Town note
Named after the Houma people, a Native American tribe believed to be relatives of the Choctaw; the United Houma Nation is recognised by Louisiana but not federally.
about 0:08:52The story
He married at about 17, was divorced quickly and had a child who stayed with the mother. In 1974, on the suggestion of his sister and friends, he moved from Texas to Houma, Louisiana, and began work at the Way Out Help Clinic, counselling runaway youths and people with drug problems. He was a Seventh-day Adventist and preached on the streets. At the clinic he met Gloria Petri, an outpatient being counselled for drug use, and in 1975 they began dating. They married in early 1976.
Gloria became pregnant quickly. In December 1976 she gave birth to a daughter, Jessica, at home. Complications arose, the child was deprived of oxygen and suffered brain damage. He left the church, saying God had let him down, and the baby died a couple of months later. He left the clinic, began using drugs again and was struggling for money when his car was stolen with two paychecks inside.
He helped them carry the groceries inside and was invited in.
Gloria had started work at the Black Gold Restaurant and Lounge, a country-western bar owned by Bobby Todd. Her first night was 11 August. He told her to quit; she refused, saying she had another shift. On 13 August he showed it to his next-door neighbour Raymond Rushing and said he was going to kill Bobby Todd. On 14 August he told his friend Chester Golden that he had a bone to pick with Todd and had spent two nights waiting outside the Black Gold for a chance to catch him alone. Through Golden he bought a box of ammunition from Tommy Laday.
A woman answered and said Todd was asleep, so they left, had dinner, shared a pitcher of beer and smoked marijuana. At about seven he drove Gloria home, saying he was returning the borrowed car. Instead he drove to the Black Gold, parked down the street and walked to the trailer with his thumb out, pretending to be a hitchhiker.
A naked 19-year-old woman opened the door. Inside were Todd, 33, his bodyguard Terry Abear, 27, and two 19-year-old women, Anne Tierney and Sandra Brake, both nude. Todd had just woken from thirteen hours' sleep and was in good spirits; a former employee had telephoned at 7.30 and found him cheerful. Todd thought he was being robbed and offered two rolls of money. He shot Todd twice in the chest from about three feet.
He then shot Abear five times in the back and side, two of the bullets passing through his heart. Tierney was shot six times, once in the chest, four times in the abdomen and once in the face. Brake was shot twice in the heart and had defensive wounds on her wrist and arm. Fifteen shots were fired in all, from a six-shot revolver that he reloaded twice. He later told Golden that one of the women would not die, that she was in pain and begged him to kill her, and that he shot her in the face to finish her. He took Todd's money to make the killings look like a robbery and threw the gun and the money into the bayou.
At about eight o'clock he arrived at Chester Golden's house in an excited mood and asked him to go for a ride. During the drive he said he had just killed four people behind the restaurant, that he had not touched anything, that nobody had seen him and that the police had no proof. He also told Pamela Wilson that he had thrown the gun and money into the bayou.
On 15 August Gloria gave a statement at the police station and then orally agreed to let officers search the house. They were looking for the clothes he had worn. An officer found a pair of trousers and Gloria found a shirt and handed it over. Both had a victim's blood on them.
He also said he had taken drugs on the night of the murders, and a psychiatrist, Dr Bird, examined him and was told he had taken PCP. The doctor thought a drug-related defence was credible, but the lawyers never pursued it and never spoke to him again. The lead lawyer did not research whether voluntary intoxication was a defence in Louisiana, and the local lawyer was unsure.
The judge admitted the clothing, and the state built its timeline partly on calls made to Todd's trailer at 7.30, 8.05 and 8.10 by a woman who had worked at the Black Gold and once lived there. She said Todd had slept for thirteen hours and was in good spirits, and she had arranged to collect Sandra Brake at 8.30 for a trip to New Orleans.
The mitigation included his church work, his father's early death, his counselling of troubled youths and his daughter's death.
The dissent argued that the evidence did not show the bestiality or misanthropy the death penalty required and that the mitigation outweighed the aggravation. The clemency board then heard five hours of evidence from his mother, three sisters and half-brother, including his sister Luvina Farinola of Wheeling, West Virginia, and voted five to nil against clemency. He went straight to the death house.
He had no last words and asked for no special dinner. He was given sloppy joes and French fries, spent about thirty minutes with his family reading the Bible, and said he had nothing for the press. Witnesses saw a wisp of smoke rise from one leg, and when his shirt was moved to check his heart they could see a Love Gloria tattoo on his chest.