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[theme music] NARRATOR: In Louisiana lies
an area of desolate swampland known as Whiskey Bay.
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Midway between Lafayette
and Baton Rouge, it belongs to the Atchafalaya
River Basin,
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the largest swamp
in the United States, covering more than
a million acres. LESLIE BRADFORD: It's a very
rural location, very swampy,
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a lot of open land. It's not developed. NARRATOR: Across
Whiskey Bay runs the Atchafalaya Basin
bridge, carrying
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the Interstate 10 Highway. It's America's third
longest bridge. But this area is infamous
for another reason.
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RONNIE HEBERT: During
the daytime and nighttime, it is known to be a lot
of traffic on the interstate.
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But once you leave
that interstate, it's total darkness. It's a very secluded
area, and at nighttime,
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you can't see your hand
in front of your face. It's just that dark
out in that area.
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LESLIE BRADFORD:
Because of how dark it can be, it's easy for people
to travel this area
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and sometimes try to conceal
evidence, or bodies. [tense music] It was around 11 o'clock AM, I
was notified through dispatch
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and was informed that there
was a body in Whiskey Bay. And once I got
that call, I just
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stepped up, went into duty,
and proceeded to the body. RONNIE HEBERT: I
get a phone call.
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It's a female called
in by a fisherman. Lo and behold, I head out
to the Whiskey Bay Area.
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NARRATOR: The body was floating
in the middle of the swampland, so the only way detectives
could access it was by boat.
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- When I made it here,
the boat was already here. The fire department
boat was here.
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And the chief
of the fire department, who's also a coroner
investigator, was the one rowing the boat.
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[tense music] This is where we
launched the boat at for the fire department. This is where we deployed it.
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NARRATOR: It was
a race against time. Investigators needed to find
the body before vital evidence
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was destroyed. [water splashes] SARAH MORMINO: Swampy
areas like this tend to be high
bacteria environments,
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usually warm, full
of different aquatic animals. RONNIE HEBERT: You got
alligators, you got snakes.
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You got everything. You got fish, you got crawfish. So the quicker we get to that
body, the better off for us
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because it can change
a scene real quick. SARAH MORMINO: They are
likely to eat or at least
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nibble on the evidence. What trauma did
this environment now cause to the body. NARRATOR: The shallow depth
of the swamp also meant much
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warmer water temperatures. RONNIE HEBERT: During
that time of the year, April is starting to warm,
a terrible factor for a body.
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Decomposition can
start immediately. JIM CARUSO: One of the more
common things that
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happens with postmortem
decomposition and is enhanced often
in the water environment,
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is the sloughing of the skin. Since we identify
a lot of bodies by fingerprints,
if the skin of the hands
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is sloughing off
and decomposing, it's very challenging to get
appropriate fingerprints
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that are usable
for identifying a body. RONNIE HEBERT:
On the interstate, there's a mile marker for each
section of the interstate.
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And we were told it
was around the 130 to 132-mile marker area. So we head West and lo
and behold, around the 131-132
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is where we located the body. LESLIE BRADFORD: It was
a young Caucasian female that was partially
submerged in the water.
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RONNIE HEBERT: When we pull
up to the body, we slow down. We go slow
because we don't want
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to make any wave because that
will create a wave. And it will also
affect the crime
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scene as well
if there's anything laying next to the body. So we ease up on it. And the body was
submerged partially,
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but it was face down. As we pulled up to the body. I noticed there was
a cluster of trees,
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like little young trees that
were growing up in that water right there. SARAH MORMINO: The decedent
was observed to be caught up
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in several
of the cypress trees, the stumps and branches that
were present within this body
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of water. Areas such as these
are not easily accessible to most people,
which leads investigators
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to think there is no way
she could have naturally gotten to that position. - I'm looking around.
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I'm trying to figure out,
where did she come from? How did she get here? I'm looking for another boat.
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Is there a boat wreck? You know, there's
a boat capsized? I don't see any of that.
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NARRATOR: But investigators
noticed something strange about one of the trees. RONNIE HEBERT: On that tree,
I remember specifically
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seeing branches were broken. So I look up, and there's
the Interstate. And at that particular point
in time where she's at, when
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I'm looking up, it's
probably a 20 to 25-foot drop from the top of that bridge. Automatically, I
thought she was thrown
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over the top of the bridge. Initially, I thought
it could have been a possible car
accident and somebody
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got ejected over the edge. NARRATOR: What they
discovered next raised more questions about this theory.
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RONNIE HEBERT: Once myself
and the guy from the fire department turned
her body over,
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we realized she was
completely nude. Just a nude deceased body. There's no way this
person can just
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pop up there out of the blue. Something had to happen. NARRATOR: They removed
the body from the water
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to investigate further. RONNIE HEBERT: I
grabbed her ankles and the coroner grabbed
her up under their arms.
