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Murder at the Manor

Murder at the Manor

Released Thursday, 1st February 2024
 1 person rated this episode
Murder at the Manor

Murder at the Manor

Murder at the Manor

Murder at the Manor

Thursday, 1st February 2024
 1 person rated this episode
Rate Episode

Episode Transcript

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slash Wondery. The

1:25

13th of March 2010. Wanda

1:31

and Ernie, hey, quit

1:33

worrying about me. I am okay. Thanks

1:36

for your love and unconditional support and

1:38

love. It

1:41

should comfort you to learn I met with the prison

1:43

priest for an hour today. I

1:46

am trying to get my spiritual side right

1:48

with the man upstairs. A

1:52

65-year-old American millionaire is convicted of murder after the

1:55

death of his wife. I

1:58

accept full responsibility. I will pay for my actions.

2:04

Sorry. H's

2:07

story is a tale of two worlds. He

2:13

went from down to bayou, living with nothing,

2:19

to living in a fine British manor home.

2:23

He's a millionaire, I just don't know how many million. I'm

2:26

Pat Fanning and I'm a friend of Harold Landry, who

2:28

came to be known as H. H

2:32

was proud to be a Cajun from South

2:34

Louisiana. His

2:37

personality was big. He

2:40

just embraced everything.

2:45

He had met someone on the internet. She

2:47

lived in England and he was going to England

2:49

to visit her. She was young, nice

2:52

figure. H did pretty good. This

2:57

was a woman that he idolized. He

3:00

had the most beautiful daughter with

3:02

her, living a gentleman's life in

3:04

the UK countryside. Oh

3:08

my gosh, hang on, England.

3:12

You guys will never be the same. You

3:16

can take the Cajun out of the bayou, but you can't take the

3:18

bayou out of the Cajun. H

3:21

made a phone call to us and was

3:24

devastated. He just said, Lucy says

3:26

she's not happy, she wants a divorce. Uh

3:29

oh, that ain't good. Trouble in paradise.

3:33

His whole world was crumbling.

3:37

There's been a horrible tragedy. And

3:44

Lucy, she's dead. What

3:48

the hell happened with H? I

3:50

do know that she posted on her Facebook page, she'd

3:53

never hated anyone like she hated

3:55

at that moment. He

3:58

says, I did it. But

4:00

there is a story to be told. Murder

4:05

at the Manor. This

4:23

is a letter from H. in prison, sent on

4:25

the 8th of September 2010. This

4:28

is the way H, as Harold

4:30

Landry is known to his friends,

4:32

can communicate with most of them,

4:34

including Helen Nifton. I

4:37

am truly settled in. Keep so busy doing

4:39

so many things. He

4:41

left the majesty of his country

4:43

house for her majesty's prison system.

4:47

He had confessed. He

4:49

stabbed his wife Lucy. To

4:52

death. All I ever did

4:54

was love her. Still do. This

4:57

letter from behind bars reads like love letters

4:59

to the woman he killed. All

5:02

I ever did was give her everything she asked for.

5:05

For ten years she never ever worried about anything. Helen

5:08

is used to communicating with H in

5:10

writing from her home in the English

5:12

countryside. They met

5:14

online before H met Lucy. The

5:16

virtual world made it possible for

5:19

her to befriend someone from

5:22

a very different world. His

5:25

handle was Cajun H. H

5:29

grew up in a small town on

5:31

the bayou called Berwick, Louisiana, with a

5:33

dozen brothers and sisters. Pat

5:36

Fanning is a lawyer and H's friend in

5:38

New Orleans. He managed

5:40

to pull himself from that meager existence that he

5:42

lived there and made millions in the oil field.

5:46

Landry made his fortune designing

5:48

cranes for offshore oil platforms

5:51

and was a well-known employer

5:53

around Covington, Louisiana. When

5:56

he came to business he was a very tough guy, but

5:58

he was never that way with his family. He

6:00

had been divorced a couple of times, but he took care

6:02

of his kids and made sure they were educated and had

6:04

everything they needed. By 1999, he was healthy, wealthy and lonely.

6:10

And that's when he went looking for

6:12

love in that thoroughly modern way online.

6:15

Call me old fashioned, but I don't find that a

6:17

particularly romantic way to find a bride. But

6:20

H found the woman for him, Lucy

6:23

Davies. Her online name

6:25

was Misery. She

6:29

was a music student who lived in

6:31

England with her four-year-old son, James. H

6:34

was 53, Lucy was 28. At

6:38

first I was a little bit negative about it. What

6:40

are you doing? Look at the

6:42

age difference. Wanda and Ernie Richardson

6:44

are two of H's closest friends.

6:47

But I know H loves to

6:49

be around lively, beautiful things, and

6:52

Lucy was certainly that. There

6:55

was something about her. It was

6:57

kind of like what you see is what you get.

6:59

I liked her a lot. And

7:01

the Richardsons enjoyed seeing H so happy

7:03

with Lucy. He doted on her. Oh

7:06

my gosh, did he? Lucy

7:08

was being pampered and she was enjoying it.

7:10

He enjoyed beautiful clothes,

7:12

beautiful jewelry. And

7:14

H was willing to buy whatever Lucy wanted.

