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Late night drive through visits.
There are common ritual for many of us, filled with the allure of hot fries and cold beverages
after a night out with friends.
It is a mundane part of our routine, seldom reflecting on the potential dangers lurking
in the shadows.
What if amidst those familiar stops you never made it home?
That's the haunting reality of Allie Rice's unsolved murder case, a chilling mystery growing
colder by the day.
I'm Karen Chala and in this episode of Louisiana Unfiltered, we will unravel the mystery around
Allie's tragic fate.
It's been over 15 months since the 21-year-old marketing major at Louisiana State University
was fatally shot while in her car stopped at a downtown Baton Rouge railroad crossing.
Despite drawing national and international attention, there have been no arrests.
With authorities tight-lipped about potential suspects, we're going to take you deep into
the heart of the investigation, breaking down the facts, exploring the case's current status
and shedding light on crucial clues in Allie's murder that have until now remained concealed.
This is Louisiana Unfiltered.
It was September 16, 2022.
Allie was hanging out with a friend who was working to close up at a Baton Rouge bar.
Allie waited with her friend so she would not have to leave out alone.
Allie was on her way to her apartment near LSU when she stopped at a fast food restaurant.
After getting her late-night fries, she was cruising down government street, passing Baton
Rouge Magna High and nearing the railroad track where the garden district transitions
into downtown when she came to a stop for a passing train.
It was around 2 in the morning at that desolate train crossing.
Allie became the victim of a senseless act of violence.
Allie's gunshots echoed through the night as she was struck by nearly 10 rounds.
The driver's side window and front window of her SUV were completely shot out, bullet holes
riddled the door.
The 21-year-old was killed at the scene.
Her fries still in her lap when police arrived.
So this case was honestly just different from the very beginning.
And I guess let me walk you through how I found out about it.
So it's September 16, 2022.
Obviously, the incident happened around 2 in the morning.
I'm actually out of town.
And this morning I ended up waking up.
I was out of town with friends and I ended up waking up on my own around 6 o'clock.
Couldn't sleep and I just said, "Okay, I'm waking up."
And I looked at my phone and it is blown up with text messages.
And I'm blessed that I have sources who do tell me what is going on, but this morning
was different.
I had sources telling me things or should I say I had sources who I would only hear from
in extremely dire situations reaching out.
And it's one of those like, "You know when somebody calls you and says, 'Hey, and you see
the caller ID, you already know, 'Oh, what are you calling me about?'
I guess that's what it was like for me.
And I saw those text messages and when I saw multiple people there, I figured out said,
in my head, something's off here, something's not right."
And granted again, this is 6 o'clock in the morning on a Friday.
So I start reading the text messages and the text says, "Right now, simply say there was
an incident that happened."
That's usually the way this works is I get little pieces, the rest, I need to glue it together.
So I start working all of my sources and start trying to figure out what's happening.
And when I think I finally glued it together, it was about 9.30 in the morning for us to
get our very first article out as to, there was a deadly shooting, a person has died.
At this point, I don't know who it is.
But again, something said it was different because of the amount of people reaching out
and the people who did reach out.
But still at this point, it's about 9.30 in the morning.
I have just the basics out.
At this point, I don't know anything more.
I still remember it was about 11 o'clock because everybody is now starting to wake up, the
group that I'm with.
And we're all trying to figure out, "Hey, where do we want to go eat?
It's Friday morning.
We're going to go grab something to eat and my brain's not functioning.
All I can think is, "Work, work, work, work, work."
And by 11 o'clock, I think I had the very first story out that this was an LSU student and
she has been identified as Allie Rice, a 21-year-old student.
And I think by 11 o'clock on September the 16th, that Friday is when I kind of piece together,
what happened?
And I guess let me add this, that I am very blessed when it comes to my sources.
So yes, I had a few pictures from this scene, but again, I don't know every little detail.
And from the beginning, we did not have too many details.
And almost what, a year and a half later, it feels like we still don't have too many details
to go on.
So was it a robbery?
An attempted kidnapping?
A gang initiation.
They have all been part of the public debate over what happened.
