Loose Ends and DNA

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Hey, this is Charles with North Shore Media Group.

It's hard to believe, but we're already on episode 5 of our true crime podcast, who killed Roxane. This episode is entitled Lucins and DNA. We'll get to the DNA, let's start with Lucins, and there are plenty of them. If you haven't already listened to the other episode, stop right now, and back up. Again, thanks to everyone who is liked and shared and commented on the podcast. More than anything else, we're trying to get as many people involved in Roxane's story as we can.

With the hope that at some point, we hit the right person who might know something that can help solve Roxane's crime. And that person might not even know how valuable their information could be. Just last week, we spoke to someone who, for all these years, thought the crime had been solved. She thought, with good reason, that Henry Lee Lucas did it.

So please, keep working, keep spreading the word, and thank you.

Now, obviously, I can't really assess where you are with the story at this point. But I can assess my own thoughts, and they're definitely going in a specific direction. I've had some time to reflect on some of the assumptions I made in last week's episode, and what we learned from that episode. I keep coming back to where Roxane entered the woods for the final time.

And I reflect on the fact that we don't even know for sure if the crime was committed in the daylight or at night. But, based on what I saw at the crime scene, I'm pretty certain the crime was committed at night. Her assailants were ripping her clothes off within full view of that street. I just don't think they do that in the daytime. Even though the worst part of this awful crime occurred further into the woods,

they began assaulting her in full view of anyone who could have been on that street.

“Now, I think this crime occurred under the cover of darkness, possibly late at night, or early in the morning.”

I understand that the FBI profile, our narrator, read from last episode, is not the be all in-dall, and can be as wrong as it is right. But my mind was already headed in some of the same directions. After putting together the last episode, I wanted to ask Louisiana State police investigator Stephan Montgomery a few simple questions.

Here are some clips from the FBI profile, read by our narrator, that caught my attention, and I hope yours as well. And his responses to those ideas. There are manifestations of more than one type of personality in this crime scene. Factors indicate that at least two individuals acting in concert were responsible for

sharps death, and that others may have known of the events immediately preceding sharps death. Understand that the profile report done by the FBI is an opinion, but it's an opinion given by experts in their field. And they're looking at a variety of factors, including the pictures of the crime scene, to make that determination, and I totally agree with them that there's more than one person.

There's two or maybe more. People had to seem at the time that she was killed. The evidence tells us that. This crime scene manifests two different personalities, both of whom knew and were known to the victim.

I believe Roxanne knew her assignments. I don't think this was done by a stranger. I certainly don't think that she was picked up hitchhiking by Henry Lucas. And brought back to Covington.

“I think that she was in an area that she routinely hung out in,”

with people that she was familiar with. And I think drugs and alcohol intermingled with whatever caused

And I think there are more people out there that know that that story is true.

And they know who was there. And that's who I need to talk to.

“Another theory that's become rooted in my brain.”

There were at least two attackers, maybe more. It makes sense. After all this time, I don't think one of the assailants is going to turn and confess. For all we know, the assailants could already be dead. But I do think and hope that someone saw Roxanne

with her assailants that night. That's the individual we're looking for. Who can come forward and tell us where they saw Roxanne, when they saw Roxanne and who Roxanne was with? At this point, that might be the best information we can expect to get.

The following is a production of North Shore Media Group. Any individuals mentioned in this podcast are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. This case remains an active ongoing investigation, and all discussions are based on publicly available information,

investigative updates, and legal proceedings were applicable. The goal is to seek justice, provide awareness, and encourage the public to come forward with any relevant information. This podcast does not make any allegations of guilt against the individuals discussed, and is intended for informational purposes only.

[Music] Following on that same line of thought, I mean,

“if Roxanne knew her assailants, and I think she did,”

then you would have to look at some of the frequent lawbreakers she sometimes ran around with, what I loosely called the ozone gang. And where was the father of Roxanne's child at the time of her death? Was he a suspect? What about the other big names in the ozone

about this time? What happened to them? These are just some of the loose ends I want to explore. At the time of Roxanne's death, Tommy Watson, the father of her child,

was locked up in prison, and he was never considered a suspect in this.

I know through interviewing friends and family members of his that he took her death extremely hard, never recovered from it, and he ultimately died at a fairly young age drug and alcohol abuse. So the father of her child was imprisoned when she died, and he has died since. What about the rest of the so-called ozone gang?