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And we lifted her up and we
placed her in a body bag inside of the boat with us.
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This is where we returned
and brought her body up, where the coroner
pronounced her dead.
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From there, we took
her to the morgue. LESLIE BRADFORD: The next
thing that we need to do
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is try to identify who
this young lady is. She's naked in the middle
of nowhere, no identification.
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So we have
to identify her so we can start trying
to work back and try to see and figure
out what has
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happened to this young lady. She did have some
tattoos that we were able to look at and try
to see if we could add anything
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in the database
for tattoos or anything like that, skin markings. However, there was nothing
that would have identified her.
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NARRATOR: Then pathologists
provided a breakthrough. MICHELLE DUPRE: In this
case, the fingerprints
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were relatively preserved. Had she been in the water
longer than that, they may have been obliterated.
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And oftentimes, bodies
in water get something we call washerwoman fingers. And it's like when you are
in the bathtub too long
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and your skin begins
to wrinkle up, then it may be impossible
to get fingerprints until we're
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able to puff up those ridges. We will do that by taking
a hypodermic needle and putting saline very
lightly under the skin,
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just to make that rich detail
in the skin more accessible to doing fingerprints.
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- Thank God we
found her when we did, because have she
been in there a couple more days or longer,
decomposition sets in,
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it might have been impossible
other than dental record. We actually got lucky
with it because we got
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fingerprints off that body. NARRATOR: While fingerprint
databases were searched,
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the team uncovered
something else. LESLIE BRADFORD: We
learned about a traffic accident that had also
occurred on the bridge
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in the general area. And we had to rule
that out because you never know if that crash had
something to do with this body.
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NARRATOR: One of the occupants
had a criminal history. RONNIE HEBERT: One
of them was known
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to be arrested
for transportation and prostitution. So, you know, was she
kidnapped and was she
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a victim of sex trafficking? Everything started
going through our head. You know, human trafficking
make your hair on the back
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of your neck stand up. JONI JOHNSTON:
Human trafficking is something that's been a huge
problem in the United States
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as well as abroad. And it essentially involves
forcing often young women into having sex for money.
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It can involve
kidnapping victims and then trafficking
them and taking them from state to state.
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But from a trafficker
perspective, the commodity,
of course, is the victim. And so you don't tend to see
murders in human trafficking
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situations, unless
it's a drug overdose, or it's a bad date
that's gone too far,
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or there's been some kind of
conflict between the pimp and the victim. NARRATOR: But when the
fingerprint results came back,
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they revealed the victim was
28-year-old mother of two Elizabeth Ferrell,
a store assistant
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with no known
connections to sex trafficking or prostitution. Blood found in the suspicious
accident vehicle
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also raised doubts. RONNIE HEBERT: The DNA
was not for Ms. Ferrell. Absolutely nothing
to do with that crash.
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NARRATOR: But Elizabeth
Ferrell's identification raised another major question. - When it first
came back, and we
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realized she was
from Humble, Texas, I was like, why she's
here from Humble, Texas?
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The city of Humble,
Texas lies 230 miles West of where Elizabeth was found. LESLIE BRADFORD:
Our next step is
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trying to figure out how did
she get from Texas to here. - Why is she here? And we're missing
a few pieces here,
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and we need to put
those pieces together to complete this puzzle. NARRATOR: In Whiskey
Bay, Louisiana,
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detectives are investigating
after the naked body of a woman was found in a swamp beneath
Interstate Highway 10.
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Fingerprints reveal the woman
is 28-year-old mother of two, Elizabeth Ferrell, who lived
230 miles away in Texas.
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So how did she get here? RONNIE HEBERT: I'm
looking on the bank, I don't see anything
disturbed on the banks.
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So I get my detective
out, and I had him scour that bank to look
for anything that stood out
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that possibly could
have been telling us why this body is in this water. Because all we had was
a body in the water
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laying near a bunch
of branches, and there was nothing near it. There's absolutely zero.
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NARRATOR: As the crime
scene offered no more clues, police had to rule
out other options.
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Could the current of the river
have brought Elizabeth's body here from further upstream?
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[water splashes] SIMON BOXALL:
Trying to determine exactly the path of a body
in this region is difficult.
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In this region,
the flow is steady, and that can transport
a body quite a long distance
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and certainly put it
into various inlets and creeks and leave it stranded
there for some time.
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RONNIE HEBERT: If there
goes any current in the water at all, it's going
to move that body from where
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it was originally dumped at. So it makes finding
the original drop site a little more difficult.
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- You've also got mangroves,
you've got islands, you've got levees. These are all obstructions.
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These are all issues that would
cause a body to get stuck. It's a bit like a sort
of a random walk effect.