7:16

If you want to get the hoochie, you

7:18

got to buy the Gucci. He

7:21

knows that. Some of H's friends

7:23

soon began wondering if Lucy enjoyed the

7:25

clothes and the jewelry more

7:27

than she enjoyed H. H

7:30

at one point showed me a diamond ring that

7:32

he bought for Lucy that he wanted to give

7:34

to her as an engagement ring. Lucy wanted the

7:36

diamond, but she didn't want H as part of the

7:38

deal. It wasn't exactly a

7:40

hunk of burn and love looking kind of

7:42

guy. Fanning describes

7:44

the romance, such as it was, as

7:47

a little more like a business deal.

7:49

The love affair between H and Lucy

7:51

was that Lucy loved H's money and

7:53

H loved Lucy's appearance. But

8:00

H. and Lucy did get married shortly

8:02

after Lucy got pregnant. And

8:06

Harold Landry, Bayou born and

8:08

bred, tried

8:11

to become an English country gentleman.

8:14

Did his speech change? Yeah. He'd say, well let me

8:16

go get the lift. And I'd say, why don't you

8:18

take the elevator dummy? I'm going, come

8:20

on H, you're from South Louisiana.

8:22

Quit it. You know? But

8:24

he just dove right

8:26

into it. He bought that big

8:29

house in the country for his new

8:31

bride and settled into his new life

8:33

as a retiree and as

8:35

a new father when his daughter was

8:38

born. He was a very proud papa.

8:40

No doubt about it. What did he

8:42

tell you about her? Oh, just

8:44

everything about her. Every minor

8:47

detail. H is the happy guy. H has

8:49

got his young girl. He got what he

8:51

wanted. But

8:54

both H. and Lucy might have gotten

8:56

more than they could handle. There

8:58

were signs after a few years that

9:00

the marriage had become a volatile mixture

9:02

of anger and alcohol. H

9:05

would certainly start drinking early. Lucy's

9:08

son James, age 15. He'd

9:10

get a lot more aggressive when he did drink.

9:13

James saw the marriage deteriorate. My

9:15

mum would perhaps want something or

9:17

ask something and it would just

9:20

end up being shouting matches. It

9:22

sounds a little scary. Impossent,

9:24

pleasant. Lucy and H had known

9:26

each other for 10 years when

9:29

she finally asked for the

9:31

divorce. How was he in that

9:33

period? Oh, in a terrible state. The

9:35

most important thing to him was to leave him

9:38

and he didn't understand and he didn't know what

9:40

to do. Of course, H

9:42

had already been married twice and

9:44

divorced twice. This

9:46

time, things would be very

9:48

different. I heard

9:50

glass smashing. I heard

9:53

my mum screaming. James had seen

9:55

H and his mother fight many times

9:57

before February 1st, 2010. but

10:01

never like this. I

10:03

knew at that point that something had

10:05

happened, something major, something bad. I

10:09

was one of the first officers on the scene, and

10:12

I'd certainly never been to anything like it before. Police

10:15

officer Steve Elcox. The

10:17

paramedics were working on Lucy. There

10:21

was a great deal of blood. Lucy

10:24

had been stabbed more than 20

10:26

times. She had

10:28

a very, very large gash to her

10:30

left cheek. She also

10:32

had a very large butcher's knife that

10:35

was still in her. Elcox

10:38

had his hands full. One

10:40

of the first priorities was to find out if

10:43

the children were safe. James was

10:45

just 14. His sister was just 7. Police

10:49

found the children in the backyard. They

10:52

did not know their mother lay dying

10:54

in the front. I thought for most

10:56

of the night that my mom was

10:58

still alive. H

11:04

had fled, leaving the children alone

11:06

at the bloody crime scene. Police

11:09

immediately began searching for him

11:11

along dark, deserted country roads.

11:15

It was just before midnight. And

11:17

that's where Sergeant Ian Booth found

11:19

him. Flammed on the brakes,

11:21

and I knew it was him straight away. Sergeant

11:24

Booth arrested H and charged him

11:26

with murder. Mr. Laundrie was completely

11:28

compliant. There's nothing in his

11:30

demeanor that suggested that he'd done something.

11:32

But H didn't try to deny it.

11:34

He told police what he had done. I

11:38

couldn't believe it at all. It's

11:40

surreal that it had come to

11:43

this. How could either one of them let

11:45

this happen? But Pat Fanning

11:47

knew firsthand about the other

11:49

side of Harold Laundrie. I knew

11:52

H is a guy who got cross-way with

11:54

a guy before and shot him. As

12:07

a lawyer and a reporter, and

12:09

specifically as a crime reporter, I've

12:12

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12:14

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wait is over. So far you're

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not losing. The only thing you're losing is

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my patience. Quickly, I see that. The

13:16

queen of the courtroom is

13:18

back. I didn't do anything.

13:21

You wouldn't know the truth if it came up and slapped you

13:23

in the face. I see he's not

13:25

intimidated by anything. I can fix that.

13:28

Jesus. She wanted to

13:30

fight me? Leave her. Hey,

13:32

love. Okay. So, uh...

13:35

This is not a soul. This is a period.

