Speaker 1: H a wall street line, shackle change, Oh someome gird,
it's calling my name. There is no mercy and it's
been a tentery juice as the hill Stream game wrangle three.
Speaker 2: I'm here, but by me to die inside these walls,
inside the wild hadn't went no girl as.
Speaker 3: I It's been a very difficult day. As you can see,
I lost two good officers.
Speaker 4: Today.
Speaker 3: I've had a number of sheriffs here and law inforcement
throughout the state who are helping us deal with doesn't matter.
But first let me say this, Please pray for the
two officers that were ambushed early this morning. I have
two deceased officers, Randon Nielsen he's thirty four years old,
and another one of Sir Jeremy Trish, he's twenty eight
years old. This entire tragedy unfolded early this morning as
one of my officers was working the traffic detail in
this particular parking lot. As he was working in this
detail for some unknown reason at this time, a gunman
opened fire on him multiple times. As you can see
the car that's parked over he on the shoulder of
Bayo Steel Road. That officer is present league at University
Hospital being treated for multiple gunsholl booms. He should be okay.
After the shooting took place, we were able to get
a call from a citizen based on a description we
got from the officer. A citizen advised up advised Saint
john Sheriff's Office of a speeding motorist on a street
by Riverview Trailer. Court officers proceeded to that area where
we found a vehicle matching the description of the vehicle
using the shooting here on Bayou Steel Road, officers came
in contact with some individuals during this investigation, one of
the subjects. As officers were handcuffing one of the subjects,
they thought that investigation led us.
Speaker 5: To a trailer.
Speaker 3: When we knocked on the door, another person came to
the door with a dog, where we could see inside
where another individual was fully closed but laying under a blanket.
The officers asked him to step outside as we were
interviewing the two persons. The two subjects, another person exited
that trailer with an assault weapon and anne bush excuse
a bush by two officers. The investigation is ongoing. The
officers away from the investigation. The Louisiana State Police on
now taking over the investigation.
Speaker 5: Hey everyone, and welcome back to Bloody Angla, a podcast
one hundred and forty two years in the making, the
complete story of America's bloodiest present. I'm Jim Chapman, and
before we get into today's episode, I want to mention
why it was previously pulled and re recorded. So upon
the initial release of this episode a few weeks ago,
I was contacted and there were some discrepancies between some
of the sourcing articles I use and those that well,
all I'm going to say is there was some people
close to the case and they had what I would
refer to as direct knowledge. Some of it related to
the type of weapon used in the initial shooting, and
there were several things that occurb when the second shooting
took place that I did not detail because of the
information I had at the time did not stipulate it.
So if you cover cases long enough, such as I
have for the past six plus years, sometimes this happens.
The information that you source, even if it's from credible sources,
can be incorrect or be incomplete. And it's very important
to me that what I tell you is as accurate
as possible. Now, everyone that knows me knows there is
no one more pro law enforcement than myself. I work
with law enforcement and most of well, I would say
eighty percent of my circle, if you will, or law
enforcement folks. So when it came to this case, even
though I was not asked to pull that episode, I
found it best to pull it, get some additional facts,
and re record it. So that is what I did.
And let's get into it, and I'm going to cover
a tragic story that occurred on August sixteenth of twenty
twelve in Laplace, Louisiana. Now sadly, that resulted in the
death of two Saint John Parish Sheriff's deputies and two
more being wounded. So I'm going to cover the details
of what happened in the results, which do include a
death sentence inside of Bloody and Gola for one of
the perpetrators. So let's get started. And first, as I said,
this took place in Laplace, Louisiana, which Laplace is a town.
It's located in Saint John Parish. It's part of the
New Orleans metro area, if you will, and the town
runs along the east bank of the Mississippi River and
it's a kind of a quaint bedroom community with roughly
twenty eight thousand residents. Now Laplace is known as the
Onduey Capital of the World, and this was an honor
bestowed on the town by popular Governor Edwin Edwards in
the nineteen seventies. And because of this honor and being
known as the on Dewey Capital of the world, the
town does host an on Dewey Festival every year in October,
and it's done so since nineteen seventy two. It's just
a charming area. It's blended with some Cajun heritage, river life,
and Southern hospitality. So definitely not the type of place
you would expect the incident I'm about to tell you
about occurring, and this whole incident kicked off at the
Valero Refinery parking lot initially, and y'all, Valero is a
global gas refinery in the area that offers high paying
jobs to plant workers that work typically twelve hour shifts. Now,
that particular morning, Michael Scott Boynton was doing extra duty.
He was in the parking lot of the refinery. He
was a sheriff's deputy. And what I'm about to tell
you is, according to the test money of someone that
was in the vehicle we're going to talk about. Her
name was Tanisha Bright. So according to her testimony, she
said that morning, her and the coworker she was writing with,
they all got off work at four am from the
Valero refinery and they piled into a guy by the
name of Terry Smith's truck. And she said they were
in their usual seating arrangement, which was Bright in the
front seat, Terry Smith driving, and his son, Brian Smith,
on the other side of the front seat, so she
was in the middle. In the rear seat of that truck,
there was a guy by the name of Kyle Yokel
and a guy by the name of Derek Smith. So
you have five people total in that vehicle, Terry Smith,
miss Bright, and Terry Smith's son Brian in the front seat,
and then in the backseat of that truck you had
Derreck Smith and Kyle Yokel. Now, she said, initially everything
seemed fine, nobody seemed pissed off or anything.
Speaker 4: And as they.
Speaker 5: Neared the road, a deputy working the gate shined his
flashlight into the truck and walked towards the truck's open window.
She said, the deputy, who was thirty three year old
Michael Boynton, who she said she did not know at
the time, she described as very agitated. She said she
could tell by his body language and the tone of
his voice. She said she didn't know why they had
been stopped by Michael Boynton or flagged down, if you will,
but that Terry Smith refused to pull over. She said
the officer in Smith then exchanged some words and it
got kind of heated, and that Boynton asked Terry Smith
for what's known as his twit card, which, y'all, a
twit card is basically a government issued ID card, kind
of like an ID for people working in the maritime
industry of it similar to a driver's license. Terry Smith
refused to turn over his twit card, and in the meantime,
from the backseat, Kyle Yokel started shouting for Terry Smith
to drive away.
Speaker 4: She said.
Speaker 5: At that point, Terry Smith basically gunned it and peeled
out of the parking lot, and she saw Deputy Bointon
run back to his vehicle to provide chase. Now this
is her testimony in court. She said the deputy soon
caught up with them and he was right on the
trail and then he pulled to the right side of
the car and he was on the shoulder at this point,
kind of driving along with them, and she said at
that point Terry Smith feared into the line of oncoming traffic,
but he had to jerk back into his lane because
a car was heading in his direction. She said, at
that point she felt something brush her leg. She looked
down in Brian Smith, who is remember the son of
the driver Terry Smith. He had grabbed an assault rifle.
Speaker 4: She said.
Speaker 5: At that point he asked his father, Terry Smith, if
he could shoot, and his father didn't say anything. She said,
at that point, Brian starts firing through the window at
the deputy and Boyington was hit. Now, according to her testimony,
she said she then pleaded with Terry Smith to pull
over and let her out, and that basically she described
it as.
Speaker 4: Him being in zombie mode.
Speaker 5: He just kept his eyes straight ahead on the road.
Speaker 4: And didn't say anything.
Speaker 5: Now, before we go any further, I want to say
a few things about to Misha Bright and how she
got caught up in all of this, because she was
really innocent in a role. She was just in the
wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong guys. Now,
according to her testimony, she had moved to Louisiana from
California with her mother. That was just a few months
before the shooting occurred.