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Certainly tracking
a body in this area is difficult because it
is so complex. - The area where
the body was located,
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the tides
and the water level can also affect how things stay,
how they float, how they move.
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However, at that
time, the water was very calm so you could
tell that she had not moved.
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NARRATOR: Investigators look
to Elizabeth's postmortem for answers. MICHELLE DUPRE:
In Elizabeth's case,
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when the body was
examined, there were injuries to Elizabeth's
body around the head
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and around the chest. There was blunt force
trauma, and what that means is that Elizabeth was hit with
some type of a blunt object,
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causing damage and bruises. This was a violent attack. There were bruises along
the neck in particular.
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This leads us to think
that maybe there was some type
of strangulation, where the hands are placed
around the person's neck
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and the neck is squeezed. Then that person will become
unconscious and eventually die.
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RONNIE HEBERT: The pathologist
ruled the cause of death would have been asphyxiation
by strangulation.
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NARRATOR: The pathologist made
another intriguing discovery. MICHELLE DUPRE:
Lividity is basically
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the pooling of the blood. When we lay
in a certain fashion, blood pools to the lowest
point of gravity.
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In Elizabeth's case, there
was a lividity pattern that showed she
had not been killed
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and then dumped immediately. Because the lividity had set or
been fixed, once she's moved,
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that lividity doesn't change. She was kept
someplace on her back in order to allow that
lividity to be set.
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In this case, likely the trunk
of a car for several hours before she was actually
dumped where she was found.
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RONNIE HEBERT:
The pathologist determination was that she was
murdered before she
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was placed in the water. NARRATOR:
Investigators were now convinced Elizabeth
had been murdered
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and her body dumped off
the interstate highway bridge. [sinister music] LESLIE BRADFORD: We were able
to go forward with the fact
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that it was definitely
ruled a homicide, and there was
definitely foul play. MICHELLE DUPRE: This
type of strangulation
00:15:38
is a type of death that is
very up close and personal. That gives us an indication
for what direction
00:15:45
to take the investigation. It's very likely that
she knew her killer and perhaps knew them well.
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NARRATOR: Detectives
put Elizabeth's life under the microscope,
speaking to those
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who knew her, including
best friend, Shannon. SHANNON PHARIS: I
received a phone call and
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he left a message, and so I
immediately called him back and I just said, hi,
my name is Shannon.
00:16:12
You just called me about Liz. Is she OK? And his response was,
no, ma'am, she's dead.
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My first reaction,
of course, is tears started streaming down my face. I want to scream bloody murder.
00:16:25
And I was ready to go
pull on my dad's hunting rifles out
of his safe and go hunt this bleep-bleep down.
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NARRATOR: To find out
who the killer was, investigators needed to dig
into Elizabeth's past.
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SHANNON PHARIS: She
was actually probably my first, what I would
guess you could call
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best friend in my adult life. She was so petite. She was just-- she looked like
a little living walking doll.
00:16:52
But she was just always
upbeat and chipper. She never really had a bad
thing to say about anybody.
00:16:59
NARRATOR: Life hadn't
been easy for Elizabeth. Her mother died
when she was 18. - Her mother was deceased.
00:17:06
Her father was not
in the picture. And we learned that she
had a tough upbringing.
00:17:10
But she was-- she
was a fighter. She fought. - I think that's what
she was so resilient.
00:17:16
She was so resilient because
of her tougher upbringing that she did have. She had to be.
00:17:23
NARRATOR: In 2005, she
met Jonathan Allee. SHANNON PHARIS: They
had met at a restaurant,
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and actually when
they first met, he was really sweet and really
gentle, really kind to her.
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And that's where she
fell in love with him. NARRATOR: The couple
got married and moved to New
Orleans to set up a bar.
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JONI JOHNSTON: It
seemed like it was a fairly decent relationship. However, she finds
out she's pregnant
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and this puts a hold on all
their plans in New Orleans and they feel like they
need some financial support.
00:17:53
It may be emotional
support as well, at least from Jonathan's perspective. So they decide to move
back to Humble, Texas.
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SHANNON PHARIS: He really
wasn't able to hold a steady job very often. The best job he had, he
was welding somewhere
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and he wound up breaking
his arm and couldn't work. So he lost the job. And then they wound up losing
where they were living.
00:18:11
They were living
in a trailer home at the time and they moved in with
his grandmother.
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JONI JOHNSTON: It
creates a huge strain in the relationship
between Liz and Jonathan
00:18:24
for a number
of different reasons. She gives birth to her
first child in 2010, and I think that Liz really
feels incredibly alone and
00:18:33
lonely in the sense that
Jonathan's grandmother is doting, is an understatement
I think in terms
00:18:39
of her relationship with him. No woman is good enough
for her precious Jonathan,
00:18:44
and I think Liz really
feels Jonathan's grandmother doesn't like her and that
she's not welcome there.