Daniel Brown, managing editor and special projects executive producer for Unfiltered,
has helped cover the twists and turns.
In this case, he is joining us now.
Daniel, it's been a ride the last, what, nearly 15 months.
Yeah, it's been a case that's definitely stood out.
We both have seen a lot of crime in that room over the years of us kind of covering the city.
And this one has stood out from the get go.
It just, it was something different about this case.
I think the public felt different about this case as well.
And it's one of those, I guess the reason it was so different is it's not the fact that
it only grabbed national and international attention, but it involved a student, a student
at a prominent well-known recognized national and international university of LSU.
On the eve of a big SEC football game with Mississippi State, in town at Tiger Stadium.
So this was kind of on the eve of that game, which I think kind of elevated some of the
intrigue, some of the public kind of discourse in this, the, the uncomfortableness of this
crime kind of happening so close to the university on, you know, an NCC football weekend too.
That's something that I think kind of gets lost, but I think that kind of helped elevate
the case a little bit.
Agreed, because you're going to have such so many people in town.
I mean any big LSU game you're going to have tons of people in town.
Every hotel is booked up and hotels are not just in the immediate downtown area at that
point.
People are flooding out to other areas, be it Airbnb's hotels.
So it impacts everybody when you're coming in and you have a story or that's made national
headlines just a week out.
Yeah, and Allie's murder happened in one of those areas that people go to is near mid-city,
right?
So this is for those not familiar with the area.
It's kind of the entry way into downtown Baton Rouge from mid-city.
It's just steps away from the, the Garden District, which is a very influential area of
Baton Rouge.
You're near two high schools.
You have Catholic High, which is not far away.
You have Baton Rouge High, which is also nearby.
So you have this area of town where this murder happened that's kind of close to all the
action of where people are going to be.
It's an area of town where it's not, it's not somewhere where crime is not unexpected.
There is crime in this area.
100% I was going to say, but it's also a place.
You don't want to be caught alone.
I mean, I'm just going to go ahead and say that.
I'm a single female.
I would not be there alone.
But in her case, she thought she was simply driving home.
It's not like she was walking or anything, nor was she stopping there.
She was simply stopped because the train stopped.
Yeah, and I kind of want to talk through some of the details on that because there's been
a lot that has been discussed in this case and there's been a lot that still hasn't
really kind of been out there.
We know that she was kind of driving on government street going towards downtown, the railroad
track crossing right there, like I said, right as mid city meets downtown.
She stopped there.
She just got her fast food as you were talking about.
We know that something happened because her car was changing positions, but we don't know
why.
We still don't really why.
And that goes to remember the witness we spoke with.
That witness pretty much told us that he sat there and watched.
So he's facing this way, Ali's facing this way, the train is right here.
The trains either stopped, I think, on the tracks and both vehicles are facing the train.
But then after the gunshots, the witness turned around and Ali also turned around.
And that's so many questions about that witness.
I want to get to you.
Talk to me a little bit about what we do know.
So we know that 10 rounds were fired at Ali.
At least at least 10 rounds.
We know that her driver's side of the vehicle was kind of riddled with bullets.
We know the driver's side window was basically shot out as was kind of the front of her vehicle.
So that's kind of telling you that this was a very violent scene to have that much kind
of happen.
It was, and I mean, in talking to our sources, and I guess let me add this, it's been 15
months, not much more has come out since then.
So it's not like we can tell you, okay, 15 months later, police are now saying this was
a robbery or this was something we can't.
But I will tell you this that through all of our sources, it is not a robbery.
There are no signs of a robbery because I'm told nothing was missing from the scene.
This was not an attempted kidnapping.
No doors were wide open or anything like that.
It was simply somebody shooting at her vehicle in her vehicle and even hitting her.
And I can't even sit here and tell you that it was an accidental shot because accidentally
you don't fire off 10 shots.
It was very deliberate and that's what sources have said at the beginning.
It was a very deliberate crime.
But the question is was she the intended target?
Was she just wrong place, wrong time?
Those are some of the questions we still know in this case.