What happened to them? By the time that I really dove deep into this case in 2017, a lot of the heavy hitters from that area were gone or were imprisoned. And the ozone had somewhat quieted down. And probably if you didn't know that area or lived there during that time,

most people have no idea what really went on. But Robert Willie, of course, died in the electric chair, Jova Carrow had since died in prison. Tommy Holden, who was involved with them when they kidnapped Debbie Quavus, he took his own life, paritailer, whose parents owned the Lyrod Quickstop.

He was involved with Robert Willie. They met the Dennis Hymbe at the Tavern bar that night and robbed him

and ultimately drowned him in the river.

He's what off to prison has been in and out all of his life. Tommy Watson, the father of Roxanne's child, he had died. Glenn Loper, who was a childhood friend of hers, hung around there, he died very young from an overdose. Carlos Cooper, who was another member of that gang, he had been sentenced to prison for life on a rape.

And some of the other people actually left the area and went on to be productive members of society. I mean, they didn't get in any more trouble once they got out of that area.

“But the older people remained and I consider them the key witnesses because they saw and heard”

everything that went on in that area. Yet, they chose not to talk about it. And even though most of them are dead, there are a few that are still alive. Yet, they remain tight-lipped to this day. And some people have taken this to their grave. Maybe this episode is called Lusens. It could be called Whits In because that's where I am

alive. Still, there are some things to clear up. Our circle back and answer from my story telling

“so far. Let's address a few more of them. Despite my complain a second ago, someone did come”

forward with information about Roxanne's whereabouts prior to her death. At Coveington's most notorious bar. I know we talked about the tavern and bar in downtown Coveington that all roads seem to lead back to when something bad happens. And within a day or two of her body be and found, somebody came forward and said that they had seen her at that bar within the last week or so. And that she left around midnight with two guys. So they immediately started looking into that

and tracked down the two guys who had been in the bar. They didn't necessarily knew who she was, but they said, yeah, look, she needed a ride home. We loaded her up. We brought her home. We dropped her off. They were able to tell the investigators where they brought her, what the house looked like,

and they dropped her off at her house at her mom's house in the Lake Ramsey area. And ultimately

the police interviewed several witnesses from the bar and concluded that this happened the week and before she went missing. And so that what seemed like a good lead to start fizzled out pretty quick in those guys were cleared. Stefan Montgomery had previously told us about some older men who helped Roxanne out at times. These were men who helped her and took advantage of her. Sorry, if I don't put them on a pedestal or give them a plaque is coming to its finest

“citizens. A young girl killed could one or both of them have had something to do with it?”

Had she threatened to talk, would Roxanne try to blackmail them? When people asked me to describe who Roxanne's sharp was, I call her a survivor that didn't survive because she was resourceful. And I don't know what her home life was like and why she really chose not to stay. But she was a wanderer. She had people that looked after her and would take

care of her, but she never stayed in one place very long. But she stayed within that community.

And she had two men who were much older than her. That did that for her. They, you know, gave her rides, bought her food. One of them paid her tuition to go to school and really wanted to see her succeed and the other one gave her drugs. But all of that came with a price. And when you

“live on the streets, that's, that's the way it is for many people. Okay. So what about these guys?”

Were they investigated? Were they cleared? They were. This two men played a part in her life for a short amount of time. And they've long since been deceased, but they were investigated and they were cleared of any wrongdoing. Found not to have any role in her death early on. Another loose end and this is a big one has to do with the conversation Roxanne had with her mother right before she disappeared. It had to do with an overdose of someone she knew.

One of the last conversations Roxanne had with her mother before she left home was she was really troubled about a recent death of a guy named Freddie Dash. And Freddie was a local guy who hung around with that crew. They were all involved in, you know, drugs back then. But he overdosed and died and she was deeply troubled by that. And she made a comment to her mom that she had information that his death was not an overdose. It was a murder. And she didn't elaborate on it any

more. And we may never know what information that she had. But it just adds one more layer

onto an already complicated investigation where everybody involved in this is suspect. All right, so not exactly clearing up a loose end there and probably never will. And here is a doozy of a loose end. And it requires going all the way back to Robert Willey and his connection to Roxanne Sharp. So the question is what's the connection between Robert Willey and Roxanne Sharp?

several directions that you go and the tie these people together. And one of them is

“in between the time that Robert Willey and Joe Vicarro killed Faith Hathaway and kidnapped Debbie”

Quavus and Mark Brewster was about a week time. They borrowed a truck from Roxanne's brother. And they used that truck on the night that they kidnapped Debbie Quavus and Mark Brewster. They were in the truck when they drove to Madisonville. They pulled up behind him, got out with guns.