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SHANNON PHARIS: I think it
mainly was kind of she's taking my son away kind of thing.
00:18:55
She did not like
Liz for anything. NARRATOR: Despite
the tensions, in 2015, the couple had
a second daughter.
00:19:05
RONNIE HEBERT: According to the
people we spoke to over there, they said that she always
told them that the grandmother
00:19:11
said she was a bad mother. She just felt like
she had no life there. She was very isolated from
the rest of the family.
00:19:18
She did a lot
of gaming, and that's what I think was her way out. SHANNON PHARIS: She was always
talking about her games and
00:19:27
the people that she
was meeting on there, and she seemed to make
friends right and left.
00:19:31
It didn't really
matter who they were or where they were from
or anything like that.
00:19:35
She could just make friends. JONI JOHNSTON: She increasingly
is turning to gaming,
00:19:40
I think, as a way
to escape the environment that she's living in. And I think
increasingly she finds
00:19:47
that that's her only outlet
at home, a way for her to feel pleasure and to have
fun and not to feel all
00:19:54
of this dislike and stress. She's beginning
to have conversations. She's revealing more about
herself and her situation.
00:20:05
She's becoming flirtatious
with a couple of guys online. SHANNON PHARIS:
When I found out
00:20:13
that she was actually starting
to meet people outside that she had met online, I
actually got kind of worried
00:20:18
about her because you
never know what you're going to actually come across. They can be one thing online
and completely different
00:20:23
in person, and I didn't
feel comfortable with that. And so I made
a point to make sure
00:20:27
it's like if you
have any problems, if you don't feel safe,
if you don't feel comfortable,
00:20:31
call me. I'll be there in a heartbeat. JONI JOHNSTON: This can
be very, very risky.
00:20:36
At the same time,
you know, I wonder how much the situation
that Liz was in, in terms of feeling so isolated
and so unhappy and so lonely,
00:20:46
that for her, it was worth it. NARRATOR: Could
Elizabeth's killer be a gamer she'd met online?
00:20:53
Or was it someone
closer to home? [sinister music] [tense music] In Whiskey Bay, Louisiana,
investigators now
00:21:10
know murdered mother
of two, Elizabeth Ferrell, was strangled before
being dumped in swampland.
00:21:18
They reach out to her husband
and father of her children, Jonathan Allee. RONNIE HEBERT: I asked him
if he knew Elizabeth Ferrell.
00:21:27
He said, "yes, I do." I said, "well,
unfortunately, I hate to do this over a telephone,
but we have located
00:21:34
her here in Louisiana." And I told him, I
said, "it's not good." I said, "she's deceased."
00:21:40
And his reaction to me
on the phone was like, kind of blew me away. He was like, "really?
00:21:47
Louisiana? Why is she over there?" And I thought that was strange. JONI JOHNSTON:
It's extremely odd
00:21:55
and not something that I
think most investigators see as the first reaction to
hearing that your loved one has
00:22:03
been found deceased,
out of state, unclothed, in a body of water. When investigators
find somebody
00:22:13
who is so out of the norm,
it's always a red flag. RONNIE HEBERT: I say,
"how did she get here?"
00:22:18
He said, "I don't know. She left here a week ago
and she just came up missing." - He did not give
us any indication
00:22:23
as to why Elizabeth would be in
Louisiana, how Elizabeth would have been in Louisiana,
or how long Elizabeth
00:22:30
would have been in Louisiana. - I'm like, this just
don't sound right. So there was actually
a police officer
00:22:35
from Texas that went to that
house at the time I called him. He stepped outside and I
said, "between me and you,
00:22:44
the reaction I'm hearing
over the telephone--" before I could
finish my comment,
00:22:48
he said, "I'm seeing
the same thing you're hearing, zero remorse." [tense music]
00:22:55
LESLIE BRADFORD: Some
of the things that he did tell us was concerning
the fact that his wife had not
00:23:00
been seen by him, by his
own admission, in a week, and she has two young children.
00:23:05
If, as a parent, you go missing
with two young children, the other parent is most
times concerned about where
00:23:13
that parent may or may not be. We expect to have some sort
of missing persons report
00:23:18
by a family member. However, that was not done. NARRATOR: Detectives uncovered
something else concerning
00:23:26
about the couple's marriage. RONNIE HEBERT: They learned
through friends and co-workers
00:23:33
that she was in a very
volatile relationship. She came to work with
a scratches and bruises on her
00:23:40
from time to time,
and she would tell them that the person
she was living with was very violent toward her.
00:23:48
SHANNON PHARIS: He really
started getting physical, and there was one
time she came in.