We don't and I want to add that all of my sources said that everybody is scratching their heads
that they cannot figure out the why.
I guess as an officer, as a detective, anybody involved in the case, be it even the investigators
from the DA's offices, you need to know a why, to kind of proceed with the case.
Okay, this was the gang initiation.
Now maybe look at these people.
This was maybe a robbery.
Now let's focus this way.
In this case, I am told over and over and over.
Everybody is at just at a complete loss as to what happened, well, what happened?
I believe they know the why.
And you mentioned the witness.
There were no cameras in the area.
So that's been part of the criticism that the city and the veterans police has kind of
taken on was kind of the lack of crime cameras in this area.
There were no businesses that had cameras, some of that's kind of changed sense.
But there was a witness that you talked to that gave you some insight into what happened.
And I think their perspective is really unique and kind of does provide us with some of
the, some of the why, not all the why, maybe not even enough to kind of start to solve the
case.
It does provide you with some of that why that's so important for investigators.
I guess let me make sure I set the record straight and say this, I didn't reach out to this
witness.
They reached out to us on their own saying that I watched what happened, but I also did
not know that somebody died.
They were kind of the opposite end of the railroad track from Allie, right?
So the trains passing, they're on the facing the opposite end of government.
She said they're coming out of the government street.
She's going, I'm sorry, coming out of downtown.
She's going into downtown the trains passing.
So they're hearing the shots and they're seeing some of the gunfire, but they just don't
know exactly why or what's happening.
They don't.
And I mean, this person caught a lot of heat that why didn't you call police?
Why this?
And it's like the person told me that they just were scared.
They didn't even know what was going on.
They heard the gun shots.
So they automatically turned around and went the opposite direction away from gunfire.
That this person saw Allie's car also turned around.
So they just assumed this person's doing the same thing.
They also heard the gun shots and they turned around and kept going.
But it was in the morning when he woke up and he heard the news and saw that somebody died
that he realized something, something's wrong here.
Did this person talk about, did they see more than one person?
They did.
This person was so descriptive.
They told me that it was two men.
That they seemed to be in their 20s, about 5, 10, 5, 11 and that they passed both.
So it was him and his friend.
His friend got off of work also about 2 o'clock.
He was trying to go home to drop him off somewhere along Government Street.
That's why he was, that's the why he was out on Government Street.
So they're stopped for the train.
And he said that these two guys kind of passed him, looked a little suspicious.
One was in a red hoodie and I think the other person was in all black clothing.
Walks passed and he said they looked at him.
But I think, when I say I think, I mean the witness said this, that he thinks that they
didn't mess with him because it was another person in the vehicle.
So it's two guys in the car.
And that he believes that they, so what the other reason that I say that the train was
possibly stopped is he said the two of them jumped through cars to the other side of the
train.
And what this witness has said that this alley was by herself in her car.
So maybe it was a better opportunity.
And then he hears the gunshots and he turns around.
He saw that alley's car turned around as well and then stopped.
So somewhere in between, obviously her vehicle was shot at.
Maybe she did attempt to turn around and she just...
We don't know why she had to turn around.
We don't know if it was because she was tired of waiting for the train or if she saw those
two people kind of walked towards.
We don't know that we do know her car was starting to turn though.
That's it.
And it turned, but then it stopped there.
So this part of government street care and we know really well we used to work on government
street together.
And it's an area that you're right.
You don't want to be on late at night.
It's not one that I would choose to be.
Sometimes happenstance kind of gets to better.
But it's not uncommon for this section to have cars at all out of them at all.
No, not at all.
It's a very busy street.
It is, but it's also one of those that like you said, you don't want to be alone.
Even when we work together.
You walk your doors.
You do.
Your doors are locked.
Your windows are up.
When we work together, we always had somebody walk us out.
Just for safety.
I'll tell you this.
What a few weeks ago there was an incident on government street that was about 11,
11, 30.
I wasn't allowed to go out by myself to that area because I was just told it's not
safe.
It's not safe by yourself.
I got back about 2 o'clock in the morning and same thing.
It's just not safe.
And granted, God knows how many police officers were out there.