Speaker 4: She said she.
Speaker 5: Lived in a hotel that was nearby where she worked
at that Voalero refinery, and that she worked for a
contracting company that worked on a project there. So these
folks did not work directly for Voalero refinery. They were
contractor workers. They were working for somebody else who had
a job in that plan. Now, somehow her mother knew
Terry Smith. He was an acquaintance of some sort, and
her mother also knew that he worked overtime for that
same contractor, and she had arranged for Tanisha Bright to
catch a ride to and from work with Terry Smith
and the other folks that I just mentioned. But her
mother also warned her daughter that Smith had quote a
big gun that he always carried, and she was talking
about Brian Smith, and she even told her daughter that
he called his gun his girlfriend. And she would describe
Brian Smith in particular, who did this shooting, as very
paranoid and that he always felt like people were watching
him and trying to kidnap him, and that one of
the reasons he carried this assault rifle was because of
his paranoia, So back to it. Tomi sha Bright said
that after the shooting of Deputy Boyington, they drove to
Riverview Moba Home Park. This is in Laplace, which is
where the Smiths and family friend Kyle Yokel, who was
also in that truck, if you'll remember, they lived in
a series of four trailers.
Speaker 4: She said, as sent.
Speaker 5: As they got there, they all got out of the
truck and at that point she tried to run, but
she slept in the gravel.
Speaker 4: She testified.
Speaker 5: At that point, Brian Smith turned toward her, still holding
that assault rifle, and she said, quote, I assumed if
he thought I was going to run, that will be
the end of me. So she was like, screw that,
staying and she said at that point, the group huddled
on the concrete patio outside of the trailer that Terry
Smith shared with his wife, and at that point Terry
Smith ordered everyone into that trailer.
Speaker 4: She said.
Speaker 5: Once they got back in the trailer, they started hearing
sirens in the background, and she said everyone started to panic.
She said at that point she went toward the bathroom
to hide because she was afraid of what was about
to happen. Next, she said she heard an officer knock
on the trailer door and that Terry Smith and Kyle
Yokel went out of the door to talk to that officer. Now,
her perspective from the inside of that trailer is that
after Terry Smith and Kyle Yokel went outside, Terry Smith's wife,
a woman by the name of Shaneil's Keines, told her
that they should blame Yokel for everything. That was her testimony,
now going on to say that Terry Smith's wife called
Kyle Yokel crazy. She said at that point she backed
up further into the bathroom and that Brian Smith and
his girlfriend joined her in that bathroom, and his girlfriend's
name was Britney Keith. She said that while she was
in the bathroom, Brian Smith got nervous because he thought
his dad was going to tell on him for shooting
Deputy Bointon. She said at that point she heard shouting
from outside the trailer, and quoting the shouting, she said
that she heard quote, I know you fucking did it.
I know it was you, and she said she believed
it came from a deputy. At that point, she said
someone else screamed. It sounded muffled, like someone was shouting
while lying face down in the dirt. She went on
to say that she heard the words help and then
help Brian, and said she did not recognize the voice
of who was saying that. She said she also heard
someone shout Brian, kill them. She said at that point,
Brian Smith ran from the bathroom. She also said at
that point that she started wedging herself behind a washing
machine that she rolled into a ball. She put her
hands over her ears and all she heard was the
sound of an assault rifle, and she said, I knew
it was an assault rifle because I recognized the sound
of the shots.
Speaker 4: As being the same sound of.
Speaker 5: The shots from that first shooting at the Valero refinery.
She said she could also hear different sounding shots, is
how she would describe it, and she said she knew
those were shots fired from a pistol and not an
assault rifle. Now, she estimated the shooting lasted around thirty seconds.
She said Brian Smith at that point stumbled back into
the trailer and he was bleeding badly from a wound
to his leg, and that he fell inside of the trailer.
His girlfriend, Britney Keith, then started screaming help. And then
she said at that point, Kyle Yokel then returned to
the inside of the trailer. He also was bleeding, and
Chanelle Skanes also returned to the trailer, and according to
Bright's testimony, she was shot through the arm.
Speaker 4: She said that she.
Speaker 5: Called nine one one, and at that point Brian Smith.
She ever heard him tell his girlfriend to tell police
he surrendered and at that point Tanisha Bright runs out
of the trailer and runs to a police car, and
a deputy helped her into a neighbor's trailer, she testified.
So that's her story, and I'm going to give you
some other perspectives. And I mentioned Chanelle Skaanes, who was
the wife of Terry Smith, and she also testified in
the trial. Now, she testified that when the first shots
rang out, she was crouched under a picnic table outside
of that trailer. She said her step son at the time,
who was Brian Smith, was the man who began firing
at deputies at that trailer park. She testified she screamed
for Brian Smith to please stop. You're gonna kill everybody,
Please stop, and she said deputies return fire and hit Smith,
and he dropped his AK forty seven and fled back
into the trailer. She said it wasn't long after the
shooting would start again. Just as she was starting to
crawl away from that picnic table, she said she noticed
Kyle Yokel, who at this point had been detained by deputies.
Somehow he escapes during all this chaos. When Brian Smith
started shooting from the trailer, she said she saw him
pick up the assault rifle and start firing again. She
said at that point she started screaming again quote stop,
oh my god, you're killing somebody. She said it was
during that second round of shooting that she saw Kyle
Yikel stand over and already injured deputy by the name
of Brandon Nielsen and shoot the AK forty seven from
point blank range, killing him. She then told the jury
that after the shooting had stopped, she ran over to
another deputy, later identified as Jeremy Trish, and she was
holding his hand, telling him it was going to be okay.
Help is on the way. Just trying to comfort this
hero who was shot and dying by this point, and
she said it was at that point that Terry Smith,
her husband went up to Deputy Jeremy Trish and flipped
him over.
Speaker 4: So that he was lying on his stomach.
Speaker 5: She said, at that point, Terry Smith told her to
get away. She said she continued to hold this deputy's
hand and assure him help will be on the way,
and that he took one big breath and stopped breathing.
That was her testimony court. So there was another officer
who was injured during the shootout at that trailer park,
and his name was Deputy Jason Tresh, and he testified
for about ninety minutes, and he was very seriously wounded.
As a matter of fact, his wounds were so bad
that when he awoke from a medically induced coma more
than a month after the shootings, he was missing his gallbladder,
his spleen, in one of his kidneys. He was quite
frankly lucky to be alive. Just horrible, tragic, and horrific.
And he admitted during his testimony that all of this
had caused some memory loss with him, but he really
did his best to recount the details of August sixteenth
of twelve and the events that led up to the
shooting from his own perspective, and he said on August fifteenth,
he had been assigned to a graveyard shift, which was
six pm to six am, and he testified that around
five am he heard a transmission over his radio that
a man had been shot and was lying in the street.
And he said it was much later that he would
find out that that man, that deputy, was Michael Scott Boynton.
And of course, the shooting being referenced here is the
initial shooting at that Valero plant. He said, he drove
to the reported shooting scene in Laplace, and he said
the radio traffic was not completely clear, so he wasn't
one hundred percent sure of what to expect. He said
when he arrived there were several sheriff units that were
already on the scene, and that at that point another
message came over his radio, this time reporting a suspicious
vehicle that was headed towards the Riverview Mobile Home Park
in Laplace, So at that point he starts heading that way.