Basically, went up to Mark Brewster's car, which was a 78 Thunderbird. And they got in the

jumped in the car with him, held him at Gunpla when he took off and left the truck in Madisonville. Part on the lakefront. And once they came back and things kind of started unraveling, Joe Vicarro's grandmother reached out to Donald Sharp and said, "Hey, his mom got a phone call. He's trying to get some money. They're trying to get out of town." And so people started kind of figuring out that, hey, all these incidents are tied together.

And at that point, Debbie Quavus had reported this to the police. And she told him that the Joe Vicarro had told him that the truck was at Fairview State Park, which is just a stone's throw away from where they were kidnapped. But they had moved the truck and they were in Fairview State Park and they were making some phone calls to family members trying to get money. They were trying to get out of town.

And ultimately Robert Willie's mom did get some money and got them out of town. So that's the

connection between the two, where these two stories on that level. But also, Roxian was very good friend with Joe Vicarro's half brother. And he lived there in the ozone. And they were around the same age. They were a little younger than the rest of this crowd. And it was a guy by the name of Glenn Loper. He's deceased now. But they were very good friends. And so all of these people went in and out of the ozone because their family was there. They had some type of family member

that lived there. And they all knew each other. So when he turns Quavus loose, and then they're asking

for money. How quick a timetable was that? They're trying to get out of town, basically. Next the next day.

“Yeah. Or as they, really, I don't even think it was the next day. I think as they turned her loose,”

they start scrambling. And they're figuring out what their next move is. Donald Sharp and some conversations I had with him indicated that the only person that wanted to let her loose was Robert Willie. That there were others that were like you can't do that. Does that in your mind speak to his, I guess, place among some of these other guys? I mean, the fact that, I mean, because it was going to affect Macaro at the same time?

Well, it depends on if you believe Robert Willie or not. At this point, he's trying to do some damage control. If you listen to Debbie Quavus, who is much more credible witness than Robert Willie, she will tell you that Tommy Holden would not let them kill her. They took her to Fricky's Cave. They took her to the same location where they had killed Faith Hathaway and they ended up not killing her. They raped her there, but they didn't kill her. They actually

brought her several places, but that was one that they went to. Now, you know, the conversations that happened in front of her may have been different conversations that they ultimately had, but in her official statement, she said that it was Tommy Holden who actually told them no or at least at his house. You and I have spoken about this before, but not in front of a microphone, was there any thought at that time that when you saw that connection with the truck,

wouldn't it have been natural for investigators at that time to say maybe there was, was there possibly

“a connection between Robert Willie and the death of Roxanne Sharp? Well, I think because of the”

relationships between these families and members, it wasn't uncommon for someone to borrow a truck, because in going back and reading some of the statements, Roxanne's brother was trying to get a truck back. He didn't know where his truck was. He wasn't involved in it, and from that, I think maybe they just assumed that those associations existed and it wasn't, you know, it wasn't a lot to it.

that truck and the death of Roxanne. So they're looking back through the case file. There was some

information or some theories that Robert Willie may have orchestrated a hit from jail contributed to the death of Roxanne because the truck that they used was her brothers and, you know, because they're now caught up in jail, maybe as a retaliation. I've looked at that extensively, and I've looked at the relationships and I've done interviews with people that sort of dispel that. Although Robert Willie didn't run in the same circle as Roxanne sharp through her connection

with Glenn Loper. From what I'm told, he liked Roxanne. We didn't find anything to prove that.

One thing I know for certain about the crime scene is that it was a little bit of a mess for the

criminals. They left forensic evidence everywhere. The FBI called them unsophisticated. When it came to covering up their crime, that's dead on, except the bodies set out there for a few days, except that it rained, except that the public has generally been unwilling to provide

“information about the crime. That's what has allowed them to get away with it so far. But I also know”

what might real them back in. It could be their DNA. So my name is Mary White. I'm a professor in biological sciences at Southeastern. I got most of my education at the University of Texas at Austin, both my bachelor's and my PhD there. I did some postdocs in mostly DNA based work in Southern California, and then I moved here in 1991, and I've been here since 1991. Stefan Montgomery and I have not gone too far down the DNA rabbit hole. I do have an opportunity

to talk with the St. Tamony Corners office during the next week. Stefan will tell me much, except that they are working on something for him involving this case. So let's be realistic. There's not going to be much. They'll be able to tell me about it, but I'm looking forward to trying. An anticipation of that. I enlisted the help of a scientist at Southeastern, Louisiana University. To help me understand what I should be asking about. She had a work cut out for her.