But you just don't know.
It's one of those that you walk off one block.
It's like when I lived in New Orleans, I was always told, "Oh, well, you're fine until you
walk off on one block and all of a sudden you're in a great neighborhood, one block
off in the wrong neighborhood."
Never in a hundred years did I think Baton Rouge would become that.
Sadly, it has become that you can be--
That's exactly this area too.
It's exactly this area that describes it perfectly.
You're fine.
And then all of a sudden you're not.
Another part of this case, Kieran, that has gotten lost, especially in the year senses,
a few weeks after Allie was murdered, there was another murder in the same area a teen
was killed, which kind of raised the debate even more for the public over whether this
was part of a gang initiation.
Police really came out after Allie's murder and saying that it's not gang related, but a
few weeks later you had another very similar case that really kind of put Baton Rouge on
edge a little bit about whether this was gangs going out, part of an initiation to get
in on a killing spree, if you will.
Yeah.
And I guess let me also add, remember, Daniel officials for so long said that Baton Rouge
does not have gangs.
Yeah, they denied it.
And then they finally admitted that yes, there are gangs.
So it's one of those, in this case they said it's not gang initiation, but then on the flip
side you also at one time said we don't even have any gangs and then pretty much came back
and said, well actually there are gangs in Baton Rouge.
Getting of the other incident, so it was on October the 10th of 2022, so what, not even a
month since Allie Rice was killed.
And the odd thing is it was just a few blocks from where Allison Rice was killed.
And this one happened broad daylight.
It was a Monday, about 1130 in the morning and a teenager was found shot dead.
And so there's a lot of differences there from Allie's case, but still it hits really close
from home.
The other thing that I think people forget was Allie's murder came during a very deadly stretch
in Baton Rouge history.
We had years of historic murder rate.
This was a month where she was one of 11 people murdered September of 22, 11 other people
killed.
And in 22 and two alone, there were 114.
So it was one of the most violent years, one of the most violent months of that year.
You know, Baton Rouge was ranked one of the 10th most dangerous cities on numerous lists
because of its consecutive crime rate.
So that also kind of speaks to where the city was at this time with where the public was
in wanting answers and honestly not getting them.
Well, and I guess I want to add Daniel, remember though the numbers we're looking at, the
one of 11 that Allie was one of 11, that's 11 people who died, there are daily shootings
that happen in Baton Rouge.
I mean, sadly there are so many shootings that never get reported.
That never get reported.
And in fact, there's no way to report every shooting that happens in Baton Rouge because
so many shootings happen where someone may not have actually been hit, something may not
have been hit.
So it simply goes down a shot's fired.
You're getting used to it.
And I think so much of Baton Rouge is starting to get used to it when you're one or two
shots.
But when you have so many, I think I remember covering in the same area, a barrage of gunfire.
And I think it was around the same time frame.
So yes, people are going to be on edge.
You have one murder that happens at two in the morning.
Okay, that's overnight.
This one, broad daylight, 1130, start of the week on a Monday, barrage of gunfire also,
broad daylight.
Yes, people have the right to be worried about their own safety now.
While his dad said something, I know you spoke with him a lot of many times over the past
year, but he said something that I think speaks to kind of the tragedy of not only this case,
but Baton Rouge crime in general.
He admitted that he was a person who kind of thought Baton Rouge crime really wasn't his
problem, right?
They live in Geysmer.
They obviously traveled to Baton Rouge alley was at LSU, but he said, I was feeling guilty
like a lot of people saying this would never happen to us.
This would never happen to our family.
It can and it will change your life like that.
What happened to Ali could have happened to anyone.
It really raises the hair, you know, in your arms because it really can't impact anybody.
And I think that's why so many people connected with this case.
Ali was one of a hundred people killed that year, but her name is the one we talk about.
Remember, there's something to be said about that.
And I think his that statement just kind of speaks a lot to kind of the state of the city,
especially at that time.
Do you remember councilwoman Tara Wicker?
I do.
Yeah.
She made a statement and I remember recovering that council meeting when she said that I
thought about it.
And I was like, whoa, she talked about.