13:37

Classic duty. Did you sleep with her? Yes,

13:39

Your Honor. You marry his cousin. Your

13:41

brother. That's not him. Yes, ma'am.

13:43

I would make a beeline for the door. The Emmy Award-winning series

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It's streaming. Judy

14:01

Justice, only on Freebie.

14:12

21 July 2010, Deb and John, hi. I

14:17

enrolled in Open University this week. I

14:20

am taking an advanced mathematics course to

14:22

help fill my time. Harold

14:24

Landry's letters from prison to his

14:27

friend John Blakeman are a curious

14:29

mixture of routine news... I

14:31

keep very busy. Time has gone in a flash. ...and

14:34

a convict's peculiar point of view.

14:38

They sometimes sound like someone else

14:40

murdered Lucy. Lucy died,

14:42

but I might as well have done so as well.

14:45

It really stinks and very difficult for me.

14:49

Send some pictures of emerald green water and

14:51

open seas. Love, H.

14:54

Of course, chances are H. Landry

14:56

will never again see emerald green

14:58

water or open seas. He

15:01

was front page news, but

15:03

while the American millionaire murderer

15:05

might be a big fish

15:07

here, his British neighbors didn't

15:09

know that in

15:12

his Louisiana hometown back in 1994,

15:17

he was the one that got away. When

15:21

I first arrived, it looked like total chaos. Captain

15:24

Barney Turney of the St. Tammany

15:27

Parish Sheriff's Office was a patrol

15:29

officer on February 6, 1994, when

15:32

he got a call about a shooting. I

15:35

had a blood-stained car. I had an

15:37

individual laying inside a pool of blood. The

15:40

victim had been shot once in the neck with a

15:42

.38, and this was not going to be

15:45

a very tough case at all. Just

15:48

as I got out of my car, I had an individual approach

15:50

me, and was making a statement, I shot him, I shot him,

15:52

I shot him, I'm the man you're looking for, I shot him,

15:54

I shot him. It

15:56

was Harold Landry, and he

15:58

couldn't stop confessing. Did

16:01

he say why he shot him? He

16:03

was basically dating this man's wife. Obviously

16:06

anytime someone's dating a female acquaintance or

16:08

someone else there's always red

16:10

flags that would be picked up there. The

16:13

victim was Chris Price, the

16:15

angry husband of H's girlfriend.

16:19

And he was very lucky. He

16:21

was shot right in front of

16:23

a hospital and survived. I ran

16:25

into the hospital. I

16:27

was hysterically crying. And

16:30

they said what happened, what's going on? And I was like,

16:32

there's a man and he's been shot. Kristin

16:34

Harton was just 15 at

16:37

the time. Her life has changed a

16:39

lot since then. She's now

16:41

a Muslim living in Jordan. Did

16:43

this event have anything to do with the changes

16:45

that you made in your life? I'm

16:47

sure it did. I try not to think about it too

16:50

much. Back in 1994,

16:52

Kristin was a babysitter. And

16:54

H was giving her a ride

16:57

home that afternoon after a date

16:59

with Price's wife. You

17:01

pulled out of the apartment house where

17:03

you were babysitting. Yeah. And

17:05

drove down the street. And drove down

17:07

the street. 48 hours brought her back

17:09

to Louisiana so she could describe that

17:12

wild ride home with H Landry. He

17:14

kept looking in the review mirror. He

17:17

said, oh, somebody's following us. And

17:19

I saw a car following

17:21

us backwards, driving

17:23

in reverse. Chris Price was driving the

17:26

other car. When we got to

17:28

the traffic light, Chris Price's car pulled up

17:30

alongside of us. Chris

17:32

got out of the car and he was screaming.

17:36

And Mr. Landry just grabbed the gun out and he

17:38

held it out the window. And

17:41

Mr. Landry said, I'm going to shoot you.

17:44

And he said, go ahead and shoot me. And

17:47

then he did. Chris

17:49

Price had fallen backwards onto his car and I

17:51

saw his hands on his face and there was

17:53

blood. And

17:56

then I jumped out of the car and I said, I can't believe you shot

17:58

him. seemed to

18:00

take it all in stride. He didn't try to

18:02

run away. He didn't

18:05

try to say stay away from me. No.

18:08

I guess he knew what he did so he

18:10

just kind of hung around and waited for

18:13

his fate I guess. He was

18:15

arrested for attempted murder. It was

18:17

hardly a surprise. So let me get

18:19

this straight. This was done in broad

18:21

daylight, in front of a hospital,

18:23

in front of witnesses who

18:25

saw him with the gun in the hand. Pat

18:28

Fanning was H's attorney. The defense

18:31

was self-defense. And Fanning got to

18:33

like H so much they became

18:35

good friends. But at the time

18:38

Fanning had a lot of work to do.

