

296
00:26:27.720 --> 00:26:33.119
meeting. As far as they were
concerned, Blessy was dropped as a suspect.

297
00:26:34.519 --> 00:26:38.640
The Sherry kids were angry about this. Blessy was the prime suspect in

298
00:26:38.680 --> 00:26:44.319
their minds, not that he murdered
their parents himself, but that he had

299
00:26:44.319 --> 00:26:49.079
set it up and now it was
his police station and his detectives investigating the

300
00:26:49.160 --> 00:26:55.039
murders. From the start, police
believed the murders were the work of a

301
00:26:55.079 --> 00:26:59.279
professional because there was nothing missing from
the house. There was no sign of

302
00:26:59.319 --> 00:27:04.440
fourced century Police wondered if maybe a
criminal judge Sherry had sentenced was getting revenge

303
00:27:04.480 --> 00:27:10.400
on the judge. But after talking
to Lynn, they found out that Vince's

304
00:27:10.400 --> 00:27:15.359
black appointment book was missing. They
held this back in the media, hoping

305
00:27:15.400 --> 00:27:18.559
to find a suspect, even though
common sense would tell you the killer probably

306
00:27:18.599 --> 00:27:23.880
already disposed of it. Police took
Vince's files from his time as a defense

307
00:27:23.920 --> 00:27:27.920
attorney and also from when he was
a judge. They wanted to look through

308
00:27:27.960 --> 00:27:32.240
them to see if they could find
anyone who had motive to kill the Sherris.

309
00:27:33.119 --> 00:27:37.039
A neighbor came nervously to Lynn because
he had seen a car the night

310
00:27:37.079 --> 00:27:41.400
the Sherrys were murdered. He was
nervous because it looked like an unmarked police

311
00:27:41.480 --> 00:27:48.119
car. The yellow car was found
two days later. It had been stolen

312
00:27:48.240 --> 00:27:52.160
and the tags replaced, but Biloxi
police immediately dismissed it as pertinent to the

313
00:27:52.200 --> 00:27:59.279
case, again angering Lynn. She
felt it was a good lead. In

314
00:27:59.400 --> 00:28:03.519
March of night eighty eight, a
new task force took over and reviewed everything

315
00:28:03.559 --> 00:28:07.920
the previous task force had done to
see if they had missed anything. In

316
00:28:07.039 --> 00:28:12.279
September of nineteen eighty eight, it
was announced by Biloxi's public safety director that

317
00:28:12.359 --> 00:28:17.400
the Sherry's son, Eric, was
a suspect in the murders. He said

318
00:28:17.400 --> 00:28:21.960
that Eric's friends told them he would
be in Biloxi that weekend before his parents

319
00:28:21.960 --> 00:28:27.920
were murdered. He also said that
Eric did not register sufficient emotion after his

320
00:28:29.039 --> 00:28:33.519
parents were killed, and he refused
to take a lie detector test. Many

321
00:28:33.559 --> 00:28:41.359
people handled grief differently, some growing
numb, especially when among strangers. Also,

322
00:28:41.400 --> 00:28:44.400
it had already been proven that Eric
was in Florida when his parents were

323
00:28:44.480 --> 00:28:48.119
murdered. This was all bullshit and
a cruel reason to go after Eric.

324
00:28:49.960 --> 00:28:53.680
Eric said that he and other families
did refuse to take a polygraph the week

325
00:28:53.680 --> 00:28:57.160
of the murders, but he went
back later to take one and was told

326
00:28:57.200 --> 00:29:03.799
by the Harrison County sheriff that it
wouldn't be necessary. This is because while

327
00:29:03.880 --> 00:29:07.799
questioning Lynn, they told her they
suspected one of her siblings because they found

328
00:29:07.799 --> 00:29:14.680
out he was adopted. It was
a huge family secret. Eric was actually

329
00:29:14.799 --> 00:29:19.000
Vince's nephew. He and Margaret took
aim when he was a baby. He

330
00:29:19.039 --> 00:29:25.079
had never guessed why he looked so
different from his siblings. His father had

331
00:29:25.119 --> 00:29:27.880
been of Asian descent, and while
Eric didn't look Asian, he did have

332
00:29:29.000 --> 00:29:32.759
very dark hair and was dark complected, unlike the rest of his family.

333
00:29:33.240 --> 00:29:37.400
Lynn begged the police not to tell
him. She and all the siblings would

334
00:29:37.440 --> 00:29:42.359
comply to polygraphs if they promised not
to tell Eric. She didn't want him

335
00:29:42.400 --> 00:29:48.599
to find out this way. Lynn
also claimed that she had initially agreed to

336
00:29:48.640 --> 00:29:53.279
the polygraph but only if other Bilocks
the officials were tested. The police denied.

337
00:29:53.359 --> 00:29:57.640
She said that to them, Lynn
had to tell her brother he was

338
00:29:57.680 --> 00:30:03.799
adopted. That's why the police were
looking at him so hard. He said.

339
00:30:03.839 --> 00:30:06.880
It was one of the worst moments
of his life, like when he

340
00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:12.039
heard his parents were dead, he
felt alone and empty. Later in that

341
00:30:12.160 --> 00:30:17.680
September of nineteen eighty eight, police
held a press's conference to give an update.

342
00:30:18.599 --> 00:30:22.680
They said they had no concrete motive, no concrete suspects, and no

343
00:30:22.720 --> 00:30:29.440
plan to drop the investigation. In
response, Lynd told the press quote,

344
00:30:29.960 --> 00:30:33.559
A year without results is long enough. You don't know whether it's genuine ignorance

345
00:30:33.720 --> 00:30:38.759
or a very sloppy cover up.
By mid nineteen eighty nine, there were

346
00:30:38.839 --> 00:30:44.680
rumors that Vince had been involved in
a money scam involving angle of prison inmates.