He said that he arrived at the trailer park and
he saw two deputies who responded to the dispatch report. Now,
one of those deputies was named Anthony Bullock and the
other one was named Brandon Nielsen. He went on to say,
it was pitch dark and they were trying to locate
this suspicious vehicle using a flashlight. In that they in
fact did locate the vehicle. It was in some weeds
in the rear of the trailer park. And he said
at that point the three deputies they banded together to
investigate the vehicle. And at that point a fourth deputy
arrives on the scene, and that was Jeremy Trish, and
this was roughly fifteen minutes after he had arrived on scene.
The deputies were then told that the suspicious vehicle was
a pickup truck and that he and Deputy Nielsen went
to check that out, and they were joined by Deputy
Jeremy Trish. Meanwhile, he said that Bullock was about fifty
yards away from him and he started talking to a
man who the deputy testified he couldn't make out his
features at the time, but he could tell it was
a man, and he could tell that this man was
standing near a picnic table in the trailer park. Now,
in prior testimony, Bullock had already identified that man who
he was talking to, and he identified him as Terry Smith.
Speaker 4: And as a matter.
Speaker 5: Of fact, I want to pick up with Bullock's testimony
quickly because he mentioned that he spoke to Terry Smith
for ten minutes or so and that he wasn't convinced
that Terry Smith did not have anything to do with
the shooting at the Valero plant, even though Terry Smith
was doing his best to convince this deputy of that.
He said, after about ten minutes, he noticed Terry Smith's
demeanor starting to change and that Terry Smith got very nervous.
According to Deputy Bullock, he said it was at that
point Terry Smith literally started having the shakes. He said
he noticed some black residue on Terry Smith's hands, and
he said, to this day, he doesn't know what that
black residue was, but it looked like something that he
had gripped. He said that once he noticed the residue,
he called out to Jeremy Trish, who would join his
fellow deputy, and according to Bullock, it was at that
point he grabbed Smith's hand and that's when Smith got
really defensive. In his words, Deputy Bullock said Smith tried
to run, but that he wrestled Smith to the grind
and he put handcuffs on him, and at that point
he asked him if anyone else was in the trailer,
to which Terry Smith replied that his wife was in
the trailer. He said, that's when he approached the trailer
and he saw a large dog at the door, and
he called to Terry Smith's wife to put the dog
on a leash. Block said, he then asked to speak
to Chanelle Skanes, who is Terry Smith's wife, inside of
the trailer. And he said the reason he wanted to
do that was to prevent communication between Terry Smith and
Chanelle Skanees so they couldn't get their stories together right.
So he sat Upon entering that trailer, he noticed a
man under a blanket in the bedroom, and he said
he could see this man's hands moving under that blanket,
under the cover, and he didn't know what was under
that cover with this guy, of course, so he draws
his weapon and he ordered this man to show his hands.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 5: That man was later identified as Kyle Yokel, and he
said that Kyle Yokel complied and that himself, along with
Chanelle Skenes and Kyle Yokel then all exit that trailer together.
He said, when they exited the trailer, and once they
got outside of it. Kyle Yokel takes off running, and
Bullock said that he took off after him. He catches
up to him and he starts handcuffing Kyle Yokel, and
he said that's when Brian Smith appeared from the trailer.
He was brandishing an AK forty seven, and of course
all hell breaks loose. Now, picking up with a little
bit more of Jason Trisha's testimony, he said that it
was a split second when he saw Deputy brand Nielsen
and Jeremy Trish get shot. He said, at that point
he took off running and he got shot in the back.
He grabbed his weapon and he shot several times back
at the individuals. Jason Trish said he did make it
back to his vehicle and he was actually able to
make it to the hospital and as I told you
several weeks later, after about a month in a coma,
he finally woke up. Now, as far as Deputy Bullock,
he said he took shelter behind the trailer after Brian
Smith started shooting, and he said, in one hand he
had the gun that he had pulled out of Kyle
Yokel's waistband, and in the other hand he was firing
with his own weapon. He also testified that he saw
Deputy Nielsen fall and that he saw Deputies Jeremy Trish
and Jason Trish running in the same direction toward some
nearby railroad tracks. He said at this point he was
positioned behind the trailer and he and the gunmen were
actually firing at each other through the mobile home. He
said that's when Kyle Yokel, who had been on the ground,
ran back toward the front of the trailer and out
of his view. He said, after Deputy Nielsen was struck
by bullets, he saw a pair of legs from the
other side of the trailer, and it was at that
point that he made it to a nearby white pickup
truck and took cover behind the truck, and he was
able to shoot the person whose legs were visible, presumably
the legs. He said he didn't watch as the person
began crawling toward the door of the trailer.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 5: Deputy Bullock also testified that he saw a gumman standing
over Deputy Nielsen, who had been shot, and that he
saw this person, who was later identified as Kyle Yokel,
fired several shots into the fallen deputy's body execution style.
He also testified that as the bullets were flying, another
deputy by the name of Charles Well approached the scene
and that he basically flagged the deputy down and told
him stop, don't come any closer. So that's the details
that I have in this just absolutely horrific, infuriating shooting
in which two deputies were killed, Saint john Sheriff's Deputy
Brandon Nielsen and Deputy Jeremy Trish, and two deputies were wounded,
of course, Michael Boynton at the first scene and Jason
Trish wounded at the trailer park scene, if you will,
and police would discover that these guys were members of
what was called a sovereign citizen movement. And let me
explain to you quickly what a sovereign say citizen allegedly is,
and it's I guess the best way to tell you
is it's an extremist movement of a bunch of people
who don't believe in any sort of law. They believe
you're in charge of yourself essentially, and they don't recognize
law enforcement at all. They don't believe in taxes, they
don't believe in authority, and they refer back to laws
like laws that existed when the country was very first founded,
as something to stand on. As far as their beliefs
are concerned, it's absolutely ridiculous in my opinion, and I'm
not going to spend too much time on it, but
let's just say that they don't believe in any authority whatsoever,
and they hate well, they typically hate cops because their
law enforcement, and they don't believe in law enforcement, and
they don't believe in anybody expressing any authority over them.
So I'm going to break down for you now because
there's so many one who each of these individuals were
and what happened to them, And I'm going to tell
you that there's one in particular that it's really going
to shock you when I get to him. But we're
going to start with Terry Smith, who was involved in
that initial shooting at the Valera refinery. Remember, he was
a driver. He was approximately forty four years old at
the time of this shooting, and there's not a whole
lot of details about his early life, but he was
very involved in the sovereign citizen movement. He would proclaim
himself as a common law judge and he would lead
a small group of sovereign citizens in the area, so
he was kind of like the patriarch of this group,
if you will. And of course he gets arrested for
his role in the initial shooting. But guess what his
role in this shooting that attempted murder of the initial
officer at the Valeria plant, Deputy Boyington. It never goes
to trial. Why because he had another case penning that
would send him to Blooding in Gola to serve multiple
life sentences for rape. And let me tell you how
disgusting this guy is. And I'm going tomber reference. An
article in this article was written by Dan Swinson. It
ran in The Times Picky un on October fifth of
twenty twelve, and it kind of discusses Terry Smith's past
and it reads, Adam Tennessee, a police car crunched up
in the trailer Parks grivel drive headed for the family
exiled to the far back corner. They were so honory,
so prone to trouble making that their landlord had moved
them there to Lot twenty eight A just to get
him out of the way. It was November of last
year when the detective came for forty four year old
Terry Lynn Smith, accused of raping a teenage relative. What
she found instead would take her months later to Saint
John the Baptist Parish. A stack of paper she carried
from that trailer would help piece together a puzzle of
the Smiths, their connection to a Nebraska fugitive, and the
senseless doctrine that might have driven them to gun down
four sheriff's deputies in cold blood. On November ninth, Robertson County, Tennessee,
Detective Angela Lenney arrived at the Smith's camp, two trailers
side by side at the Red River Valley Camp in Adams, Tennessee.