18:40

How tough a case was this? This was

18:43

a difficult case. He

18:46

had to convince a jury that H was

18:48

right to be afraid of Chris Price even

18:51

though H was the man pointing the

18:53

gun at Price. We had

18:55

to sell to the jury that Chris Price, who

18:57

was young enough and strong enough compared to H,

19:00

that he could have overpowered H and taken the

19:02

gun away. He

19:04

was Muhammad Ali by the time we got finished with

19:07

him. It was, to say

19:09

the least, a creative

19:11

defense. There was nothing to

19:13

indicate that Chris Price was all that close

19:15

to your client. Yeah

19:17

and I had a bigger obstacle than that. I also

19:20

had H. H was not

19:22

a guy that you could put on the stand to defend himself. H

19:25

was an angry guy, not a sympathetic

19:27

guy. Did he want to go on? Not

19:30

after I got finished talking to him. How'd you talk him out

19:32

of it? You'd be just an idiot

19:34

to get up there and do this. Landry

19:37

was smart enough to listen to his

19:39

lawyer and was found guilty of a

19:41

much lesser charge, aggravated

19:43

battery. After the verdict he fired

19:46

me. Was he not happy with

19:48

the verdict? No, he thought he should have been

19:50

acquitted. He thought he should have been not guilty.

19:52

He thought he was a hundred percent right. Thought

19:54

this was a no-brainer. Thought this was a travesty

19:56

of justice. He could have gotten five years in

19:58

prison, but Landry decided to... appeal and

20:00

in the end all he got

20:03

was probation, a

20:05

$500 fine and some community service

20:07

for shooting a man in front

20:09

of witnesses. Boy this guy H,

20:11

he doesn't quit man. He's

20:14

relentless in getting the outcome that

20:16

he's seeking. At the time it

20:18

all looked a little suspicious because

20:20

one of the judges involved in

20:22

H's case got a substantial campaign

20:25

contribution in the name of a

20:27

member of Landry's family. I

20:29

think Harold Landry may use a different

20:31

set of standards than we would about

20:33

what's appropriate and what's not. Within

20:38

about eight years H Landry had begun

20:40

a new life with a new wife

20:43

and a new country. H

20:45

says Lucy knew all about his past

20:48

and married him anyway. But

20:51

neither of them could know that

20:54

Landry's history would come back to

20:56

haunt him. People emailed me

20:58

to say do you know about

21:00

this guy? Do you know about

21:02

his past? When

21:10

we got the story it was just

21:12

a phone call and we knew somebody

21:14

had died. When Richard Vernals, a

21:16

reporter for the Worcester News in the British

21:18

Midlands got that call that someone had died

21:21

on February 1st, 2010 he knew this story

21:23

was going to be big. Whenever

21:28

we get a fatal we'll always go out to

21:30

the scene. The

21:32

fake he knew this story was going

21:35

to be big. Whenever we get

21:37

a fatal we'll always go out to the scene.

21:41

The fatality was in the middle

21:43

of a neighborhood with very rich

21:45

residents. Former company executives are

21:47

great in the good. And a very

21:50

rich history. It used to be a

21:52

Catholic seminary for training priests. It used

21:54

to be a seminary. Yeah. And

21:56

now it's a crime scene. And now it's a crime scene. But

22:01

it wasn't just what happened or where

22:03

it happened that made this crime so

22:06

unusual. The question, the key question

22:08

is always the why of it. Why

22:10

would you do that? So you have to find

22:13

out the backstory, you have to find out about

22:15

the character of that person. I

22:17

got a call from a reporter from

22:19

England. Pat Fanning was the right guy

22:22

to call. Asking if I

22:24

was the guy who had represented Harold

22:26

Landry in the past. Of course Fanning

22:28

wasn't just Landry's lawyer, he was also

22:31

his friend despite the

22:33

shooting. And you'd still hang out

22:35

with him? Sure. Why not? He didn't kill any friends

22:37

of mine. They even had

22:39

vacation homes in the same condo

22:41

in Mexico. And it was there

22:44

that Fanning met H's new bride

22:46

Lucy back in 2002. That

22:49

was sort of an eye opener. Fanning

22:52

quickly noticed the somewhat odd

22:54

nature of H and Lucy's

22:56

relationship. When they came to

22:59

Mexico, the newlyweds were

23:01

not alone. He came

23:03

with the new bride, her

23:05

son, the baby daddy, and himself on

23:08

vacation together. She seemed more interested in

23:10

spending time with the son's daddy than

23:12

she did with H. And so I

23:14

was like, this is just kind of

23:17

weird. But there they

23:19

all were, including the ex-lover, living

23:22

it up. And H was paying

23:24

for everything. This did not seem

23:27

to you to be the ideal marriage.

23:30

Well, I usually don't bring my wife's little boyfriends

23:32

on vacation with us. H didn't

23:34

seem to mind. And in fact, things

23:36

went pretty well for Mr. and Mrs.