347
00:30:45.640 --> 00:30:48.680
There were also rumors that Pete Hallett
met with two inmates to plan the

348
00:30:48.720 --> 00:30:55.079
Sherry murders. Of course, Pete
Hallett said he wasn't involved. He said,

349
00:30:55.160 --> 00:30:59.640
quote, let me once again state
that any suggestion I was involved in

350
00:30:59.680 --> 00:31:03.039
the ending of the murder of Vincent
and Margaret Sherry as an outright lie.

351
00:31:04.119 --> 00:31:07.960
The local police investigated the murders for
two years, but didn't get anywhere,

352
00:31:08.559 --> 00:31:14.119
So the FBI came back in in
nineteen eighty nine and Special Agent Keith Bell

353
00:31:14.240 --> 00:31:21.039
started investigating the murders alongside the new
Biloxi Police Captain Randy Cook, they found

354
00:31:21.079 --> 00:31:25.960
three hundred and forty five phone calls
between Pete Hallett's office and the Angola prison

355
00:31:26.279 --> 00:31:33.240
in Louisiana. The calls ranged from
December nineteen eighty six until September fifteenth,

356
00:31:33.519 --> 00:31:38.799
nineteen eighty seven, the day after
the Sherry's were murdered. When they asked

357
00:31:38.880 --> 00:31:44.200
Pete Hallett who the calls were with, he said they were between a law

358
00:31:44.240 --> 00:31:49.240
office aide and his client, Kirksey
Knicks. Kirksy Knicks was a former leader

359
00:31:49.279 --> 00:31:55.640
in the Dixie Mafia, now imprisoned
for life in Angola for murdering a grocer

360
00:31:55.640 --> 00:32:00.480
in New Orleans in nineteen seventy two, But in Angola business hadn't stopped for

361
00:32:00.559 --> 00:32:07.920
Kirksy Knicks. The team then found
prison records that showed Howett had been meeting

362
00:32:07.920 --> 00:32:13.839
with Nicks in prison around the same
time the phone calls began. Also in

363
00:32:13.960 --> 00:32:20.640
nineteen eighty nine, Lynn hired private
investigator Rex Armistead to investigate her parents murders.

364
00:32:22.039 --> 00:32:27.319
She couldn't have chosen better. Armistead
had been investigating the Dixie Mafia since

365
00:32:27.440 --> 00:32:34.559
nineteen seventy six. I'm going to
pause here for a word from our sponsors.

366
00:32:42.119 --> 00:32:46.440
Kirksey Nicks Junior was a strange character. He had tested with an IQ

367
00:32:46.599 --> 00:32:51.279
of one eighty and he was the
son of a criminal appeals court judge,

368
00:32:51.559 --> 00:32:55.160
Kirksy Nicks Senior, and his mother
had also been an attorney. He didn't

369
00:32:55.240 --> 00:32:59.799
grow up poor or neglected, and
he didn't grow up in a life of

370
00:33:00.039 --> 00:33:05.839
crime. He chose it. When
Rex Armistead came on board as the family's

371
00:33:05.880 --> 00:33:10.039
private investigator, he developed an immediate
rapport with the FBI agent on the case,

372
00:33:10.240 --> 00:33:16.000
Keith Bell, and the new police
captain Randy Cook. These men had

373
00:33:16.039 --> 00:33:21.279
also gained the trust of Lynn's posito, not an easy thing to do,

374
00:33:21.359 --> 00:33:27.000
after all she had been through throughout
the investigations and later trials. She was

375
00:33:27.119 --> 00:33:30.519
constantly frustrated that she seemed to know
more about the case than officials or the

376
00:33:30.559 --> 00:33:37.000
prosecutors. Bell and Cook told rex
Armistead that Kirksey Nicks was in charge of

377
00:33:37.000 --> 00:33:43.960
a cash scam from inside prison.
At the direction of Nicks, the scammers

378
00:33:43.960 --> 00:33:49.400
paid off guards in order to use
the prison telephones. They would place ads

379
00:33:49.400 --> 00:33:53.000
in gay publications like The Advocate,
saying they were looking for love or just

380
00:33:53.119 --> 00:33:59.279
some summer fun, and asking for
a phone number men would reply to the

381
00:33:59.319 --> 00:34:04.400
po box provided in the ad.
Then the scammers would start one of their

382
00:34:04.440 --> 00:34:07.320
many ploys to get money out of
the gay men. And all the ploys

383
00:34:07.679 --> 00:34:13.360
the scammers would send racy photographs to
keep the game in interested. Of course,

384
00:34:13.480 --> 00:34:19.599
the photos weren't of themselves. They
were usually beefcake pin ups. Kirksey

385
00:34:19.679 --> 00:34:22.719
Nick said he used the name Eddie
Johnson and would send a fake photos showing

386
00:34:22.800 --> 00:34:28.480
himself as buff and young. He
also had a gift of changing his voice

387
00:34:28.960 --> 00:34:32.239
to sound younger and even like a
woman. Sometimes. As the scams moved

388
00:34:32.239 --> 00:34:37.599
on to straight men, the scammers
would usually say something like they were in

389
00:34:37.719 --> 00:34:43.360
gel on false charges and just needed
a little money to get out, and

390
00:34:43.559 --> 00:34:45.800
once they were out, they would
be free to come to their benefactors,

391
00:34:46.079 --> 00:34:52.599
either for a relationship or just for
a hookup. And if that didn't work,

392
00:34:52.039 --> 00:34:58.199
they would blackmail closeted gay men by
threatening to out them. Dozens of

393
00:34:58.239 --> 00:35:02.000
men wired money to Knicks through U
Stern Union. One man took a second

394
00:35:02.000 --> 00:35:07.880
mortgage out on his house and sent
next one hundred thousand dollars that's about two

395
00:35:07.960 --> 00:35:13.800
hundred and thirty thousand dollars today.
Another man sent around twenty thousand, which