The Smiths weren't home, but a skinny redhead bolted from
that camper. He ran for the windline, leaped off a
steep wooded bluff, and disappeared into the woods. An old
white buick with Nebraska tags sat parked outside. It had
been stolen two months earlier. Lenny learned by a skinny,
redheaded fugitive named Kyle Yokel, wanted in two states for
dealing dope and threatening to kill police officers. Inside the
Smith's camper, Lenny found an arsenal of guns. And ammunition
in a stack of paper she hoped would lead her
to Terry Smith's missing teenage relative. Quote. I started looking
through it, and I discover more than what I went
there for. The documents linked the Smith family to the
militant anti government group called Sovereign Citizens, whose thousands of
members recognize no authority higher than their own. They dabble
in conspiracy theories and file cryptic lawsuits protesting the unfairness
of taxes and driver's license and sometimes they spiral into violence.
The Smiths, they were arrogant. They didn't care about anybody
but themselves. That from their landlord in Tennessee. I hate
to say it, but I could see that ending coming.
The mere mention of Terry Smith drives a grizzled old
man in North Louisiana to weep, to beat his head
against the doorframe of his rickety old house, to curse
God in Smith and anyone else who will listen. Quote
he's killing me, he sobs. Richard Skaines has long white hair,
wears cowboy boots and denim shirts, and sinks to his
knees if the thought of Smith. His daughter Chanelle met
the man years ago. Her father begged her not to
marry him. Smith was manipulative, Skaines could see. He brought
up his two boys mean just like him. But his
daughter married Terry Smith anyway, and the two took off
to travel from state to state, factory job to factory job.
Skaine's heard of the child molestation cases in Tennessee, and
he said he helped Leamy to try to find Smith.
He begged the police to arrest him. Quote I hate
that son of a bitch, and I always did, he
said of his son in law. I told the detective,
if I see him, I'm going to kill him. You
better catch him before I do. But he didn't see
Smith ever again, and neither did that detective. On the
morning of the massacre in the Laplace trailer, Chanelle Scanes
ran screaming from her trailer in an effort to protect
the deputies that, according to witnesses, quote don't shoot them,
she wailed. A neighbor said she threw herself on top
of a fallen deputy as the neighbor watched, begging her
husband's son and Kyle Yogl to stop firing. They allegedly
shot her in the arm. She is charged as an
accomplice in the shooting of the first deputy in the
parking lot. A week later, Scane's father stood on his lawn,
littered with broken bicycles, trash in old tires, and laminated
that his daughter, who he said was a good girl,
married such a dangerous man, so dangerous, so mean. He
said that somebody should have seen it coming and locked
him up A long time ago. Those cops didn't have
to die. His former landlord in that trailer park remembered
just three tenants of the hundreds he had last year. Quote,
you don't remember the good people, You just don't you
remember the troublemakers in his threshold for recollection is high.
One of the three bad ones he recalled stole his canoes,
cut them into pieces, and sold them a few towns over.
Another was caught with the dead prostitute in his trailer.
The third, the Smiths, was a family so unruly that
the landlord insisted they moved to the furthest back corner
of the campground's overflow lot. The camp sites seventy eight
lots were full of November due to a semiconductor plant
that was under construction in nearby Clarksville.
Speaker 4: Tennessee.
Speaker 5: Until then, the landlord and his father had run a
sleepy canoe camp, a place for weeking getaways and field
trips on the Red River, which snaked along the back
edge of the camp shady main lot. They are more
accustomed to nailing flip flops to their trademark quote tree
of Souls in telling ghost stories to children than they
are housing bad laborers that the Chamber of Commerce had
asked if they expand, even temporarily to allow workers a
place to live. The landlord charged the workers four hundred
dollars a month in rent, and for the most part
left them alone. The landlord got the impression Yokel was
a follower, impressionable, and easy to reel in. The Smiths,
he believes, became Yokel's outlaw family, bonded in blood and
guns and a shared distaste for authority. When the law
came for the patriarch, the Smiths had to run, and
Yokel had nowhere else to go, so he figured he
might as well run with them. The landlord said. They
all snuck back in the next day, long enough to
hook up their trailers to their trucks and haul them away.
Then the Smiths and Yokel once again slipped away. The
landlord didn't know where they were headed at the time.
He didn't care so long as they were gone, but
Looney kept looking. She issued a bulletin through the Tennessee
Fusion Center declaring Terry Smith wanted for questioning in a
child's sex abuse case. He had a history that wove
through a half a dozen states, the bulletin warned, and
was affiliated with a militant organization prone to domestic terrorism.
He should be considered dangerous. A half a year later,
a hitchhiker thumbing a ride on a desolate stretch of
the highway in North Louisiana would offer a similar warning
about the Smiths. The family, he told yet another sheriff,
this one six hundred miles from Tennessee, had moved into
the back of a trailer park in their town. They
had a lot of guns, he said, and they didn't
like the law. And that's how that rered gives you
kind of a view of how just horrible these people were.
And of course that article started off talking about a
rape of a family member, that the patriarch of this group,
Terry Smith, was accused of molesting, and that victim was
identified as his minor stepdaughter. Now, according to documents, he
raked her for over ten years, with the use starting
in two thousand and four, when this little girl was
just seven years old, and continuing until the summer of
twenty eleven when she was seventeen. And the acts included
vaginal penetration, oral sex, and even object insertion into her.
And he would threaten this poor little girl that he
would kill the entire family if she ever told. Now,
in twenty eleven, when this little girl escapes the Smiths home,
she reported it and there was apparently plenty of evidence
to substantiate this, and he eventually pleaded guilty to the charges.
And just as sick and disgusting as this is, when
they interviewed her mother, her mother admitted to ignoring the
signs of this, and it would be hard for him
to believe she didn't know what was going on after
all of that time. So he has a ton of
rape charges here, and he eventually gets sentenced for this.
This was in March of twenty sixteen, and he gets
two life terms consecutive with no probation, plus fifty years
of hard labor on some other charges. He ends up
getting life. Plus Terry Smith ain't never getting out of prison,
thank god. And all of that was tied to those
original child rape charges of a family member, and none
of that sentence was tied to what occurred in Saint
John Parrish. Now, of course he appealed all that shit,
and those appeals were denied. And let me tell you something,
I don't know anything about this guy as far as
how he's going about his life inside of Bloody and Gola,
but I can tell you convicts don't like chomos. That's
all I'm gonna say. They don't like chomo's. So he's
either protective custody so to speak, meaning they don't let
him in general population, or he's having quite a hard time.
And I feel not the least bit sorry for him.
So that's who Terry Smith was. And before I go
any further, I want to make this very clear. Nobody
gives a shit about these people that were involved in
this from the standpoint of the perpetrators. But you have
to tell the story, the who, what, why, wearing how,
And I just want to make that clear. I am
telling the complete full story, and you can't tell the
complete full story without going over what happened to these
people and how much trouble they were causing even before
all this went down. So I want to make that clear.
I don't give a fuck about these people, but I
have to tell the story, so I'll move on. I
told you about Terry Smith. We're going to talk about
his son, Brian Smith, who was one of the two
shooters at the trailer park. He was twenty four years
old when all this went down. Of course, he was
charged with two counts of first degree murder. And to
give you a little background on him, obviously he was
very much influenced by his piece of shit rapist's father.