00:23:51
She had a black eye. Both lips were
busted and she almost lost her two front teeth.
00:23:55
He hit her with a casted hand
and that's when he really started getting really bad.
00:24:01
We all tried to get her
to call the police on him, because at least it would get
him away from her, or maybe her
00:24:06
and the girls to a safer point. But she just wouldn't
do it because she did still care about him
and he would apologize
00:24:12
profusely afterwards. And, the same old rigmarole. JONI JOHNSTON: Where we
had this kind vicious cycle
00:24:19
of violence
followed by remorse, we oftentimes can see this
progression of violence
00:24:24
over time, being
less and less sorry, more and more
blaming on the victim that they somehow
caused this to happen.
00:24:31
One of the things that we've
discovered in the recent years is just what a marker that in
a predictor that is for danger.
00:24:39
- We did want to look
at Jonathan Allee a little bit harder and making
sure that we cooperate
00:24:45
everything that he said. NARRATOR: Jonathan was
brought in for questioning. - Two of my detectives
went over there
00:24:55
and they spoke to him. - When they got to meet Mr.
Allee for the first time in person, it wasn't
the exact same story he
00:25:11
was telling me over the phone. So there was a lot
of inconsistencies. - Initially, he told us that
he hadn't seen her a week.
00:25:22
And then it turned to, well,
he saw her on Thursday, and it went from there. - He said that he
heard the baby crying.
00:25:40
The young one crying. He went in there and learned
that Elizabeth wasn't there anymore.
00:25:53
And he hadn't seen her since. NARRATOR: This was the first
time Jonathan revealed
00:26:03
his marriage was on the rocks. RONNIE HEBERT: During
that phone call with him, he didn't mention anything
about like the relationship
00:26:09
or anything like that. The two detectives
that did speak to him, he told them that they hadn't
been intimate in a few years,
00:26:16
and they had some problems
in the marital situation. - You could tell
that he was a little
00:26:46
uneasy in talking to the
detectives about the situation. NARRATOR: With no hard
evidence against him,
00:27:05
Elizabeth's husband
was free to go. But then there was
a development that would turn
00:27:12
the investigation on its head. - She was actually
meeting people online and trying to find somebody
to help her escape,
00:27:21
get her to another state even. And she actually did
go on a couple of dates with some people
she met online.
00:27:28
RONNIE HEBERT:
Well, she was gaming with one online from Oklahoma. And this guy actually came
in from Oklahoma to Texas
00:27:36
to Humble and met her, and they
spent a night at a hotel. So here we go. Was it domestic or was
it something else?
00:27:48
Was it this guy came down
who's a serial killer from God knows where that preyed upon
this young lady and killed her.
00:27:55
So it back to square one again. We know we got a murder. Now we got to figure
out who is the murderer.
00:28:05
JONI JOHNSTON: It is
risky to meet somebody that we don't know, that we've
never met in person online,
00:28:11
less so in a public place. But to meet somebody
in a hotel or a place where you're going to be
intimate for the first time,
00:28:16
I think, can be seen as risky. This guy could be a stalker. He could be a predator.
00:28:21
There have been plenty
of cases of people who've been catfished, and they think
they're getting one person,
00:28:26
and then somebody
turns up who's nothing like they said they
were going to, or even worse.
00:28:31
But she is willing
to take a risk. LESLIE BRADFORD: We
were able to determine who that person was.
00:28:39
We were able to make contact
with that person via telephone. RONNIE HEBERT: When he heard
that we had found Elizabeth
00:28:46
here in Louisiana deceased,
his reaction to us was 100 times more emotional
than her actual husband.
00:28:57
And we knew immediately
upon speaking to him he could prove where he was at. He had an alibi.
00:29:03
We knew for a fact he
had never came anywhere near the state of Louisiana. - And we were able
to eliminate him
00:29:10
as a suspect in this homicide. NARRATOR: Investigators
once again zeroed-in on Jonathan Allee.
00:29:19
They needed to place him
on the interstate highway bridge over Whiskey
Bay and work out
00:29:24
his motive for coming here. [water splashes] SARAH MORMINO: The body of
water, along with the bridge,
00:29:35
is a pretty isolated area, with
only two exits on an 18-mile road leading to that location.
00:29:41
Given the remote
location of Whiskey Bay, it's not uncommon
for investigators to see body dumps.
00:29:47
RONNIE HEBERT: We've got calls
in that area before them. Years ago, there
was a serial killer
00:29:51
working that area, dumping
bodies off in that area. NARRATOR: What could draw
a killer to these waters
00:29:59
230 miles from Texas? LESLIE BRADFORD: During
the time of this homicide, there was a TV
show that we were
00:30:07
featured on that
aired early 2016, that talked about our geography. And, you know,
how people discard
00:30:18
bodies and things
in our area based on the geography of our area. - It featured bodies being
dumped at Whiskey Bay
00:30:28
here in Louisiana,
in our parish. Possibly he may have
watched that show. NARRATOR: Further
findings from the autopsy
00:30:35
confirmed the police's theory
that Elizabeth was dropped over the side of the bridge.