396
00:35:13.840 --> 00:35:19.440
is about forty thousand today. And
since so many of the men were closeted,

397
00:35:19.920 --> 00:35:23.119
once they realized they were being scammed, they were hesitant to press charges

398
00:35:23.159 --> 00:35:29.719
for fear of losing their jobs and
other social ruin. But some did report

399
00:35:29.760 --> 00:35:35.440
the scams, only to be laughed
off by homophobic and corrupt police. The

400
00:35:35.519 --> 00:35:40.639
scam lasted from nineteen eighty six to
nineteen eighty nine. If you're wondering what

401
00:35:40.679 --> 00:35:45.760
a man who is spending life in
prison needed that money for, well,

402
00:35:45.480 --> 00:35:50.519
it was to bribe his way out
of prison. He planned to pay for

403
00:35:50.599 --> 00:35:57.159
a pardon either from the parole board
or from then Governor Edwin Edwards. It

404
00:35:57.199 --> 00:36:00.320
wasn't much of a stretch. With
a corruption and local and state government.

405
00:36:00.199 --> 00:36:06.400
In two thousand and one, former
Governor Edwards was convicted of racketeering and sentenced

406
00:36:06.400 --> 00:36:09.880
to ten years in prison. And
though he was a popular governor in his

407
00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:15.760
time in office from nineteen seventy two
to nineteen ninety six, he was plagued

408
00:36:15.760 --> 00:36:21.440
with accusations of corruption. After finding
out about the Lonely Hearts scam, Rex

409
00:36:21.599 --> 00:36:25.800
Armistead went to Angel of Prison and
met with Dixie Mafia member Bobby Joe Fabian.

410
00:36:27.639 --> 00:36:32.159
He knew him well after investigating the
Dixie mafia for so long. Bobby

411
00:36:32.239 --> 00:36:37.079
Joe was also a lifer serving time
for murder and kidnapping, and he sang

412
00:36:37.159 --> 00:36:43.920
like a canary to Rex Armistead.
He revealed that Kirksey Knicks had planted a

413
00:36:43.920 --> 00:36:47.639
full time associate at the Hallett and
Sherry law firm to help run the scam.

414
00:36:47.760 --> 00:36:52.320
She was his girlfriend, Sherry La
Ras Sharp. She went by La

415
00:36:52.440 --> 00:36:59.280
Raw a nickname. Sherry Sharp had
been born in an Arkansas brothel. Her

416
00:36:59.280 --> 00:37:02.599
mother was a madam, and she
was exploited turned out hooking for her mother.

417
00:37:02.679 --> 00:37:07.679
By the time she was a teen, her nickname had been Punkin for

418
00:37:07.679 --> 00:37:12.480
a long time, and that's what
Kirksey called her. She claimed to have

419
00:37:12.519 --> 00:37:15.639
fallen in love with him at the
age of ten when he visited her mother's

420
00:37:15.679 --> 00:37:21.320
bordello, but she preferred the nickname
Laura and went by that, though Kirksey

421
00:37:21.360 --> 00:37:23.360
would often make fun of her behind
her back, calling her La La.

422
00:37:25.000 --> 00:37:30.000
She would go to the p O
boxes for Nicks, collect the scam cash

423
00:37:30.079 --> 00:37:35.320
and deposit it into the law firm's
trust account. But in December of nineteen

424
00:37:35.360 --> 00:37:38.440
eighty six, Nis found out that
one hundred thousand dollars was missing from the

425
00:37:38.480 --> 00:37:45.119
account, though some sources put that
figure around two hundred thousand. He called

426
00:37:45.119 --> 00:37:50.960
Pete Hallett for a face to face
meeting at Angola. When Nick confronted Hallett

427
00:37:51.000 --> 00:37:55.599
about the missing money, he blamed
it on his law partner, Vincent Sherry.

428
00:37:55.960 --> 00:38:00.880
Mike Gillich, known as Mister Mike, the god Father of Biloxi,

429
00:38:00.400 --> 00:38:06.119
was not in jail and also called
for a meeting with Pete. He also

430
00:38:06.239 --> 00:38:12.000
profited from the Lonely Hearts scam and
wanted answers. Pete Hallett again blamed his

431
00:38:12.079 --> 00:38:17.960
supposed best friend and partner, Vince
Sherry. Bobby Joe Fabian said later in

432
00:38:19.000 --> 00:38:23.159
a TV interview in which he hit
his face quote Howett knew that somebody was

433
00:38:23.199 --> 00:38:29.400
going to die, and better Sherry
than him. Bobby Joe estimated that the

434
00:38:29.440 --> 00:38:34.599
scam had brought in around five million
dollars, though again other sources say it

435
00:38:34.639 --> 00:38:40.159
was closer to a few hundred thousand
dollars. Still no small scheme. Bobby

436
00:38:40.239 --> 00:38:44.920
Joe knew all of this because he
had once been part of the scam.

437
00:38:44.960 --> 00:38:49.199
He signed his last name in the
female way b O B B I e

438
00:38:49.679 --> 00:38:54.960
JO. Ironically like the victim in
my last episode, he also was adept

439
00:38:54.960 --> 00:39:00.639
at changing his voice on the phone. But he had stopped participate painting because

440
00:39:00.639 --> 00:39:05.360
he thought Kirksy Knicks was taking too
many risks. His ego had gotten ahead

441
00:39:05.360 --> 00:39:08.800
of him. He thought he was
untouchable. He had mister Mike on the

442
00:39:08.840 --> 00:39:14.320
outside, the support of not only
La Raw but of course a legit law

443
00:39:14.360 --> 00:39:20.360
firm helping to launder the money.
And Kirksey actually had a wife, a

444
00:39:20.440 --> 00:39:24.039
woman named Kelly k Newsome Knicks.
She had been the daughter of another girlfriend