He was homeschooled and at the time growing up, not
much as knowing out him outside of the fact that
he was considered a major troublemaker, kind of looked like
a punk, and he heavily embraced the sovereign citizen ideology.
But here's something that may surprise you. In his case,
he was also never convicted or sentenced in this case
of these shootings, even though he had two charges of
first degree murder, which are death penalty charges. Right Why well,
he was considered mentally incompetent to stand trial. He was
actually diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia with psychosis, and even though
he was never sentenced in this case, he will never
see the free world again because he is hospitalized in Jackson, Louisiana,
where there is a state hospital where you put people
that are just mentally incompetent, and he will be at
that hospital for the rest of his life. So, just
to give me an idea of the timeline of his case.
On August twenty fourth of twenty twelve, he gets charged
with two counts of first degree murder plus three counts
of attempted first degree murder. On August twenty fifth of
twenty twelve, he gets indicted for those charges. In August
of twenty thirteen, the following year, emotion is filed with
his attorneys to bar the death penalty, and they cited
mental illness and they have a hearing, and in then hearing,
some psychiatrist speaks and he confirms that this guy suffers
from schizophrenia, paranoid schizophrenia. And look from there, this case
drug out all the way to twenty twenty before a
judge by the name of Sterling Snouty ruled him mentally
incompetent to stand trial, and that was spurred by an
audio recording from twenty seventeen from a hearing where this
guy just goes on a rant in the hearing about
the government targeting him. And as you would expect, he's
acting just completely crazy. But it was a good example
of his stability, which is non existent in this guy's case.
And that was enough, I guess, to convince the judge
that he was mentally incompetent to stand trial. Not saying
I agree with it. I would have made him stand
trial personally, but that is the facts of what the
judge found. Now, one thing that came out as police
investigated was he had a unique bond with the next
guy that we're going to talk about, which is Kyle
Yokel and he was the other shooter at that trailer park,
the one that picked up the AKA forty seven. So
let's get into Kyle Yogel.
Speaker 6: Jim, did you see what happened in Texas today?
Speaker 5: Wait before you tell me that, let me tell you
what happened in New York.
Speaker 6: It cannot be as crazy as the case I told
you about yesterday in Louisiana.
Speaker 4: You know what, we should do a podcast about it.
Speaker 6: And with that we did. Crime War Weekly covers the
crime news headlines that have dominated the week.
Speaker 5: We cover trending crimes from all over the country and
even sprinkle in a few globally.
Speaker 6: Crime War Weekly is available now wherever you listen to
your podcasts.
Speaker 5: Simply by searching Crime War Weekly or clicking the link
in the description of this podcast. He was indicted for
two counts of first degree murdyer. And a little about
his early life. He was born in nineteen eighty five.
He was twenty eight when all this went down. As
of today, he is a around forty years old. He's
a white male, and he grew up actually in Nebraska
on a farm. In his early life was troubled, was rough.
Allegedly he had an abusive father and his entire family
was plagued by alcoholism. At some point, he drops out
of high school in the eleventh grade after he and
his father supposedly gotten a pretty violent altercation, and from
there he would turn to alcohol in minor crimes. By
his early twenties, he faced some pretty stiff charges in
Nebraska for drug possession, resisting arrest, making threats against law enforcement,
and all of those are classified as terroristic threats. So
warrant gets put out for his arrest and he hauls
ass and he meets up with the Smiths somehow. And
I told you about him being with them in Tennessee
at that trailer park. But he was just kind of
a want to bee, as that landlord in Tennessee also said,
and I quoted him as saying, he just appeared to
be some sort of follower and wanted to be accepted
into a group. And he was also the sixth s
Mitch that shot, if you'll remember Deputy Nielsen point blank
after he already laid on the ground dying.
Speaker 4: As it was.
Speaker 5: That's how sick and twisted this guy is. And in
the end, he gets exactly what he deserved. He gets
the death penalty inside of bloody Angola.
Speaker 4: But it took a while.
Speaker 5: He wasn't convicted until February of twenty twenty, and he
was formally sentenced to death just a couple of years ago,
in twenty twenty three, some eleven years after this incident.
I would imagine, because he was convicted in twenty twenty,
what happened right after he was convicted. He was convicted
in February of twenty twenty of course, late March COVID,
and it put things off, and he wasn't actually formally
sentenced to death until twenty twenty three, eleven years after
the incident. He's on death row as of today. And
in that case, get this, and this is a little
bit rare. It's not very common that you would deliberate
for just twenty two minutes to convict someone in a
death penalty case. But that's what happened here, that's how
clear the evidence was. So we covered the actual shooters
and what happened to them, and let's get into some
of the I guess you would call it co conspirators.
And the first person we're going to talk about is
the wife of Terry Smith, the leader of this group.
And her name was Chanelle Skeines. And Chanelle was thirty
seven years old when this originally went down.
Speaker 4: She was born in.
Speaker 5: Nineteen seventy five, so she would be fifty years old
approximately today as I record this, and she was the
second wife of Terry Smith. Now, she was originally arrested
for accessory after the fact. Now at some point her
charges do get upgraded to being a principal to first
degree murder, However, because she testified against Yokel, eventually she
gets sentenced to five years in prison. She serves that
time with good credits, and she ends up getting released
sometime around twenty seventeen, and not much else is none
about her. And I'm sure her role in the shooting,
as far as trying to comfort the deputies, shielding them
at one point from her husband, I'm sure that played
a role. And the fact that she testified against some
of these individuals, I'm sure that played a role in
her sentence. And it was interesting that she cooperated pretty
quickly considering the charges she was facing, probably a smart thing.
As a matter of fact, in November of twenty twelve,
she took that plea deal, so just a few months
after all of this occurred. Now, someone that I haven't
told you a whole lot about is Derek Smith. Derek
Smith was the younger son of Terry Smith and Brian Smith,
and he was also arrested in connection with this incident. Now,
he was not directly involved in the shooting that took
place at that trailer park. However, when they investigated him,
he does get charged with two counts of accessory after
the fact and a felon in possession of a firearm,
and he gets some time for that because he was
already a felon. You get found with a firearm. He
actually picked up twelve years at hard labor for that,
plus five years at hard labor for the accessory after
the fact charge. He ends up serving it in a
detention center and he gets released on good time. And
this is an April first of twenty seven after serving
about four and a half years of his sentence, and
he was placed under supervised probation in the custody of
his grandmother at that point, and maybe he learned his
lesson right. Nope, his freedom is very short lived. As
a matter of fact, on August twelfth of twenty seventeen,
just five months after he was released, he gets rearrested
for illegal weapon possession, which violated his parole. It leads
to his return to custody and he goes back to prison.
Now I don't have any information on if he has
been released again or not, so I'm not going to
speculate on that. But he did get out and five
months later end up back in jail in twenty seventeen. Unbelievable,
So I'm going to reference another article now, this article
also from The Times Peaky un and it talked a
little bit about Chanelle's Skanes and her testifying at a
preliminary hearing. And I find it very interesting. It again
helps to paint the picture here and it reads Chanelle
Skanes knelt on the gravel of the Laplace trailer park,
where she lived with her husband, daughter and step sons,
clutching the hand of a Saint John Parish deputy who
had been struck in a hell of gunfire just seconds before,
stroking his hair and forehead.
Speaker 4: Quote.