23:39

Landry, at least at first, according to

23:41

Lucy's son, James. As a family, we

23:43

ate meals together quite happily. And every

23:45

now and then we have a day

23:48

out or something and, you know, be

23:50

quite happy together. They

23:54

lived in that house not far from

23:57

the village of Pershore, where time is

23:59

marked the bells of a

24:01

medieval abbey. But

24:04

time had started running out on

24:07

the marriage just seven years after

24:09

it began. Aitch's friend John

24:11

Blakeman visited only months before

24:13

Lucy was killed. They were

24:16

arguing at night as

24:18

they began drinking and the day wore

24:20

on they just began clashing. But

24:23

over time it wasn't just clashing

24:25

that hurt the marriage, it was

24:27

also cheating. Lucy found

24:29

a new lover. I'm

24:32

sure she knew I knew. Aitch's

24:34

friend Wanda Richardson says it was

24:36

hardly a secret. A big

24:38

part of this breakup was this other

24:40

man. He was very very

24:42

upset about it. Aitch confided

24:45

in his friend Helen Nifton. He

24:47

felt he'd failed in many ways. He

24:50

began to feel somewhat out of

24:52

control. He said we just won't

24:55

ever be the same. She had someone else

24:57

and that's the way it was going to be. His

25:00

name? Gareth Jenkins. Lucy

25:02

knew him from high school and

25:04

they reconnected on Facebook. But

25:07

before long Aitch began to suspect

25:09

that their relationship went well

25:12

beyond an innocent online poke.

25:15

He would go to bed and Lucy would

25:17

stay up hours past him online. He said you

25:19

know I should have seen it. I should

25:21

have seen something was going on. He

25:23

was in a bad place. Aitch

25:26

decided to leave England for a while and

25:28

go to his place in Mexico to let

25:30

things cool off. It might

25:33

not have been the best move. He

25:35

didn't know that she was going to move the boyfriend into

25:37

the big house. Aitch was

25:39

furious but his friend John Blakeman

25:41

says Aitch still tried to save

25:44

the marriage. He would

25:46

have done anything and everything including

25:48

forgiving what is hard

25:50

to forgive to keep the marriage together.

25:53

Lucy had made up her mind. She wanted

25:55

out. He was crying.

25:57

He was upset. Friends

26:00

may say Landry was devastated, but it

26:02

turned out once Lucy took a boyfriend,

26:05

H found a girlfriend. And

26:08

Pat Fanning thought H was prepared for

26:10

what would come next. He

26:12

said, you know, I got a grip on this. I'm

26:14

going to go back, we're going to get a divorce.

26:17

She's not living in the expensive house that we're in

26:19

now. She's going to downgrade to

26:21

something that is acceptable but not the style

26:23

we're in now. Lucy's

26:26

son James believes his mother was just trying to look out

26:28

for him and his younger sister. The

26:32

marriage was effectively over. The

26:35

fighting over the terms of the divorce was just

26:37

beginning. He seemed to

26:39

be encountering some difficulty with her with that notion that she was

26:41

going to have to step down. I

26:44

think she thought she was going to get the house

26:46

and the cars and everything and he was just going to

26:48

leave. She was going to keep the baby and all of

26:50

his things. She did what she thought she had to. She

26:53

was just trying to look out for him and his

26:55

younger sister. She wasn't with

26:57

H necessarily because she wanted the money.

27:00

She was with H because, you know, she

27:02

loved him until the end when she was trying to

27:04

get divorced, when she was trying to leave with us.

27:07

Lucy had prepared her son for leaving. She

27:10

had told James all about H's

27:12

past and what he had

27:15

done in Louisiana. My mum

27:17

had told me about his previous

27:19

conviction. She shot a man

27:21

and got away with it. And

27:24

if Lucy ever loved H, even

27:26

after everything she knew, her son

27:28

says by February 2010, she felt very

27:30

differently. She

27:34

hated him. She loathed him because she

27:36

knew what he was capable of. And

27:38

the divorce got even uglier. Lucy and

27:40

H kept arguing over money. She demanded

27:42

he pay for an apartment for her

27:45

and Landry agreed. She

27:47

took the money that he gave her for an apartment

27:49

and hired the best divorce lawyer she could get. And

27:51

she played him. It

27:53

all came to a head on February 1st, 2010. That's

27:57

when Lucy posted that last note

27:59

on... her Facebook page. I've

28:01

never hated someone as much as

28:04

I hate someone now. Lucy

28:07

was talking about H and

28:10

less than an hour after she wrote those

28:12

words, Lucy and Harold

28:14

Landry had their final fight

28:17

with the children in the house. His

28:19

face, it seemed blank. There

28:22

was no happiness, no anger,

28:25

no joy, no sadness, no

28:27

regrets, just blank. And

28:31

James is about to come face

28:33

to face with H once more

28:35

in a British court at Harold

28:37

Landry's trial for murder.

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and her small-town values break in hopes

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power, money, and sex collide

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all episodes of Academy early and ad-free

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29:48

wait is over. So far

29:50

you're not losing. The only thing you're losing

29:52

is my patience. Quickly, I see that. Bing!

29:55

The queen of the courtroom is

29:58

back. I didn't do. You

30:01

wouldn't know the truth if it came up and slapped you

30:03

in the face. I see he's not intimidated

30:05

by anything. I can fix that. She

30:09

wanted to fight me? Leave

30:11

her. Hey, Lo. Okay,

30:14

so, um... Not this little,

30:16

so this is a period. Classic

30:19

duty. Did you sleep with her? Yes,

30:21

Your Honor. You marry his cousin. His

30:24

brother. That's not him. Yes, ma'am. I

30:27

would make a beeline for the door. The

30:30

Emmy Award-winning series returns... How did I know

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that I have crystal ball in my head?