445
00:39:24.039 --> 00:39:30.039
of his, who he had actually
adopted as his stepdaughter when she came of

446
00:39:30.119 --> 00:39:35.400
age and he tired of her mother. He got involved with Kelly when she

447
00:39:35.480 --> 00:39:38.199
was twenty two. Kirksey announced he
was in love with her and wanted to

448
00:39:38.239 --> 00:39:44.719
marry her. She was reluctant,
but Kirksey promised her that Pete Hallett,

449
00:39:44.760 --> 00:39:49.519
his attorney, would help with her
legal issues, and he did. In

450
00:39:49.639 --> 00:39:53.199
nineteen eighty three, she and Kirksey
were married over the phone. It was

451
00:39:53.239 --> 00:39:58.440
done in front of a lone judge
with phony licenses, with Pete Hallett as

452
00:39:58.480 --> 00:40:04.599
the only witness. Kelly wouldn't find
out until later that Hallett had never filed

453
00:40:04.639 --> 00:40:09.000
the marriage certificate. He did so
in March of nineteen eighty seven at Nick's

454
00:40:09.119 --> 00:40:15.519
request, around the time he found
out about his missing money. A wife

455
00:40:15.840 --> 00:40:20.719
could not be compelled to testify against
her husband, and Kelly did have a

456
00:40:20.719 --> 00:40:24.079
lot of drug and alcohol problems.
She was arrested for a dui and they

457
00:40:24.119 --> 00:40:30.119
found cocaine on her and Pete.
Hallett always belled her out, and she

458
00:40:30.280 --> 00:40:34.920
also worked some at the law firm, though she was mainly an outside runner

459
00:40:34.920 --> 00:40:39.599
for Kirksey. In nineteen eighty six, Pete had Kelly called Kirksey with a

460
00:40:39.639 --> 00:40:44.679
warning. He had told her quote, you'd better tell Kirksey he better leave

461
00:40:44.679 --> 00:40:50.599
those fags alone. The FBI was
already looking into the scam. Over the

462
00:40:50.719 --> 00:40:53.400
years, as Kelly struggled with her
addictions, Nicks would have to go back

463
00:40:53.440 --> 00:40:58.840
to La Raw Then she would get
back in his good graces and show up

464
00:40:58.840 --> 00:41:01.840
at a beach house he owned,
only to find Laura living there. It

465
00:41:01.880 --> 00:41:07.679
was a constant source of drama.
Bobby Joe said that Laura often visited Nick

466
00:41:07.760 --> 00:41:13.719
in prison and got busted bringing him
marijuana. That's when Bobby Joe dropped out

467
00:41:13.719 --> 00:41:19.719
of the scam. All the while
Pete Hallett was signing legal affidavits claiming that

468
00:41:19.760 --> 00:41:24.440
Sherry Lauras Sharpe was a paralegal with
his firm. No one knows what really

469
00:41:24.480 --> 00:41:30.280
happened to the money. Obviously,
the family of Vincent Sherry were offended at

470
00:41:30.280 --> 00:41:36.039
the implication that their father had taken
the money. The obvious suspect is Pete

471
00:41:36.079 --> 00:41:39.360
Hallett. He was already a liar
and a cheat. Vince just didn't know

472
00:41:39.480 --> 00:41:44.679
it. But whatever Hallett did with
the money, he hid it well.

473
00:41:45.400 --> 00:41:51.639
Bobby Joe also told Rex Armistead that
Kirksey and mister Mike had hired a legendary

474
00:41:51.679 --> 00:41:55.880
assassin in the Dixie Mafia named John
Ransom. He was a one legged man

475
00:41:55.920 --> 00:42:01.440
who worked quietly out of Georgia.
He had been arrested numerous times since the

476
00:42:01.480 --> 00:42:07.400
seventies for burglary, assault, rape, and bootlegging. He was suspected in

477
00:42:07.519 --> 00:42:13.000
many murders, usually men or women
set to testify against someone in the Dixie

478
00:42:13.039 --> 00:42:19.119
Mafia. In nineteen eighty nine,
as was suspected, Pete Hallett ran for

479
00:42:19.199 --> 00:42:23.760
mayor of Biloxi and he won.
He basically ran on Margaret Sherry's back.

480
00:42:24.559 --> 00:42:30.519
He was the first Republican elected in
Biloxi since reconstruction after the Civil War.

481
00:42:31.119 --> 00:42:37.199
As Hallett continued to battle allegations public
and private, the DA's office was grappling

482
00:42:37.320 --> 00:42:42.840
with whether or not to take the
conspiracy case to trial. Agent Bell and

483
00:42:42.960 --> 00:42:47.360
Captain Cook, and obviously Lynn were
pressuring them hard to try it, so

484
00:42:47.400 --> 00:42:52.920
they took it to a grand jury
after weeks of studying the luminous files and

485
00:42:52.000 --> 00:42:58.440
deciding on the right charges for indictment. At this point it was a bitter

486
00:42:58.440 --> 00:43:01.519
pill to swallow but believe the accounts
of people who had agreed to speak to

487
00:43:01.559 --> 00:43:08.639
investigators. Gerald Blessy, her mother's
nemesis, was not involved. However,

488
00:43:08.800 --> 00:43:14.519
a federal grand jury and died of
Blessy and associates for fraud, conspiracy,

489
00:43:14.599 --> 00:43:19.800
and extortion, and it was the
investigation that Margaret Sherry was involved with that

490
00:43:19.920 --> 00:43:23.159
brought it all out. He went
to trial, but it ended in a

491
00:43:23.199 --> 00:43:28.639
mistrial when the jury failed to reach
a verdict. In nineteen ninety two,

492
00:43:28.920 --> 00:43:35.880
a judge from the second Judicial Jurisdiction
of Harrison County dismissed the charges. Ironically,

493
00:43:36.400 --> 00:43:42.360
the same bench that Vincent Sherry had
sat on. Gerald Blessey was nominated