Speaker 5: Are they talking to you? She asked the deputy in
a panic, referring to the voices she heard broadcasting over
a Sheriff's office issue radio that lay on the ground
next to him. The deputy mumbled, yes, they're coming, Skins
reassured him between bouts of sobbing and please for help,
so frantic in fact, that she hadn't noticed her own
gunshot wound in her arm. They're coming, she told him,
I promise you, they're coming, but help would arrive too late.
Moments later, the deputy died, one of the two casualties
of a horrific ambush on August sixteenth, twenty twelve that
ambush claimed the lives of Deputies Jeremy Trish and Brandon Nielsen,
and left Deputies Michael Scott Boyington and Jason Trish with
injury so severe that Boyington required six or seven surgeries
and Trish had to have his spling, gallbladder and one of.
Speaker 4: His kidneys removed.
Speaker 5: Four suspects will stand trial for those crimes, including Skaane's
husband Terry Smith, step sons Dereck and Brian Smith, as
well as Kyle Yokel. Terry and Derreck Smith are charged
with being a principal to attempt at first very murder.
Brian Smith and Yokel are each charged with two counts
of first very murder in the deaths of Jeremy, Trish
and Nielsen. It convicted, they faced possible death sentences Skain's
and Britney Keith, Brian Smith's girlfriend, had pleaded guilty to
accessory charges. The charges against Tamisha Bright, who told authorities
she simply had hitched her at home with the Smiths
that August day and was initially booked with being a
principal to attempt at first green murtyerr were refused in
October of last year on Friday morning. In a tear
for a two hour testimony during the preliminary examination, Skanees
were called the Fear, the panic and violence had unspooled
across the scenic Riverview Mumba home that August morning. Shortly
after four am on August sixteenth, Skane says she received
a puzzling phone call from her step son, Derek. Skane's
had just gotten out of bed in the Moba home
she shared with her husband, Terry Smith, and had gone
to the kitchen to make coffee. She knew Terry and
his sons would be arriving home from the Valeria refinery
in Laplace where they worked late shifts, and then her
phone rang quote, the cops are chasing us, Dereck Smith
told her, then abruptly hung up.
Speaker 4: Quote.
Speaker 5: I thought he was playing a joke because he liked
to do practical things like that, She testified. But because
Skines knew that her husband, who drove a Chevy truck,
did not have a driver's license, she began to worry
that perhaps the group had run into trouble. She walked
out of the trailer just as they pulled up Terry, Derek,
and Brian Smith, as well as Kyle Yokel and Bright,
a neighbor and fellow employee who Terry Smith often shuttled
to him from work, poured out of that truck.
Speaker 4: Quote.
Speaker 5: I asked Terry what was going on? He told me
that Brian had shot a guard. Terry Smith was referring
to Deputy Michael Scott Boynton, who Brian Smith allegedly shot
with an assault rifle outside the Valeria parking lot. After
Boynton tried to pull them over. The Smithson sped down
by you. Steell rode back to the trailer. Terry Smith
told Skanes to go back inside the trailer. She obliged. Meanwhile,
he returned to his truck. The others, including Skanes, convened
inside the trailer. Keith was also present at the trailer.
According to Skaanes, Derek Smith left the trailer shortly thereafter.
Quote then Brian said, Dad's turning on me. Skanes testified
he was pacing talking, saying we had to leave, we
gotta go, we can't stay here. Skane said her testimony
that Brian Smith often exhibited paranoid behavior, peering out of
windows as if he were being followed, distrusting his loyal
family and friends.
Speaker 4: Quote.
Speaker 5: I said, no, no, no, it's okay, Skane said. Terry
Smith returned from his car with a rifle slung over
his shoulder. As Terry Smith went to lay the rifle
on the bed, Skane's picked up the firearm and tucked
it under a pile of clothes in the closet, along
with the purse which held a handgun. Terry Smith left
the trailer, and moments later Skane's heard voices outside quote.
I assumed it was a police because I could hear
the radios. Then there was a knock on a door.
I opened the door and there was a policeman standing there.
He said, Hi, how are you doing. I'd like to
talk to you for a second. I have my dog
in my hand and said let me come outside. I
put the dog on a leash and stepped outside. When
I did, Terry was sitting at the picnic table, handcuffed.
Skane's testified she met his two other deputies staring near
the corner of her trailer, and the deputy who had
knocked on the door told her to go back in
the trailer. He followed her inside. Brian Smith, his girlfriend,
Britney Keith and Bright had disappeared into the bathroom. Yokel
was lying in Skane's bed, hiding under the covers. The
officer quickly noticed Yokel and asked him to step outside.
Skane's Yokel and the officer then left the trailer. Skane
sat down at the picnic table. The next thing, Skane's
need the deputies were wrestling Yokel to the ground. Skane's
thirteen year old daughter, who also testified on Friday, had
been in Dereck Smith's trailer for the entire episode, but
she said she distinctly heard Yokel scream they're going to
kill us all. Skane said she saw one of the
officers kick Yokel. She said another officer drew a gun
and threatened to shoot Terry Smith as well as Skane's dog,
who had been barking since the deputy showed up.
Speaker 4: They put the.
Speaker 5: Gun in Terry's face, saying he should just shoot them.
Skane said, he said, I'll just shoot the dog. No,
you can't shoot the dog. He said, I'll shoot both
of you. I'm trying to hush the dog. Skane's continued,
and the door of the trailer swings open. Skin said
She then saw Brian in her peripheral vision in the
doorway of the trailer. She heard gunshots, grabbed her dog
and rolled under the picnic table. She said, I heard
a bunch of shooting, then everything went quiet and I
was screaming.
Speaker 4: Stop, stop.
Speaker 5: Then I heard Brian say I've been shot. Skane said.
She began crawling toward the camper from under the picnic
table where she had been hiding him. When she turned
her head, she met his Jokeal walking along the side
of the trailer. She said, Yokle knelt down and picked
up a rifle. Moments later, gunfire resumed and Skane's once
again buried her head in her arms. Quote. I guess
Brian had just threw the gun out the door, she said.
Yokel picked it up, started screaming he was going to
kill the and he started firing down at the police officer.
Although Skanes later said she did not actually see Yokil
a deputy, she confirmed that she did see him point
the barrel of the gun downward toward the ground, only
later which she noticed the deputy lying nearby. Deputy David
Anthony Bullock, who was also present during the ambush, testified
in September that he had seen a pair of legs
fire shots into the body of Deputy Brandon Nielsen, and
I quoted you that then when quiet, Skane said, she said,
she grabbed the dog and ran across the street to
Derreck Smith's trailer, where he and his thirteen year old
daughter had been during the shooting. Skanes left the dog
there and ran back toward her trailer, where she noticed
the deputy, presumably Jeremy Trush, bleeding on the ground. She
knelt beside him. Quote, he was laying there. I asked
if he was okay. She held his hand, smoothed his hair,
and told him help was on the way. Skane said
that she then spotted Terry Smith. Skanees told the deputy
that she'd be right back, and she and Smith returned
to the trailer, where Brian Smith was on the floor
bleeding from a gunshot wound. She looked at him and
told him, quote, you're crazy. As Skin's began walking back
to the fallen deputy, she noticed Dereck Smith and her
daughter coming toward her. She said she pleaded for them
to stay away. Skan's grabbed her daughter's hand and took
the child to her aunt's trailer. Skan's then ran back
to the deputy as the deputy radio continued to cackle
beside them. Skain's greened, hurry, I'm losing him. I don't
have any weapons, please hurry. Then Skin's testified between fits
of tears he stopped breathing. Only then skin said did
she realize she had been shot, presumably by a bullet
from Brian Smith's gun.