I was going to English and I was going to history. That's so much science.

Yeah, I loved English too. And math. So DNA for dummies for a second. If you were just, if I was

“a student at a very low level class on the first day and you were explaining DNA, what would you say?”

So, and I'm going to bias it toward the kinds of questions you're going to probably be asking me about anyway. So of course, you know, DNA is the genetic material, and it consists of four different kinds of chemicals. And those are abbreviated with the letter A, C, G, and T, which stands for doesn't matter, adenium, thymine, sizing, guanies. It doesn't matter, but anyway, so they're abbreviated A, C, G, T. And the important thing about DNA is it's an extremely long molecule, and it's specific

sequences of A's and C's and G's and T. So it might be A, C, G, A, T, C, A, G, C, T, and so on. And so just very long molecules. And those are read by cells to encode information that's used to do things like build proteins, for example. And so it controls our genetics because most of our genetics, it controls our genetics because differences in proteins might lead to someone who has, say, muscles that work really well versus someone who has muscular dystrophy, for example. So it is those sequences of A's and

“C's and G's and T's that are important. And each of our sequences are unique, unless you happen”

having identical twin, in which case it might be a little tiny bit different, but essentially identical. So this is how DNA can be used to identify suspects because my DNA and your DNA are very different, not very different, but different. My DNA and my sister's DNA are different and so on. And this particular case that we're talking about is 42 plus your old case. DNA was collected or things were collected at the scene. What would the challenges be of maintaining that evidence

from now, from then until now? So it completely depends on what kind of evidence they collected. One of the things about DNA is that the enzymes that break down DNA or even things like sunlight, that break down DNA often require, I'm going to say, water, but aquatic, the enzymes work in an aquatic environment. So our cells are all full of water, for example. And so if you had some evidence that was dried, like, for example, potentially skin cells that had like, doff might be dried, and that might

when they dry maybe, but it really depends on how they're stored and how they're treated and so on.

“There was skin to her fingernails, would that be something that would be you would be able to maintain”

over time? So what would normally happen is that you would either take samples like that and keep them in a freezer at very low temperatures, or you might sometimes store them in alcohol, for example, like we're able to take museum specimens and I work on things like amphibians and reptiles, and you could take a museum specimen of a lizard that had been stored in alcohol for 42 years and get DNA out of it. It might not be perfect DNA, but you could get it out of it. So

but I don't know that in 1982, they would have done that. They probably would have put samples in freezer or something along those lines. All right, so plenty to learn here. I asked Mary, what the realistic chances were that there might be some way to tie evidence found at the scene to someone's DNA now. If you start with good material, it's very fast, cheap, and easy to get lots of information now, but that's probably the issue is how good the material they're starting with

this. So let's say the material is not great, can they still get information that would be actionable? It really depends on how not great it is. And so when we look at DNA of any cell, any, well, I'll say animal cell, it's much more than that, but so we have what we call our

“main DNA which is called nuclear DNA, it's in the nucleus of the cell, and that's what we think”

of as the real genetic information. And then there are these little things called organelles called mitochondria, every time anyone knows mitochondria, they say, oh, that's the power house of the cell, sort of thing. And that has its own DNA. And each cell has lots of mitochondria, and each mitochondria, and has multiple copies of its little, it's a little circular DNA. And if a sample is degraded, mitochondrial DNA is the easy one to get.

Again, with good reason, this is one of the areas where Stefan Montgomery has not told me much. I don't know what type of DNA they have. I don't know what kind of shape it is in. All I know is that they have something. There is some type of play being made on the DNA front. I just don't know what it is. From what I learned from Mary White, I just suspect that the absolute match we expect from DNA these days is probably asking too much.

Maybe. It's fairly easy to get DNA sequence from mitochondria. Even if it's kind of degraded, it depends on how degraded it is.