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Emmy Award-winning series returns... How

30:49

did I know that I have crystal ball in my head? I

30:53

was told that I had crystal ball in my head. Kevin John,

30:55

hi. Six months

30:57

from now, I'm on trial

30:59

at Wolverhampton Crown Court. Wolverhampton,

31:02

England has seen plenty of

31:04

dank and cloudy days like

31:06

this one. But the

31:08

Crown Court in town has never seen

31:11

a case quite like this one. Harold

31:14

Landry has always said he has a story

31:17

to tell and this is it. He

31:19

says he was provoked by an angry

31:22

Lucy, that he had no choice but

31:24

to kill her. Andy Childs

31:26

is one of H's lawyers. The

31:28

level of provocation was such that

31:31

the normal guy walking

31:33

down the street may well have reacted in the

31:35

same fashion. Landry

31:38

has insisted he was provoked since

31:40

day one. Outside of court

31:42

hearings, Landry spoke publicly only to

31:44

48 hours. And

31:47

the only way we could interview

31:49

him was over the phone from

31:51

behind bars in England where he's being

31:53

held. Mr. Landry,

31:55

are you there? Yeah, I'm here, Richard.

31:57

Was Lucy a violent woman? Absolutely. When

32:00

she got mad, she went to punching and

32:02

slapping and kicking and biting. That was her

32:04

M.O. Had she injured you before? Yes, she

32:06

has. H

32:09

told that story to Pat Fanning, who

32:11

got him out of that tight spot

32:13

in Louisiana back in 1994. He

32:16

told me that his wife attacked him

32:18

and he was responding to her attack

32:20

when he killed her. It's a story

32:22

that's hard to believe. Both lawyers agree

32:24

in their own way. It's the

32:27

violence of the act which would make it

32:29

hard for the jury to be one round

32:31

with that argument. In my business, you know,

32:33

they say you can't make chicken salad out

32:35

of chicken. You know what? Droppings. It would

32:37

be a tough sell. It

32:41

might get a little easier. On

32:43

the eve of trial, H's team

32:45

scores a big win. The prosecution

32:47

is pushing for permission to tell

32:50

the jury about H shooting

32:53

Chris Price. But

32:55

the judge sides with the defense.

32:58

So the jury will never know

33:00

about Landry's violent past. It lifts

33:02

one great burden from the defense,

33:05

but just one. There

33:07

will still be powerful testimony

33:09

from, among other people, Lucy's

33:11

son, James. I needed

33:14

to tell someone what I'd seen. I needed

33:16

to make sure I gave the evidence that

33:18

I could. I had to go in there

33:20

and do my best for my mom. James

33:23

was just 15 at the time

33:25

of the trial, but he decided

33:27

he had to come to court to

33:29

tell his story. I just had to

33:32

say, you know, he's the enemy because

33:35

he was. James

33:38

tells the court what he saw

33:40

during the fight that ended with

33:42

his mother lying on the ground

33:44

dead. I remember on

33:47

February the 1st that she

33:50

just wanted some furniture. Landry and

33:52

Lucy had been arguing for

33:54

months over who would get

33:56

what in their increasingly acrimonious

33:58

divorce. He'd agree. to the

34:00

house but she couldn't move out if we

34:02

didn't have furniture. That's what started that fight.

34:05

That, yeah. The last fight.

34:07

Landry's lawyers argue in court

34:09

that fight was the latest

34:11

and last example of Lucy

34:13

goading Landry with never ending

34:15

financial demands and threats. I

34:18

think what happened to Lucy is yeah, I

34:20

think if the last bit of it she turned into a

34:22

pure little thing because all of the fights were

34:24

over the money. And then there

34:26

was the flashpoint that evening and

34:28

that's what set him off. It

34:31

wasn't just a instantaneous thing. I just all of

34:33

a sudden got pissed off. I had

34:35

been pushed and pushed and pushed by my wife

34:37

for six months and

34:40

I had been humiliated nonstop. He

34:42

says Lucy called him a sexual

34:44

pervert and flaunted her affair with

34:46

Gareth Jenkins. And you know

34:48

at some point you just had enough and

34:51

I reached that point where I just had enough. At

34:54

first, James thought the fight on

34:57

that evening of February 1st was

34:59

just another argument. I just

35:01

ignored it, stayed in my room, on my

35:03

computer, as I usually did. But

35:06

James testifies this time Landry and

35:08

Lucy were arguing all over the

35:10

house. They rustled for control

35:12

of Lucy's cell phone containing her

35:15

private text messages in her

35:17

bedroom. This is where things

35:19

went from bad to worse in their kitchen.

35:22

Landry says he came down here to get

35:24

away from Lucy but she chased after him

35:26

screaming I hate you and cursing at him.

35:29

And then things started happening very quickly. The

35:31

jury was given Landry's statement to police that

35:33

added frightening details. He said Lucy shoved him

35:36

in the kitchen. And I caught myself on

35:38

the baker's rack and I pulled myself up,

35:40

grabbed the first thing right next to my

35:42

hand which was a granite rolling pin. What

35:44

did you do with the rolling pin? I

35:47

grabbed the thing and I just swung it

35:49

and I hit her in the head with

35:51

it. She screamed, she grabbed

35:53

the head and she took off running. James

35:56

rushed to call the police and in that

35:58

call said quote I'd like

36:00

to report an urgent domestic incident.