494
00:43:42.400 --> 00:43:47.400
a city attorney in twenty sixteen by
then Mayor Andrew Gillitch, no relation apparently

495
00:43:47.559 --> 00:43:55.199
to mister Mike Gilitch. Mississippi takes
care of his own. Blessi eventually resigned

496
00:43:55.239 --> 00:44:00.079
the position later in the year,
stating that at age seventy four, he

497
00:44:00.119 --> 00:44:05.679
was ready to retire. In nineteen
eighty seven, investigators had gotten a real

498
00:44:05.719 --> 00:44:09.320
break in the case. Charles Leeger
came forward. He was the law firm

499
00:44:09.360 --> 00:44:15.079
associate with Pete Hallett the day of
the murders, and later testified that Hallett

500
00:44:15.119 --> 00:44:19.199
said Vince and Margaret were both dead, though Pete had always claimed he didn't

501
00:44:19.199 --> 00:44:22.800
go into the house far enough to
see Margaret. Hallett tried to explain this

502
00:44:22.880 --> 00:44:29.239
away, that he just assumed Margaret
was dead, but Charles had been hired

503
00:44:29.239 --> 00:44:32.119
to take up the slack after Vince
was nominated to the bench. He knew

504
00:44:32.159 --> 00:44:37.840
things, and he knew he had
seen John Ransom before seeing his face on

505
00:44:37.960 --> 00:44:44.440
TV proved it. He had met
up with Pete Hallett. By nineteen ninety,

506
00:44:44.719 --> 00:44:47.239
Kelly Nicks had come around. She
had cleaned up her life, had

507
00:44:47.280 --> 00:44:52.480
a daughter and wanted to do the
right thing. She would make an excellent

508
00:44:52.519 --> 00:44:58.559
witness at trial, no matter how
much Nicks and his associates tried to intimidate

509
00:44:58.599 --> 00:45:04.679
her. John Ransom seemed to be
another good witness. By then, he

510
00:45:04.719 --> 00:45:08.599
was a sick old man and a
Mississippi prison, missing his family. He

511
00:45:08.760 --> 00:45:13.800
swore he hadn't killed the Sherris,
but had knowledge of the murders and would

512
00:45:13.800 --> 00:45:19.079
give detail with immunity. He told
investigators that he had refused to kill a

513
00:45:19.119 --> 00:45:22.400
woman, so he passed it off
to another hitman, but he did provide

514
00:45:22.400 --> 00:45:28.360
the murder weapon with the homemade silencer. But when the DA was ready to

515
00:45:28.400 --> 00:45:31.840
move on indictments, Ransom had been
moved to a Georgia prison closer to his

516
00:45:31.920 --> 00:45:37.840
family, and he refused to cooperate
any longer. The prosecution was hesitant to

517
00:45:37.840 --> 00:45:42.320
take it to trial, but they
took it before a grand jury anyway.

518
00:45:43.760 --> 00:45:47.280
The indictments they asked for were for
the intricate lonely Heart scam, murder,

519
00:45:47.320 --> 00:45:53.000
conspiracy, wire fraud, and two
counts of traveling in interstate commerce from murder

520
00:45:53.039 --> 00:46:00.559
to hire. To everyone's surprise,
the grand jury agreed, and in nineteen

521
00:46:00.679 --> 00:46:05.719
ninety one. Kirksey Knicks, mister
Mike Gillich, John Ransom, and Sherry

522
00:46:05.800 --> 00:46:10.639
la Ross Sharpe were all indicted on
fifteen collective counts. Pete Hallett was often

523
00:46:10.679 --> 00:46:15.840
mentioned in the press as an unindicted
co conspirator, much to his expressive anger.

524
00:46:16.719 --> 00:46:22.719
He loved shouting to the press about
this persecution of his character. Knicks,

525
00:46:22.880 --> 00:46:27.920
Gillitch, Sharp, and Ransom were
indicted with conspiracy, murder, and

526
00:46:28.000 --> 00:46:31.360
wirefraud. Nick's, Gillich, and
Ransom were indicted for murder for hire,

527
00:46:31.519 --> 00:46:37.199
including aiding and abetting by traveling from
Louisiana to Mississippi to arrange the murder,

528
00:46:37.519 --> 00:46:44.320
and murder for hire for traveling between
Georgia and Mississippi. The trial started in

529
00:46:44.400 --> 00:46:49.679
Hattiesburg, Mississippi, on September thirtieth, nineteen ninety one, four years after

530
00:46:49.719 --> 00:46:53.639
the Sherry murders and sliding in right
before the statute of limitations would have run

531
00:46:53.679 --> 00:47:00.280
out on any conspiracy charges. The
headlines screamed Sherry at her trial, but

532
00:47:00.400 --> 00:47:07.519
in reality no one was charged with
their murders. The first witness up was

533
00:47:07.599 --> 00:47:10.559
James Dickey, a man who had
come out of the closet nine years earlier

534
00:47:10.880 --> 00:47:16.800
and had reported being scammed, only
to be ignored by Louisiana officials uninterested in

535
00:47:16.840 --> 00:47:22.679
pursuing charges for a gullible gay man. But mister Dickey was an educated man,

536
00:47:23.039 --> 00:47:27.960
an activist, and a journalist.
He had even heard of the scams

537
00:47:27.960 --> 00:47:32.159
and con games praying on the elderly
and lonely and yes, homosexual men.