But the problem is, is that cousins might have identical mitochondria of the

DNA. Siblings probably have identical mitochondrial DNA. Mothers and children have identical mitochondrial DNA. So you can't say, I'm 99.99% sure that this mitochondrial DNA came from this person, because it could have come from that person's sister, or brother, or cousin, or whatever, mother, whatever. Whereas nuclear DNA, because we get half of it from our mother and half of it from

“our father, and it mixes up in different ways. That's why each person's DNA other than identical”

twins, each person's DNA is unique. And so when you start analyzing the nuclear DNA, if you look at enough different places in that DNA, you can say, okay, well, there's a one and a hundred chance that this came from this person. And there's a one in 350 chance that this did, and this did, and this didn't, and then they multiply all these probabilities,

and they come up with numbers like, there's a one in seven billion, three hundred, twenty-eight,

whatever chance that this didn't come from this person. And so you can be pretty certain about a particular individual using nuclear DNA. But although the techniques have gotten better, the more degraded the nuclear DNA is, the less likely you are to get really nice, pretty results from that. Let's say they're using the other type of DNA, not the nuclear or the mitochondrial. Okay, even so you could identify a suspect's family from that DNA correctly.

So what I would say, and again, to hedge a little bit, is if they sequence the mitochondrial DNA and they sequence someone, you know, a sibling or this suspect, if they sequence those two things, if they were not the same, it would be really easy to say, this is not the right person. It is dice year to say this is the right person, but you could say certainly, I mean, like if you took, so this happened in Covington, let's say, if you took all these people

in Covington and did their mitochondrial DNA, randomly, some people might be the same just

reason to suspect a person, and it turned out identical to theirs, you would have even stronger reason to suspect that person. Okay. So maybe the DNA could rule out suspects. Maybe it could get us in the ballpark of the guilty parties. Again, this is yet another example of Roxanne's killers catching a break and Roxanne's murder remaining unsolved. If this crime happened today, I mean, knowing the little bit that you know about it,

there was evidence all over the place in terms of the same, would they have a hard time connecting

“the person to them? So again, the only thing would be that they have to have a sample of that”

person. So if they have a sample of that person's DNA, they would have no trouble connecting the person to the same. I mean, DNA is definitive. If you have skin under fingernails, seamen, things like that, and you have a suspect, and you can get a sample of DNA from that suspect, or that suspect's sister or mother or whatever, rather just mentioning ones. But you could absolutely connect it. I want to thank Dr. Wyatt and South Eastern Louisiana University for being

available on very short notice to explain DNA to a lay person. The DNA in this case is the ultimate loose end. I know this much. Some of the evidence taken from the scene of Roxanne's murder was in a freezer. The evidence was lost when Hurricane Katrina roared through. How much remains, and its value to the case is only known by a select few people, and I am not one of them. DNA or not, Stefan Montgomery thinks he's got a bead on where answers to the many questions

about this case can still be found in the ozone, or from people who were connected to the ozone

“in 1982. I would have to say that some of the key witnesses to what really happened were the”

elders of that community that lived up in the ozone because they saw and heard everything. But they remained tight-lipped because it was either their family members involved, or they were scared of the retaliation, or they were just brought up not to talk about those things. And a lot of those people took this to their grave. Even now, in the people that I have talked to

since this podcast, kids and grandkids of these people, they know the story, but they never

really knew the details, and they're asking the same questions that we are, and they're getting the same answers. We don't talk about it. It's mind-boggling.

“Stefan Montgomery has been pretty deliberate about what he says in response to the questions and”

opinions I'm constantly throwing his way, but you can hear some frustration in that response. Andy did say this. I get asked pretty regularly. Well, what's your opinion on what happened to rocks in short? And I'll tell you, I don't have an opinion because I'm very evident-spaced

in my conclusions. But here's what I'll tell you from my experience growing up in this area

and living in the country. Because we had an old saying that these people on a Friday night, if they couldn't find somebody to fight, they'd fight each other. And that's very true. But if somebody came in from the outside and started troubled, they were in for way more than they bargained for. And so I say that to say this, if someone would have come in from the outside and killed rocks in short, the entire ozone community would be out looking for them.

But by the fact that they closed the doors and windows and pulled the blinds and acted like it never

happened, it tells me that I'm in the right place. Who killed rocks in is a North Shore media group production? New episodes drop weekly, original music by Crestley Colora, connect with the podcast online at WhoKilledRocksand.com.

[email protected].