36:03

That was an understatement. There

36:06

was blood on the walls. I would say

36:08

that it wasn't long before I got hysterical, certainly

36:10

while I was on the phone to the police.

36:13

James testified he saw blood pouring from

36:16

a wound on his mother's face. He

36:18

immediately went to protect his seven-year-old sister.

36:20

I just did what I could to

36:23

get her out of the house and

36:26

make sure she was safe. Where did you

36:28

take her? Outside we ran around into the

36:30

garden. James

36:32

didn't know that at the same time,

36:35

out there in the dark, H

36:38

was chasing down Lucy, who was desperately

36:40

trying to escape to the safety of

36:42

a neighbor's house. The neighbor

36:45

heard Lucy's screams coming from outside the

36:47

house. He raced out to help, but

36:50

it was too late. H

36:52

had caught Lucy and stabbed her

36:54

repeatedly. She collapsed and died in

36:56

the road. I

37:00

accept the fact that I've murdered my wife. I accept the

37:02

fact that I killed my wife. And

37:05

now, in court, Harold Landry

37:07

has to somehow convince the

37:09

jury that he's guilty only

37:11

of manslaughter, not murder, because

37:13

Lucy provoked him. For this

37:16

self-made millionaire, taking

37:18

the stand is the sales

37:20

job of a lifetime. H

37:22

is not a good communicator in

37:25

terms of presenting his case, arguing his

37:27

case. And I think he would not

37:29

come across well. Landry testifies

37:32

one day before his 65th

37:34

birthday. Were you

37:36

nervous? Not at all. Not at

37:38

this. Landry, since day one, has

37:40

been fairly blank-faced, fairly calm and

37:43

collected. Today, reporter Richard Vernals has

37:45

a very different story to write

37:47

about Landry. He cried three

37:49

or four times in the stand. He said

37:51

he loved his wife on at least three

37:53

occasions. Did he express remorse? Did he say

37:55

he was sorry for the attack? Did he

37:57

say, I wish I hadn't done it? a

38:00

scent belt. But Landry did

38:02

say on the stand that things

38:04

escalated when Lucy picked up the

38:06

knife first. Yeah, she grabbed

38:08

the knife off the kitchen counter. I was very

38:11

upset. What I was wanting was what the hell

38:13

was she doing? What was her intention with the knife? Landry's

38:15

lawyer says once Lucy got

38:17

the knife everything changed. Well

38:20

it clearly raised it to a different level.

38:22

This was a woman who had gone halfway

38:24

to saying, I hate you so

38:26

much, I could kill you in

38:28

this knife. On

38:31

the stand, Landry says he can't remember

38:33

key details of the attack. Do

38:35

you remember stabbing her? I

38:38

don't remember any penetration at all. None

38:40

whatsoever. But

38:42

this prosecution animation shows the

38:45

extraordinary level of violence. It

38:47

details the more than 20

38:50

knife wounds. James

38:53

witnessed age inflicting at least some of

38:55

those wounds on his mother and

38:58

it is his testimony that could now put

39:00

Landry away for the rest of his life

39:03

as the jury begins to consider

39:05

James's words and the rest

39:07

of the evidence. We understand now

39:10

that all that matters to him, all

39:12

he's interested in is money. All

39:14

he's interested in is himself. He's a

39:16

loathsome man. Many

39:26

put their hope in Dr. Serhat. His

39:28

company was worth half a billion dollars.

39:31

His research promised groundbreaking

39:33

treatments for HIV and

39:35

cancer. Scientists, doctors, renowned

39:37

experts were saying genius, genius,

39:40

genius. People that knew him were convinced that

39:42

he saved their life. But

39:44

the brilliant doctor was hiding a

39:46

secret. Do not cross

39:48

this line that was being messaged

39:51

to us. Do not cross this

39:53

line. A secret the doctor

39:55

was desperate to keep. This

39:57

was a person who was willing to hold heartedly

40:00

just lie to people's faces.

40:02

We're dealing with an

40:05

international fugitive. From

40:07

Wondery, the makers of Over My

40:09

Dead Body and The Shrink Next

40:11

Door comes a new season of

40:13

Dr. Death, Bad Magic. You

40:15

can listen to Dr. Death's Bad

40:17

Magic ad-free by subscribing to Wondery

40:20

Plus in the Wondery app or

40:22

on Apple Podcasts. Far,

40:31

far away from his old stomping

40:33

grounds in the bayou, where

40:36

Harold Landry once wriggled and wiggled

40:38

and danced his way out of

40:40

an attempted murder charge, he

40:43

now has to face the music in

40:45

a far less colorful place. Wolverhampton,

40:48

England, where he is awaiting the

40:50

verdict in his trial for murdering

40:52

his wife. Any American watching

40:55

a trial here in Britain will recognize

40:57

a lot of the procedures, but it

41:00

still feels very different. It's

41:02

also civil. There was

41:04

not one objection from either side

41:06

in the Landry case. The result?