538
00:47:32.880 --> 00:47:37.519
He had even written about it.
He was the last one to believe he

539
00:47:37.519 --> 00:47:40.920
could voll victim to the scam,
but he had, and he made an

540
00:47:40.960 --> 00:47:47.039
excellent witness. Homophobia be damned.
Smart and well spoken, James Dickey came

541
00:47:47.079 --> 00:47:52.000
across as an honest, professional man, embarrassed by what had happened to him,

542
00:47:52.000 --> 00:47:57.800
but not afraid to testify about it. Now. One of John Ransom's

543
00:47:57.800 --> 00:48:02.400
associates testified the Mike Gillisch talked to
him and Ransom about a hit. The

544
00:48:02.480 --> 00:48:06.960
associates said he was out of town
for the murders, but he claimed Ransom

545
00:48:07.039 --> 00:48:12.199
later admitted to him that he killed
the Sherry's. The courtroom antics in this

546
00:48:12.280 --> 00:48:16.960
case are astounding. At one point, a fuse blue and the electricity went

547
00:48:16.960 --> 00:48:22.599
out in the courtroom. When the
lights came back on, four bailiffs were

548
00:48:22.599 --> 00:48:25.840
standing around Ransom, protecting the judge, jury, and the rest of the

549
00:48:25.840 --> 00:48:31.719
courtroom from the legendary hit man.
He had made quite the spectacle of himself

550
00:48:31.760 --> 00:48:37.480
at trial, and so did Kirksey
Knicks. Mike Gillich went so far as

551
00:48:37.519 --> 00:48:43.280
to flipping the bird at reporters outside
the courtroom. Sherry Lauras Sharp attacked a

552
00:48:43.320 --> 00:48:47.159
reporter with her purse one day.
You cannot make the shit up. I

553
00:48:47.239 --> 00:48:52.760
recommend reading Edward Hume's book Mississippi Mud, Southern Justice, and the Dixie Mafia

554
00:48:53.159 --> 00:48:58.440
for a full rundown. In fact, there is no way I could have

555
00:48:58.519 --> 00:49:02.679
fit even half of this Southern Gothic
tale into one episode. I cannot recommend

556
00:49:02.679 --> 00:49:08.159
his book enough. The jury was
allowed to rule in the conspiracy chart without

557
00:49:08.199 --> 00:49:15.519
specifying whether a defendant conspired to murder
or to fraud, or both. But

558
00:49:15.599 --> 00:49:20.559
after six weeks of trial testimony,
everyone but Sherry Larras was found guilty of

559
00:49:20.599 --> 00:49:25.480
conspiracy, murder, and wire fraud. Kirksey Knicks, Mike Gillich, and

560
00:49:25.599 --> 00:49:30.239
John Ransom were all found guilty of
murder for hire for traveling between Georgia and

561
00:49:30.280 --> 00:49:36.320
Mississippi. Nis was sentenced to fifteen
years in prison, but Of course,

562
00:49:36.400 --> 00:49:39.760
he was already serving a life sentence, so this was tacked onto his time,

563
00:49:40.360 --> 00:49:46.039
ensuring he would probably never get parole. Mister Mike also got fifteen years

564
00:49:46.039 --> 00:49:51.440
in prison. When he was eligible
for release, he'd have to spend three

565
00:49:51.519 --> 00:49:57.440
years on probation. John Ransom was
sentenced to ten years. When he was

566
00:49:57.440 --> 00:50:02.119
eligible for release, he'd also have
to spend three years probation. Sherry Larras

567
00:50:02.159 --> 00:50:07.119
Sharpe was sentenced to one year and
one week in prison for her part in

568
00:50:07.159 --> 00:50:12.119
the Lonely Hearts scam and wire fraud. She got a better deal for testifying

569
00:50:12.199 --> 00:50:15.719
against Nicks and Gillisch. When she
was eligible for release, she'd have to

570
00:50:15.719 --> 00:50:22.800
spend three years on probation. Then, in nineteen ninety four, mister Mike

571
00:50:22.840 --> 00:50:27.840
Gillich finally agreed to talk to the
FBI in exchange for a shorter sentence.

572
00:50:29.000 --> 00:50:34.559
Gilich told the FBI exactly what Bobby
Joe Fabian had said. Pete Hallett told

573
00:50:34.639 --> 00:50:38.000
Kirksey Nicks that Vincent Sherry stold the
money in order to save his own life.

574
00:50:39.119 --> 00:50:43.639
He knew he was in the crosshairs
up to his neck in this mess,

575
00:50:44.199 --> 00:50:47.440
so he threw his best friend and
law partner under the bus. That's

576
00:50:47.440 --> 00:50:52.519
when Nicks and Gillich ordered a hit
on Vincent Sherry. Nix and Gillich said

577
00:50:52.639 --> 00:50:55.760
they would split the cost of the
hit man. They were going to hire

578
00:50:55.840 --> 00:51:01.079
John Ransom, but decided on a
man named Thomas Hull. They hired Holcombe

579
00:51:01.079 --> 00:51:07.079
to kill Vincent for twenty thousand dollars
around forty five thousand today. Later,

580
00:51:07.119 --> 00:51:13.000
they said Pete Hallett did offer to
help pay, but Gillitch supposedly told him

581
00:51:13.000 --> 00:51:19.280
it was taken care of. Margaret
Sherry's murder was just a bonus and a

582
00:51:19.320 --> 00:51:23.719
precaution. Mike Gillett knew that Pete
Hallett wanted to run for mayor, and

583
00:51:23.800 --> 00:51:30.679
besides, they didn't need a do
gooder Republican snooping into her husband's murder investigation.

