New Orleans Unsolved

Fragmented memories, fading landmarks and decades old newspaper articles have been among the puzzle pieces Anna has had to work with as her investigation of the Rope Murders took her deeper into Plaquemines Parish…and some of its troubled history. One place, located off what was described as the shell road, stood for more than a century. But for one person, it represents a dark point in his past. In this episode, Anna explores its possible connection to the Rope Murders.  

The bodies of Dennis Turcotte, Mark Richardson and Daniel Dewey may have been found north of New Orleans, but as Anna as got deeper into her investigation of their murders and the crimes of Boy Scout Troop 137, her findings kept taking her south…to Plaquemines Parish. She discovered connections to some of its history of hate. At a remote site off the parish’s coast, there was physical evidence of that hate. In this episode, Anna explains the mystery around that site and how it fits into her investigation.  

So far, Anna’s investigation of the Rope Murders has uncovered links to the pedophile cell that was Boy Scout Troop 137. While that troop may have been based in New Orleans East, Anna found that its tentacles reached outside of the city. In this episode, Anna’s investigation shifts to a place that was once dominated and defined by a segregationist who some called King of the Bayou.

The Boy Scout motto of “Be Prepared” predates the founding of the organization in 1910, but preparedness became a cornerstone of Scouting for the century that followed. In the case of Boy Scout Troop 137 in New Orleans, the crooked leaders of that troop were unprepared for the investigations and arrests that stemmed from the abuse inflicted on the children of that troop in the 1970’s. In this episode, Anna continues to connect the dots between victims of the Rope Murders, Troop 137 and the focus of our first season.   

Over the two seasons of the podcast, Anna’s investigations have involved the mysterious deaths of teenage boys and the abuse of young children. As she continued her work on the Rope Murders, she kept finding a connection to an organization that was historically known to be a place for boys and young children.

Anna begins to lay out her four-year investigation of the Rope Murders. It includes a familiar person from season one who said he was shown photographs of dead boys tied up and left in rural settings. Anna analyzes the locations where the victims of the Rope Murders were left. What did they have in common? And to gain a better understanding of how something or someone can be hogtied, we turn to a man named Trapper John.   

It took almost 30 years for investigators to identify Daniel Dewey’s body. For almost as long, a narrative kept repeating in newspapers and online articles that Dewey and the two other victims of the rope murders may have been male prostitutes or well-known street kids in the city of New Orleans. But was that really the case? We pose that question to Dennis Stewart and relatives of two of the victims.

In the summer of 2000, the remains of John Doe were exhumed from his grave at Pine Hill Cemetery in St. Helena Parish. He had been buried for more than 20 years. Back in 1979, his body had been tied up and left at a local garbage dump in the parish. There were hopes that technology and forensic science could finally reveal the boy’s identity. Those hopes quickly faded until the discovery of an encounter in Texas. 

For roughly 20 years, John Doe’s body had been buried at Pine Hill Cemetery in St. Helena Parish. At the time of his burial and in the two decades that followed, there wasn't much progress in finding a suspect in his murder. The victim’s true identity also remained elusive. In the summer of 2000, officials and investigators physically dug up the past. They exhumed John Doe’s remains. In an attempt to finally put a name to the boy who had been ritualistically tied up and left in rural Louisiana, his remains would be sent to a place called The FACES Lab.

In 1997, after almost 20 years of cold case status, the murders of Dennis Turcotte, Mark Richardson and John Doe would get renewed interest. Dennis Stewart was a relatively new detective with Louisiana State Police, but his knowledge of one of the Rope Murders went back to 1979. Stewart grew up in Greensburg, Louisiana, not far from where John Doe’s body was discovered. He remembered hearing about the boy being tied up and left at the garbage dump in St. Helena Parish. Detective Stewart was determined to find the boy’s identity. To do that, John Doe’s body would have to be exhumed.