00:30:41
MICHELLE DUPRE: Elizabeth
had puncture wounds that were from
the branches of trees,
00:30:45
indicating she was pushed
off or thrown off the bridge. Her body hit those
and they would
00:30:51
cause postmortem injuries,
which we can determine were not the actual cause of death.
00:30:57
We know that because through
the autopsy, when we find bruises
or damage to a body,
00:31:03
we can actually make
a small incision in those bruises
to determine if there is something we call vital force.
00:31:11
If there is vital force,
then that person was alive when those injuries occurred.
00:31:16
That's bleeding
into the tissue. When we incise those
wounds and we find out that there is no vital force,
then we know that those
00:31:24
are postmortem injuries. NARRATOR: But investigators
still had to prove Jonathan
00:31:31
had come to Whiskey Bay. RONNIE HEBERT: We found out
Elizabeth did not drive. She had no driver's license.
00:31:39
She had no vehicle. We learned from co-workers
that he brought her to work and picked her up from work.
00:31:45
While my two detectives
over there, Jonathan Allee, pulls up in a car. On the back window, there
was a small American flag
00:31:52
about the middle
part of the window. Detectives made note of it. We started looking
for surveillance cameras.
00:31:58
- It took hours of surveilling
through video, not only by me, but by multiple detectives.
00:32:06
- During this time,
it's 2:00-ish, 3:00-ish in the morning,
I'm in my office and
00:32:13
my detective runs
in there and, quote, "I got that son of a bitch." And I'm like, "got what?"
00:32:20
He said, "I got the car
from Humble, Texas, here right near Whiskey Bay." LESLIE BRADFORD: He
was able to locate that
00:32:29
in these hours worth of video
footage and camera footage that we saw that even
had the American flag
00:32:36
sticker on the back
that we were able to corroborate Jonathan
Allee's car had as well.
00:32:43
- I said, "you got
to be kidding me." I think it was like 7:58 PM the
night before we found the body.
00:32:49
That vehicle is eastbound
and at 9:00-something, it's back westbound. And like, OK, who's
driving that car?
00:33:00
LESLIE BRADFORD:
That vehicle was registered to his grandmother. RONNIE HEBERT: So I found
a phone number for her.
00:33:07
Come to find out, she says
she was at a campground in another part of Texas. I find this campground
that she was in.
00:33:14
I actually speak
to the manager. Manager says, confirm. In fact, she was
here during the time
00:33:21
we think this body was dumped. NARRATOR: The only other person
who had access to the car
00:33:28
was Jonathan's uncle. RONNIE HEBERT: So now
we're down to two. We're down to Jonathan
Allee or the other gentleman
00:33:35
living in the residence,
the uncle. We can verify where he was at. We could-- we knew he had
an alibi, a solid alibi.
00:33:42
He even told us that
when he came home, Jonathan wasn't there. The car wasn't there.
00:33:49
The grandmother wasn't
there because she was at this campground
in Groesbeck, Texas.
00:33:54
So he had went to bed. [sinister music] I think it's at around
12:45-ish or something
00:34:03
like that that
morning, he got up to go get something to drink. And that's when he noticed
Jonathan had just came in.
00:34:09
So where was Jonathan
at that whole time? NARRATOR: The answer would
come from a surprising source.
00:34:20
LESLIE BRADFORD: He had
a five-year-old daughter, who had to be interviewed
about what may or may
00:34:25
not have happened that
day, what she saw, what she didn't see. Because children are
very observant, and even
00:34:30
though they don't know that
they are seeing something that may be pertinent
to the investigation,
00:34:36
they only know what they see. - It's very, very
important that if you're going to interview a child
witness that they're
00:34:43
done with somebody who's been
trained very specifically in how to interview children.
00:34:48
And that involves things
like, maybe playing games with this child, putting
this child at ease,
00:34:53
having toys in the room,
asking open-ended questions. Because the last thing you
want to do is lead a child.
00:35:00
Children are naturally
compliant with adults. And so it is important to have
a trained forensic interviewer.
00:35:06
And they did. RONNIE HEBERT: I
don't think any adult could have been a better
witness to this child was.
00:35:13
She told the whole
story that her dad said he was going-- they
were going on an adventure.
00:35:18
It's been a long ride. They leave in the daytime and
they come back late at night.
00:35:22
And her dad said it's
going to take a while. She said, I'm
sitting in the back with my other little sister
and my dad is driving her.