584
00:51:30.840 --> 00:51:36.800
It was a win win for all
of these creeps. After all of

585
00:51:36.800 --> 00:51:43.360
these years, investigators finally had Pete
Hallett. In nineteen ninety six, the

586
00:51:43.400 --> 00:51:46.880
government indicted Nick's, Sharp, Hallett, and Holcombe on fifty two charges,

587
00:51:47.360 --> 00:51:53.719
including racketeering, conspiracy to violate the
racket Statute, fraud, conspiracy to commit

588
00:51:53.760 --> 00:52:00.440
wire fraud, money laundering, and
conspiracy to obstruct justice. Sherry Lauras Sharpe

589
00:52:00.880 --> 00:52:07.000
was charged with obstruction of justice and
conspiracy to obstruct justice for her false testimony

590
00:52:07.039 --> 00:52:12.760
that she gave in the nineteen ninety
one trial. Pete Hallett was charged with

591
00:52:12.840 --> 00:52:16.760
conspiracy to obstruct justice based on false
statements he made during the nineteen ninety one

592
00:52:16.800 --> 00:52:23.400
investigation and trial testimony. He was
also charged with obstruction of justice, conspiracy

593
00:52:23.400 --> 00:52:29.320
to violate the Racketeering Statute, racketeering, and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

594
00:52:30.199 --> 00:52:34.719
And Thomas Holcombe, the trigger man, was charged with conspiracy to violate the

595
00:52:34.800 --> 00:52:42.159
racketeering Statute and conspiracy to obstruct justice, but not for murder. It's interesting

596
00:52:42.280 --> 00:52:46.360
that no one was charged with conspiracy
to murder in this indictment. People always

597
00:52:46.360 --> 00:52:51.360
want Pete Hallett in as being a
co conspirator and the murders, which she

598
00:52:51.679 --> 00:52:57.199
was, and yet he was never
even charged with conspiracy murder. During the

599
00:52:57.280 --> 00:53:01.519
trial, Mike Gillich testified that Thomas
Hallcombe put superglue on his fingers so that

600
00:53:01.519 --> 00:53:05.639
he wouldn't leave any fingerprints on the
gun he used to kill the Sherry's.

601
00:53:07.559 --> 00:53:09.920
Gillich said he watched Holcombe put the
glue on before he went over to the

602
00:53:09.920 --> 00:53:15.000
Sherry's house. The plan was for
him to knock on the Sherry's door and

603
00:53:15.039 --> 00:53:20.400
then kill them. Vince Sherry did
answer the door, just like the police

604
00:53:20.440 --> 00:53:25.079
had suspected, and Holcombe had used
the yellow, unmarked car that had been

605
00:53:25.119 --> 00:53:30.000
stolen and then put in another lot. That was a good lead. Lynn

606
00:53:30.079 --> 00:53:36.039
was right. All John Ransom had
done was supply the weapon with a silencer.

607
00:53:36.800 --> 00:53:39.239
If that fool had turned state's evidence
in the first trial, he would

608
00:53:39.239 --> 00:53:45.719
have gotten his immunity. He wasn't
the trigger man. On July sixteenth,

609
00:53:45.760 --> 00:53:50.719
the jury found Nick's Sharp and Hulcombe
guilty of all charges. They found Pete

610
00:53:50.760 --> 00:53:57.320
Hallett only guilty of obstruction of justice
and conspiracy to obstruct justice. The judge

611
00:53:57.320 --> 00:54:00.280
asked the jury to try and deliberate
again on the remaining charges against Tallet.

612
00:54:01.599 --> 00:54:07.599
On July seventeenth, the jury found
Hallett also guilty of conspiracy to commit wire

613
00:54:07.679 --> 00:54:14.840
fraud and conspiracy to violate the racketeering
Statute. On September twenty second, nineteen

614
00:54:14.920 --> 00:54:19.719
ninety seven, Hallett was sentenced to
two hundred and sixteen months for a Rico

615
00:54:19.800 --> 00:54:25.360
conspiracy one hundred and twenty months for
obstruction of justice, sixty months for conspiracy

616
00:54:25.440 --> 00:54:30.199
to obstruct justice, and sixty months
for conspiracy to commit mail fraud for his

617
00:54:30.360 --> 00:54:37.199
part in the Lonely Hearts scam.
The sentences were to be served concurrently for

618
00:54:37.239 --> 00:54:42.679
a total of eighteen years in prison. While sentencing Pete Hallett, the judge

619
00:54:42.719 --> 00:54:45.760
said if mister Hallett had been truthful
about the missing money in the beginning,

620
00:54:46.320 --> 00:54:52.719
the Sherry's would not be dead.
Kirksey Nicks got another life sentence in prison.

621
00:54:52.239 --> 00:54:58.039
He will most certainly die there.
Thomas Holcombe also got life in prison.

622
00:54:59.280 --> 00:55:05.239
Sherry laur Sharp was sentenced to five
years after Pete Hallett was found guilty.

623
00:55:05.719 --> 00:55:09.559
Lynn Sherry shook mister Mike's hand and
thanked him. I want to say

624
00:55:09.599 --> 00:55:14.639
thank you, thank you for telling
the truth. You're the only one who

625
00:55:14.719 --> 00:55:19.360
would and I just wanted to say
thank you, she said, sobbing.

626
00:55:19.719 --> 00:55:25.039
Mister Mike just kept saying I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Mister Mike, after

627
00:55:25.079 --> 00:55:30.039
spending time in prison away from his
family, had a total change of heart.

628
00:55:30.239 --> 00:55:34.639
After court he caught up to Lynn
and said, I'm so sorry.

629
00:55:35.119 --> 00:55:37.519
I only thought of what I was
doing for my family. I never thought

630
00:55:37.559 --> 00:55:40.960
of what I was doing to anybody
else's. I'm so sorry for what I

631
00:55:40.960 --> 00:55:47.400
did to your family. Lynn later
said he really, honestly was as repentant

632
00:55:47.480 --> 00:55:52.639
as you can get. It wasn't
an act. Mike Gillet received an early

633
00:55:52.719 --> 00:55:57.480
release because he helped with the investigation, and he was led out in two

634
00:55:57.480 --> 00:56:01.639
thousand. He died of cancer in
April twenty twelve at the age of eighty

635
00:56:01.679 --> 00:56:08.559
two. Kirksey Knicks is currently incarcerated
in the El Reno Federal Correctional Institution in

636
00:56:08.639 --> 00:56:15.960
el Reno, Oklahoma. He is
seventy seven years old. Thomas Holcombe died