Speaker 4: Quote.
Speaker 5: They grabbed me, Skane said, and got the ambulance and
I went to the hospital because I had been shot.
Skain's was one of nine witnesses in court, etc.
Speaker 4: Etc.
Speaker 5: And I wanted to read you that because I just
talked about Derek Smith and there's just not a whole
lot regarding him, and there are a few more players
in all of this. Let's get into Britney Keith. She
was a girlfriend of Brian Smith, and I mean, you reckon,
something's wrong with these girls, pickers. I mean, find a
classy guy, ladies. She was twenty three years old when
all this went down. She was also charged with accessory
after the fact, and she was also in that trailer
when this incident went down. As I told you, she
also shared in that same ideology as a Sovereign Citizen
group member and during the gun battle, she was inside
the trailer when the ambush occurred. Now, she was charged
with principal to first Green murder, and she was not
as cooperative as Skan's and all this she didn't testify
against any other individuals, and thus her sentence was a
lot harder than Scanes. And again it took what seemed
like forever to get her sentence. As a matter of fact,
it was February fourteenth of twenty twenty two before she
has sentenced to two concurrent five year terms and three
years of probation. But she had been in jail for
quite a while on all of this, so it was
time served for her. And from what I understand, she's
not in jail anymore. That's just from what I understand.
Take that with a grain of salt. Now, remember Tanisha Bright,
who was twenty one at the time that all this
went down. I've already referenced us. But of course they
discovered she was just wrong place, wrong time, wrong fucking people,
and sure her charges were dropped and rightfully so, so
to quickly go over everything you just heard, Terry Smith,
the one that was driving the car when Deputy Boyington
was shot in the initial shooting. He was never convicted
in this case. However, he was convicted for those disgusting
rapes and incest charges. He ends up with two life
sentences plus ninety five years, and he was the leader
of this group. Brian Smith, his son, twenty four. He
was deemed mentally incompetent to stand trial, but he is
in a forensic mental hospital for likely the rest of
his life. Kyle Yukel, who was twenty eight. He was
convicted of two counts of first degree murder. He received
the death penalty inside Bloody Angola Derreck Smith twenty two
at the time, the son of the leader of this group.
He pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm and accessory
after the fact. He was released in twenty seventeen. However,
he was re arrested in twenty seventeen for weapons violations.
I don't know where he's at as of this point.
Chanelle Skaines, Terry's wife, pleaded guilty. Was the first person
to take a plea in this case. Of course, she
testified in trial, and she received five years probation, primarily
for her help with the prosecution. Now, a couple of
things that are worth mentioning that occurred during all of this,
And it came out during the testimony of Deputy Michael
Boynton that he was having some very serious issues with
his police radio system that day. So again I'm going
to directly reference an article by The Times Picky in
this was May twenty fourth of twenty thirteen, where Boynton
testified on just that subject. Says Deputy Michael Boyington lay
flat in his patrol card, dazed and bleeding from the
four bullets that had torn into his body just seconds before.
He had seen the muzzleflash from the truck window and
felt the searing pain that followed. Now ahead of him,
the truck's brake lights were fiery red where they're coming
back for him to finish him off. Boynton's hand was
on his radio, moving the dial, hoping to hear the
familiar chirping sound of a connection.
Speaker 4: Nothing.
Speaker 5: For the third time that morning, Deputy Boynton's police radio
had failed him. As the legal proceedings continued for the
group accused of shooting Boyington and three other Saint John
the Baptist pair Shriff's deputies last August, killing two testimony
in a preliminary hearing has spotlighted something deputies in the
parish have known for a long time. Throughout Saint John
there are areas where emergency radios cannot snag a signal.
Boynton was the first to come into contact with the
alleged attackers on August sixteenth, about four am in the
Laplace parking lot. But when Boynton tried to call for
backup before the deadly bat of violence began to unferral,
nothing happened. His radio couldn't find a signal. During testimony
in a preliminary hearing last month, Boynton said he tried
unsuccessfully he uses radio at least twice before he was shot,
and at least once after. By the time he was
able to reach headquarters, the truck and his passengers were
well on their way to a Laplace trailer park where
they would attack and kill more deputies. So I just
wanted to reference that, and I'm not going to read
the rest of the article, but pretty crazy that these radios,
these deputies were having so many problems with these radios,
and man, that is serious, and I thought it was
important to mention that in reference just a piece of
that article and another thing worth mentioning. While awaiting some
sort of trial, it also came out that Terry Smith
was planning an escape from jail, and that was reported
by The Times picking You on February twenty seventh of
twenty fifteen. And here's what was reported about that incident.
It said Terry Smith, one of the three men indicted
in connection with the shooting death of to Saint John
the Baptist pair sheriff's deputies and the waiting of two others.
Jailbreak plans were foiled before he could make his attempt.
A Batinery's television station reports another inmate at the Hunt
Correctional Center located in Saint Gabriel told guards about Smith's plans,
and that was reported by WBRZ television. According to the
news report, that appeared Smith was planning a shawshank redemption
type of escape attempt, having dug a hole in the
center black wall, and it made gloves from boots and
a vest from a sack in some legal papers. The
TV station also reported Smith had survival guide tips and
so that's how that read. Thank god that guy did
not get away. Now I'm going to reference one more
article today because it gives you an idea of the
mindset of these individuals. And it's really an article on
the families of the fallen, you know, asking why, which
if you ever have a Tragy situation happened in your family,
that's a question, right, that's the human side of a tragedy.
You want to know why. So I'm going to reference
this article from the time speaking you from June ninth
of twenty fourteen, and it reads Eddie Trush leapt up
from her seat in the back road of the courtroom
and ran outside. She looked up towards the sky, and
she screamed for hours, for days on end, listening to
dozens of witnesses recount Howur's son, Saint John the pad
Baptist parish Shier's deputy Jeremy Trush, was shot dead at
a Laplace trailer park last summer. But in that one moment,
as she heard how he tried to run from an
assault rifle fire, Eddie Trush was broken by grief. Her
whole world changed that day August sixteenth of twenty twelve,
a date that will forever be seared into the parish
collective memory and wasn't yet dawned in two deputies, Brandon
Nilson and Jeremy Trush, but fathers and husbands lay dead
in the gravel of a scenic riverview mobile home park
and laplace. Two other deputies were grievously injured. In the
years since the shooting, the wounded deputies have returned home
from the hospital, though with permanent disabilities and constant reminders
of the whares they've faced that morning. The winners of
the two dead strangers before had become best friends. They
call each other nearly every day to cry or shout
or laminate all the things that their husbands had missed birthdays,
first fishing trips, dance recitals, and skin knees. Quote. You
wouldn't think it would take an entire year to realize
he's never coming home, said Nielsen's wife, Danielle. It's unbelievable
that it has been a year. Sometimes it feels like
I saw him last week. Sometimes it feels like forever.
The community continues to warm with them. A ceremony marking
the anniversaries schedule for Friday. The details of the shootings
have been pieced together through a half dozen hearings and
testimony from other officers. The killers accomplices and innocents who
witness some of the events, but the family still struggle
to comprehend what might have provoked a group of strangers
to gun down for good men. There's just one word
all can come up with, evil, And I couldn't agree
more with that. As they sat in jail cells for
a year, the family accused of the killings that have
written various manifestos maintaining their allegiance as sovereign citizens. A
loose but volatile group of anti government extremists. They are
described by the FBI as domestic terrorists, and their encounters
with authority, particularly police, routinely turned violent. Quote they proclaim
me anti government bitch. I am a sovereign citizen, one
of the accused wrote in a wrap found scribbled on
the back of a police report in his jail cell.