00:35:31
And he asked, where's mom? Mom didn't come. This is the lane he stopped
in and the little girl told
00:35:39
the forensic
interviewer, she said he parked in the middle
of the road, which she thinks
00:35:43
is the middle of the lane. It kind of similar
to a lane, but it's very-- this is the shoulder,
very narrow.
00:35:49
NARRATOR:
The description matched the exact point
on the highway where her mother's body was dumped.
00:35:55
RONNIE HEBERT: She
said in the interview she'd remember her dad
getting out of the car.
00:35:59
He would be very careful
not to get run over, and he removed
something from the back,
00:36:04
but I couldn't tell what
it was and proceeded back to Humble, Texas,
and told the little girl
00:36:08
he couldn't find the magic
road they were looking for. - She could be a very powerful
witness, and she is certainly,
00:36:14
in this case, turned
it on its head. [tense music] NARRATOR: Detectives
are investigating
00:36:32
the murder of Elizabeth Ferrell
from Texas, found strangled in a Louisiana swamp.
00:36:40
Their prime suspect is
Elizabeth's violent husband, Jonathan. Despite claiming he hadn't
been to Louisiana for years,
00:36:49
he was picked up
on highway cameras near the Whiskey Bay dump
site, and his daughter
00:36:54
confirmed they'd gone there. LESLIE BRADFORD:
In listening to the child's forensic interview and then
Jonathan's interview,
00:37:02
the inconsistencies were vast. Jonathan advised that he was
at the home for the majority
00:37:07
of the day,
and the child definitely stated something different. The fact that they had all left
the home on a big adventure.
00:37:15
RONNIE HEBERT: To watch that
interview was heartbreaking. This little girl
was so articulate
00:37:19
and she even told us, sometimes
my daddy gets mad at my mommy. And she said
my daddy would fuss
00:37:25
saying that you spend more
time online with your friends than you do with me. You always gaming.
00:37:30
LESLIE BRADFORD: Based on the
investigation and everything that we were able
to learn, we were
00:37:34
able to get enough
probable cause and reach that
level to make sure that we were able to obtain
an arrest warrant.
00:37:41
- It was enough
to get a judge to sign a warrant for second degree
murder of Elizabeth Ferrell.
00:37:51
The arrest in Longview, Texas,
has what they call a fugitive from state of Louisiana.
00:37:57
SHANNON PHARIS: When I
finally heard that they had arrested him, I was ecstatic.
00:38:01
What he did to Elizabeth,
it made me incredibly angry. All I wanted to do was
walk up to that SOB
00:38:09
and slap him across the face. But I let justice do its thing. NARRATOR: Then
the investigation
00:38:17
took another unexpected turn. RONNIE HEBERT: So while in jail
in Texas waiting to come here,
00:38:26
he got a little
diarrhea of the mouth. He befriended another
gentleman that was in his jail.
00:38:34
And the gentleman asked him,
what are you in here for? And he said, "murder." And he goes into detail about
how he murdered Elizabeth.
00:38:46
NARRATOR: After
interviewing his cellmate, detectives could finally
piece together the final hours
00:38:51
of Elizabeth's life. JONI JOHNSTON: He
is clearly somebody who is treating her
as a possession and somebody
00:38:59
he can abuse, he can control. So it doesn't surprise
me that the incident that leads to her death is when he
goes through her phone, which
00:39:09
of course, is
an invasion of privacy, and finds these messages
that are enraging
00:39:14
to him, that he
thinks are a violation of his ownership of her. RONNIE HEBERT: And we learned
through the investigation
00:39:20
that on her phone, he possibly
located some information that showed she
was possibly being
00:39:25
intimate with somebody else. NARRATOR: Elizabeth had
been exchanging messages with her online romance.
00:39:34
JONI JOHNSTON: He feels that
because she is his possession, she can't leave him
unless he says it's OK.
00:39:39
So I think he's got
in so many respects, the classic
personality and thought processes of a domestic
violence perpetrator.
00:39:48
SHANNON PHARIS: He had
threatened her a hundred times if she ever tried to leave
and take the girls,
00:39:51
he would kill her. And I think she was getting
ready to start trying to leave. And that's when the worst
that he could do happened.
00:40:02
RONNIE HEBERT: When she
comes out of the bathroom, he comes in behind her and he
grabs her and he chokes her.
00:40:06
LESLIE BRADFORD: Jonathan did
tell the jailhouse cellmate that he put her in a chokehold
until she stopped breathing
00:40:13
or what he thought. RONNIE HEBERT: And he
said she was dead. He laid her down. He let her go.
00:40:21
He said then she like,
she gasped for air. He said, I panicked,
and that's when I started stomping on her
neck, kicking her throat.