41:09

A very tidy trial that lasted

41:11

just eight days. And the

41:13

jury was out just three hours

41:15

and 52 minutes. It

41:18

didn't take long for word of the

41:20

jury's verdict to reach the quiet streets

41:22

of Pershore, the closest town

41:24

to Landry's house. I heard about

41:26

it on the local radio. A

41:30

65-year-old American millionaire has been convicted of

41:33

murder after the death of his wife

41:35

at their home last February. Harold

41:39

Landry, guilty of

41:41

murder for stabbing his wife Lucy

41:43

more than 20 times. Things

41:46

like that don't happen in a little, Lucy

41:49

Sound, like Pershore. Landry

41:51

blames the verdict on his lawyers

41:53

whom he says were unprepared. Were

41:56

you surprised by the verdict? No, I wasn't, because it

41:58

was a pathetic dissent that we had. Well,

42:00

by pathetic, you don't mean not true, or do you? No,

42:03

no, no. It was an ill prepared defense.

42:07

Pat Fanning, who was once fired

42:09

by H. Landry, has a great

42:11

deal of sympathy for his British

42:13

lawyer. I think it would have

42:15

been impossible for almost

42:17

anybody to win that case for H.

42:19

And so he probably did the best

42:21

he could with what he had, and with

42:24

H as a client. Because you've got a little client

42:26

control problem there. Andy

42:28

Childs always knew the defense

42:30

that Lucy provoked H was

42:33

a long shot. I guess if

42:35

you stab another human

42:37

being, there must be something beyond just

42:39

what a simple act of provocation. By

42:44

American standards, this case raced through

42:46

the system, just over a year

42:49

from crime to conviction. But

42:51

for Lucy's family, it's been an

42:53

eternity. They are too overwhelmed

42:55

to speak. So outside

42:58

court, her father looks on

43:00

as a policewoman reads the

43:02

family's statement. We are relieved

43:04

with the verdict today. It has

43:06

been an extremely traumatic year for

43:08

everyone, but finally, just having done

43:10

some new things. Our

43:12

lives will never be the same. Of

43:15

course, neither will Landry's. Just one

43:17

day after his conviction, Landry learns

43:20

his sentence. At first,

43:22

the judge reads a blistering

43:24

statement. He calls the stabbing

43:27

unspeakable and unforgivable. Says

43:29

Landry dreamed up that story that

43:32

Lucy grabbed the knife first. And

43:35

he forcefully dismisses what he

43:37

calls Landry's crocodile tears on

43:40

the stand. Knowing H's I

43:42

do, I'm sure it was water off his back. I

43:44

think he could care less about what the judge said about him.

43:48

Even though that judge then sentenced Landry to

43:50

a minimum of 16 years,

43:52

a maximum of life. This

44:00

is just a different life. Landry

44:04

has had a lot of time to think about his

44:06

life and hopes people will

44:08

remember the good parts. I

44:11

have done a lot of good things, beneficial

44:13

things, donating my time

44:15

and various causes unselfishly and no one

44:17

remembers that. All they remember is I

44:20

murdered my wife. It is

44:22

kind of hard to get past the fact

44:25

that you stabbed your wife all

44:27

those times. I mean pardon me but it

44:29

is kind of hard to see past that isn't it? Well

44:31

I don't expect you to see past about it. I don't

44:33

expect you to see that I'm not a murderer. Looking

44:36

back, Landry says he's sorry for

44:38

what happened but surprisingly he says

44:40

if faced with the same situation

44:43

he'd do the same thing again. I

44:46

think I would have reacted the same way. Yes I would. Landry

44:50

knows he's hurt his family especially

44:52

the young daughter he had with

44:54

Lucy. She's now

44:56

living with a foster family

44:59

and James, Landry's stepson who

45:01

now lives with his biological

45:04

father has to safeguard his

45:06

murdered mother's legacy. I

45:09

want people to know that she

45:11

always did her best for me and

45:14

for my sister. Even

45:17

now that he's a convicted murderer, Landry

45:19

still has his friends whom he writes

45:21

to whenever he can and

45:23

many of them like Helen Nifton

45:26

are torn by what they now know. I

45:28

think some people might wonder how you can

45:30

consider him a friend if he's done this.

45:33

True friends stick by each other through thick

45:35

and thin and that's what I tend to

45:37

do. I can't condone what he's done but

45:40

he's still that human being that I knew. But

45:44

Landry is still as blunt

45:46

and plain spoken and self-confident

45:48

as the most ragin of

45:50

all Cajuns. Listen

45:52

to this final remarkable claim

45:54

from a self-made widower. Do

45:56

you still think of Lucy?

45:58

I love her. death.

46:02

If he's lucky Landry could get

46:04

out of prison in his early

46:06

80s and nobody would be shocked

46:08

if he walked free again around

46:11

the countryside of Great Britain or

46:14

the bayous of Louisiana. H

46:16

Landry is a very competitive guy he's a fighter

46:19

and he will fight to the end it would

46:21

not surprise me if we have not heard the

46:23

last of H Landry. If

46:38

you like 48 hours you can

46:40

listen early and ad-free right now

46:43

by joining Wondery Plus in the

46:45

Wondery app. Prime members can

46:47

listen ad-free on Amazon Music.

46:49

Before you go tell us

46:52

about yourself by filling out

46:54

a short survey at wondery.com/survey.

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