Quote you approach me, you better be ready to get
in to where a badge is of sin. You will
be put to death. My bullets will be cutting through
your vest. Seven people were originally charged in the massacre.
Sovereign citizen Terry Smith has announced his deep distrust in
the government. With his two sons, Brian and Derek, the
Smith family originally from North Louisiana, has stuck together, moving
from state to state, trailer to trailer, picking up jobs
as welders and day laborers at construction sites. Terry Smith's wife,
shaneil Skenes, and Brian Smith's girlfriend Brittany Keith traveled with
them in Tennessee months before the shootings in Laplace. They
met like minded Nebraska outlaw Kyle Yokel, who fled his
home state in a high speed chase after threatening to
kill any cop who tried to control him. Yokel and
the Smith family had a few things in common. Both
were on the run from the law, and both shared
a profound hatred for law enforcement. Brian Smith and Yokel
would months later become the accused gumman in the Laplace killings,
but prosecutors suggested in court filings had planned to slaughter
officers long before they moved into the back of the
Laplace trailer park. Derreck Smith, during one of his many
prior incarcerations, wrote his brother a letter from jail. Quote,
Dad said he wanted to go to war with the police. Well,
I'm gonna see if he bout that he scrubbled. I
ain't got nothing to live for anymore. So I'm gonna
take everyone to hell with me. I found out where
my old po and he means probation officer lives. I'm
gonna get his wife and kids and let him live
in pain. That letter, found in one of the son's
trailers after the Laplace massacre has become evidence in this
case against them. Prosecutors point to it is proof that
the father not only knew of his son's murderous intentions,
but encourage them. Of the seven charged, only three still
await trial. One twenty two year old Tanisha Bright, was
released after authorities decided she was telling the truth. And
of course we went through all that, so I won't
go through it again. It does pick up at the
ENDEA article and it says Eddie Trish still catches herself
wading for her twenty seven year old son to walk
through the door. He stopped by often just to say hello,
drink a coke, snack on a Hershey bar. It took
Moss before she stopped buying his favorite treats. He was
married to Mistic Trust and they had a toddler together
named Kate, who had just turned three. Jeremy has missed
all of the everyday things, she said, tucking him into bed,
teaching me how to fish. Kate doesn't have that anymore.
When he comes here, we talk about his father, We
go through pictures. He will remember his dad. Dozens of
fellow officers and family packed the back rows of the
courtroom whenever Smith's and Yokel are set to appear. But
Danielle Nelson tries to avoid the hearings. She likes to
remember the things she loved about her husband, How he
changed the words to songs to make her laugh while
they drove him the car, how he made funny faces
when his picture was taken. How much he loved his
two daughters and three step sons. Quote. We were a team,
she said. He was my best friend. The only part
of him she wants to forget is how he died.
She doesn't get every hearing so she can manage to
get up in the morning and be strong for her
youngest daughter, now getting ready to start the third grade. Quote,
I'm all she's got now. I've got to be strong.
I've got to take care of us, give her the
sense of security we have when he was here. That's
all on me now, and I wouldn't wish that on
anybody else. She is woken up three hundred and fifty
nine mornings without him, but all the first have passed
for now for her, the first Christmas, first birthdays, first
day of school, graduations, first Thanksgiving alone, and she hopes
that now, without the constant tide of milestones, she might
finally get some peace.
Speaker 4: And you know it's.
Speaker 5: People don't sometimes think about how tough when these things
happen is out there.
Speaker 4: It is on the families.
Speaker 5: My heart just breaks for all of these families, and
people often forget that they're victims too. So I've told
you all that, but I hadn't told you a whole
lot about the two fallen officers, And I want to
honor them and just tell you a little more about them.
And we'll start with Brandon Joseph Nielsen. And according to
what I've read about him, he was born in nineteen
seventy seven. He dedicated his life to law enforcement, which
culminated in a one year term as a deputy sheriff
with Saint John the Baptist Sheriff's Office, where he served
as a motorcycle officer. He was thirty four years old
at the time of his death, and he was known
by his colleagues for his dedication and positive spirit. He
was survived by his wife and five children, and his
parents and his sister, and of course, annual memorials continue
at the Sheriff's office, with remembrances on social media, etc.
Honoring Nilson as exactly what he was, a hero who
was shot and killed while serving his community. Also killed
Jeremy Michael tresh He was born in nineteen eighty four,
from what I understand, just twenty seven years old at
the time of his death. He was a dedicated family man,
survived by his wife and son, and he was known
as having a kind of a passion for fishing, a
hobby that later community thumb raisers would be held in
his memory, like fishing tournaments and things of that nature.
And he embodied a strong commitment to helping others, which
was a trait that extended from his personal life into
his professional life, obviously as a law enforcement officer. He
served with the Saint John Pears Sheriff's Office for approximately
four years until he was gunned down, and he specifically
assigned as a canine handler, and he had a reputation
for selflessness and dedication to protecting and serving in the
Sheriff's office. Of course, honor him. He has a memorial
page as well on their website. Now, I also want
to mention Jason Trish, who was also shot. He underwent
a kidney transplant in twenty seventeen, and from what I understand,
he's a return of the Sheriff's Office in an IT
role despite having some pretty tough mobility challenges now and
as far as Michael Boyington, he was discharged from the
hospital within three months of the shooting, despite being shot
with an assault rifle. A pretty strong guy right there.
If that doesn't speak to just his sheer strength, and y'all,
I know that was a hard one for you to hear,
but think about it. Next time you come across someone
in law enforcement, maybe shake their hand, thank them for
their service, because this type of shit can happen anytime
on any day, in any given place. And I'm sure
that I did not cover every detail in this case,
as much as I would have loved to. I just
don't have access to everything in this case. I wasn't there.
I don't have direct knowledge. I would, however, extend an
invitation to anyone from the families of the slain officers
to those still in law enforcement in Saint John Parrish,
I would love to know more about who these deputies were,
and just an open invite to any of you that
would like to come on Bloody Angola and shine a
light on who these guys were outside of what I
was just able to find by reading about them. Open invite,
come on the show, let's talk about it. I just
can't speak to what occurred on the inside of that
because I don't have any direct knowledge of that. And look,
anytime we cover these cases, as I said from the beginning,
no matter how good our intentions are, information sometimes can
get slightly twisted. I'm all about correcting the record. Let
me know if something is grossly misstated somewhere in this podcast,
I'll be happy to correct it and correct that record.
I'm certainly not perfect, but I'm only as good as
the information that is out there available to the public.
So if it's something you would like me to bring up,
I can certainly bring it up on a subsequent episode
of Bloody and GOWA. Again, my sincere thoughts and prayers
to everyone who knew and loved, not only those heroes
that lost their life in this event, but those that
were injured and everyone with the Saint John the Baptist
Parish Sheriff's office. Thank you all so much for listening,
and until next time. For Bloody Angola, A podcast one
and forty two years in the making, the complete story
of America's Bloody is present.
Speaker 4: Peace a wall.
Speaker 1: Street line, shackle chain, whosome gurdy. It's calling my name.
There is no mercy and it's been a tentery juice
as the Hustream game.
Speaker 4: Rule three.
Speaker 1: Come in.
Speaker 2: Fine, f'm me to die inside these walls, inside the
wild and when the walks, I'm know it's oldbody angleler,
ohbody Angle.