00:40:30
JONI JOHNSTON: What do we
think, somebody's been injured, our first thought is we
need to get help for them.
00:40:35
And so there is something
about that stomping it, just that annihilation that
is just particularly chilling.
00:40:43
LESLIE BRADFORD: Once
hearing the statements that Jonathan Allee made
to the jailhouse cellmate,
00:40:49
it all corroborated
with autopsy had found about the blunt force
trauma, everything to her chest
00:40:55
and to her upper body. MICHELLE DUPRE: When
we looked at this case, we found some anomalies.
00:41:00
And those anomalies were
the injuries and the bruising around the head and neck.
00:41:05
And so he actually admitted
that he stomped on her neck. We find this again
through the autopsy
00:41:10
because the very delicate bones
and the cartilage in that area may be crushed. - And then the sick
part about it all, he
00:41:20
told his gentlemen that
once he did kill her, he had sex with her body, and
that he ejaculated on her face.
00:41:29
And then once we got hold
of some phones he had, we found some stuff in the
phone where he had pictures of
00:41:36
and was googling of sex
with dead bodies. So he was a sick person. He had some sick thoughts.
00:41:46
JONI JOHNSTON: This last act
of having sex with her is a way to degrade her further.
00:41:53
It is his last act
of domination and control over her. I can't think of anything that
would be more dehumanizing and
00:42:00
more humiliating and to turn
somebody into such an object there
in a situation obviously
00:42:06
now where they have absolutely
no control over anything. It's just-- it's horrifying.
00:42:14
NARRATOR: Detectives
uncovered more clues about why Jonathan
Allee chose Whiskey Bay
00:42:18
to dump his wife's body. RONNIE HEBERT: He also made
a comment to the inmate at the jail in Texas
that he thought
00:42:28
if he threw her in the swamps
here in Louisiana, the alligators would eat her. [water splashes]
00:42:35
SARAH MORMINO: When you
have bodies of water that are high in alligator
population,
00:42:39
many offenders think that
this is a great place to get rid of their evidence,
as the alligators
00:42:44
will scavenge on the remains. However, in most cases,
alligators are predators. They are not scavengers.
00:42:51
Meaning that unless
they have live prey, they're usually not interested
in what's in the water.
00:42:58
RONNIE HEBERT: I'm 66 years
old, born and raised here, and I have yet
to find one person
00:43:04
that's ever been
eaten by an alligator in state of Louisiana. I mean, within 40 feet, I
got alligators in my house,
00:43:14
and they've never attacked me. Again, going back
to his sick mind, an alligator is going
to be a perfect scenario.
00:43:21
They'll eat the body, and we're
never going to discover her. And they never know
where she went.
00:43:25
And he figured it'd be a good
spot to go because nobody would catch him. Well, he found out it was
a Parish Sheriff's Office knows
00:43:32
a little something about that. NARRATOR: Jonathan Allee
was finally extradited to the state of Louisiana,
where investigators
00:43:41
attempted to interview him. RONNIE HEBERT:
And he immediately lawyered up on us then.
00:44:03
He said, "not talking." And that was the last
conversation we had with him, was that night.
00:44:18
NARRATOR: Allee returned
to the jurisdiction of his home state, Texas, where he pleaded
guilty to the second degree
00:44:24
murder of his wife, Elizabeth. He struck a plea deal
and was jailed for 35 years.
00:44:31
RONNIE HEBERT:
The one time he told the truth is to save his ass. To say, hey, I don't want
to die in Louisiana prison.
00:44:38
I can go over
there in Texas and get a better deal,
which turns out to be 35 years there versus life here.
00:44:46
He thought of just
himself and nobody else. LESLIE BRADFORD:
For me personally, it
00:44:49
can be kind of frustrating
when pleas are given. However, in this case, it
was the best case scenario,
00:44:54
him taking the plea and saving
his children from having to go through a trial. SHANNON PHARIS: As far as I'm
concerned, it's an injustice.
00:45:05
He is not serving what he
should serve for what he did. He is evil incarnate
as far as I'm concerned.
00:45:15
RONNIE HEBERT: You look
around, water, woods. What kind of death is that? A water grave.
00:45:22
You don't do animals that, but
he treated her like garbage. Threw her out in the swamp.
00:45:29
That tells you right there
what kind of person he is. And this is the burial
he gave her.
00:45:34
Mr. Allee thought that he could
just throw her off this bridge and just wash his sins away.
00:45:38
He washed his ass
straight to prison. And that's where his final
destination should be.
00:45:46
SHANNON PHARIS: I do miss
her every single day. I wish I could talk
to her every day.
00:45:50
And that I wish
she was still here. And Jonathan was gone. It's really that simple.
00:46:00
Because you don't find
people like that very often. A friend like that is
completely priceless.
00:46:09
[theme music]