637
00:56:15.960 --> 00:56:19.519
in prison on April eighth, two
thousand and five. He was fifty two

638
00:56:19.599 --> 00:56:24.679
years old. John Ransom was released
on November seventh, two thousand and three,

639
00:56:24.920 --> 00:56:30.639
whereabouts unknown, but he would be
ninety three years old. Neither Hayley,

640
00:56:30.840 --> 00:56:34.960
my research assistant, nor I could
find an obituary for Ransom, so

641
00:56:35.000 --> 00:56:39.199
he could still be alive. Pete
Hallett was released from a Montgomery, Alabama,

642
00:56:39.280 --> 00:56:45.119
federal prison in March two twelve.
Then he went to a halfway house

643
00:56:45.159 --> 00:56:50.119
in Hattiesburg. He worked as a
handyman at Saint Thomas Catholic Church on the

644
00:56:50.239 --> 00:56:55.320
University of Southern Mississippi Campus. Seventy
year old Hallett was released from the Halfway

645
00:56:55.360 --> 00:57:00.760
House in April of twenty thirteen.
As of two seventeen, how it,

646
00:57:00.920 --> 00:57:05.960
was living in Ocean Springs with his
wife, Sandra Haley, and I could

647
00:57:05.960 --> 00:57:08.840
not find an obituary on him either, so we assume he is still alive.

648
00:57:09.480 --> 00:57:15.960
He would be seventy seven years old
by now. Ironically, the Sherry

649
00:57:15.039 --> 00:57:20.599
murders are technically still open cases.
No one was ever charged with their murders,

650
00:57:22.239 --> 00:57:27.679
but mister Mike, the godfather of
Biloxi and leader of the Dixie Mafia,

651
00:57:27.800 --> 00:57:30.679
had broken their one code, thou
shalt not snitch to the copse.

652
00:57:32.119 --> 00:57:36.880
He had never served time before,
and after a few years in prison,

653
00:57:37.360 --> 00:57:42.000
old and away from his family,
he broke. He finally saw the pain

654
00:57:42.119 --> 00:57:46.360
of Lynn's posito and her family.
As she and her family did feel he

655
00:57:46.360 --> 00:57:52.480
was truly repentant, they forgave him. I've spoken before about the power of

656
00:57:52.519 --> 00:57:59.079
forgiveness. Somehow, Lynne and her
family found peace with Mike Gilich's confession.

657
00:58:00.480 --> 00:58:05.039
The people that killed their parents were
finally punished, and Lynn and her family

658
00:58:05.239 --> 00:58:10.239
were finally able to move on with
their lives. Lynn and her siblings obviously

659
00:58:10.320 --> 00:58:16.119
still miss their parents. Today,
she watches her grandchildren and fills an ache

660
00:58:16.440 --> 00:58:21.880
that they will never know her mother
and father. That's a loss that never

661
00:58:21.920 --> 00:58:30.440
goes away, and she still chooses
forgiveness. Southern Fried's True Crime is written

662
00:58:30.440 --> 00:58:35.639
and produced by me Erica Kelly.
The original graphic art is by Coley Horner,

663
00:58:35.960 --> 00:58:39.280
and Southern Fried's original music is by
Rob Harrison of Gamma Radio. Thank

664
00:58:39.320 --> 00:58:45.239
you so much to Haley Gray for
her diligent research assistance in this complicated case,

665
00:58:45.880 --> 00:58:50.079
and thank you to author Edward Humes
for his amazing book, Mississippi Mud.

666
00:58:50.440 --> 00:58:53.760
He opens his book with an explanation
of what Mississippi Mud meant. It's

667
00:58:53.760 --> 00:58:58.920
a poker game. It's a game
where the cards are irrelevant. The point

668
00:58:59.000 --> 00:59:02.519
is to bluff and try a fellow
players. It's a fantastic metaphor for the

669
00:59:02.559 --> 00:59:07.840
shary murders. I have a few
listeners to thank for suggesting this case Casey

670
00:59:07.920 --> 00:59:13.280
Porter, Eileen Mace, Andrew Stewart. Thanks guys, you picked a good

671
00:59:13.280 --> 00:59:17.440
one. Please remember to practice social
distancing, wash your hands, and think

672
00:59:17.440 --> 00:59:22.000
of your friends, family and neighbors. We all need to do our part.

673
00:59:22.519 --> 00:59:24.960
Stay home and stay safe. If
you need to go out, wear

674
00:59:25.000 --> 00:59:29.880
a mask. It's not full proof, so keep your distance from others,

675
00:59:30.119 --> 00:59:32.840
but it's better than nothing. Look
on YouTube for videos on how to make

676
00:59:32.920 --> 00:59:37.760
masks out of bandanas or leggings.
If you enjoy today's show, don't forget

677
00:59:37.760 --> 00:59:42.719
to subscribe and please tell a friend
or rate and review on iTunes. I'm

678
00:59:42.800 --> 00:59:46.679
also on most large platforms like Stitcher
and Spotify, as well as Stitcher Premium,

679
00:59:46.800 --> 00:59:51.639
where you can listen ad free.
If you have any case suggestions,

680
00:59:51.960 --> 00:59:55.800
please email Southern Fried Truecrime at gmail
dot com. I'm sorry, but I

681
00:59:55.880 --> 01:00:00.760
no longer answer private messages of social
media. I managed three platforms and it's

682
01:00:00.800 --> 01:00:06.039
just too overwhelming, but please feel
free to reach out by email. Not

683
01:00:06.079 --> 01:00:09.679
only do I get my most interesting
and little known cases from listener suggestions,

684
01:00:10.039 --> 01:00:15.840
I love hearing from you guys,
So until next time, thanks so much

685
01:00:15.880 --> 01:00:21.239
for listening. Wash your hands,
stop touching your face, and y'all take care.