He hit the guy.
Yes.
You don't understand the pain until you walk somebody's feet and until your feet get burned,
you might report on it or you might say, hey, so and so was burned or whatnot.
And I'm using the words burned like literally on fire, but until your feet actually burn
and you feel that pain of just being on fire.
And in all the headlines that we've covered together and separately that we've seen over
the years, they say that most crime is not random, right?
That there's either there's a reason, right?
It's rarely random.
Yes.
But in this case, specifically, it feels random and it kind of speaks to kind of the lack
of motive, the lack of that why there.
And I think that's also kind of part of the uneasiness with this case.
It is.
And I think a lot of people can relate to this.
I remember the amount of parents reaching out.
I had parents reaching out from places that had nothing to do with Louisiana.
Hey, I have a child who goes to LSU or we were thinking about sending our child to LSU
next semester or whatnot.
And I think, Grant, all of a sudden you felt like you were a part of this.
Yeah, and that speaks to crime is not a one neighborhood problem.
A one-hit code.
It's not an LSU problem.
No.
It's not a downtown Baton Rouge problem.
It's a Baton Rouge problem.
And I think it's not LSU's fault that this happened.
And there's a lot of days to go by where no one's heard or anything bad happens, right?
But it takes one incident to kind of really change that discourse and that perception, if
you will, for the public.
Agreed.
Now let's kind of walk through a little bit of the facts in the case.
So there was no evidence of robbery.
It didn't appear to be any kind of a tempted kidnap or anything like that.
Gang violence is still kind of the question mark.
I still have a question mark by it.
Police have said it's not gang related.
You have to trust what they're saying.
You know, they are telling that very publicly that's not gang related.
You know, you do have some people behind the scenes saying that that may not be the case.
We don't know if this was a wrong place, wrong time kind of thing.
It appears that possibly it was.
She was just passing through.
It wasn't like a scheduled kind of stop for.
There are no cameras in the area.
And I know that after this, there was a really a big push to add cameras.
And we found out really quickly that some of those cameras weren't actually even
working.
No, I mean, what a few months later, we had the Nathan Mildred case and that went further
down into downtown that so many of the cameras we found out were just simply there.
They were fake cameras to make it look like they were real working cameras when they didn't
even work.
Phantom cameras is what someone called them to is and that's kind of stuck with me.
But there are cameras that are just kind of glued to a wall in some cases.
There's no wires to them.
Or the cameras that are actually cameras aren't recording.
So they may actually work.
But there's no one there to watch it, no one's recording it.
And this was a problem that a lot of money was spent on supposedly adding these cameras
that never kind of came to fruition, if you will.
So there's still some kind of holding the powerful accountable with that because we still
don't have a lot of these cameras up in some of these areas of town where you really want
them.
And you're right.
In fact, to add to that, do you remember after Ali Rice was killed, they put up what three
crosses, the family, friends, co-workers put up three crosses and all but the finally the
last one were stolen or vandalized.
But that too, nobody could find out why because no cameras were up and the few that were
up did not work.
Which that part of the story, some of it got picked up by the national media, but a lot
of it didn't, right?
That's really a local story.
But how does this happen?
You have to wonder was someone sent in a message by taking those crosses down and you cannot
not ask that question?
It's so strange.
I still remember when I was told that hey, that the cross came down, I'm thinking, what do
you mean it came down?
Like, oh, the person who put it up went and took it back down.
No, it was stolen.
It was what?
Okay.
So the first one is bad enough.
So they go out, they put it up the second time.
The second one again is vandalized.
At that point it was like somebody is seriously trying to send a message.
One of the things that I would love your perspective on is it took veterans police a little
while to kind of hold a news conference on it.
It did happen on a Friday.
So I think it was a few days after the actual murder when they had their first news conference
that could be wrong about that.
But there hasn't been a lot of details released.
And a part of it you can't really fault police because they're withholding information
to use their own words.
The killer is also listening to this news conference.
So you have to respect the integrity of the investigation.
But at the same time, a LSU student in her prime murdered with no suspects, no motive,
really no answers, but all these questions.
There hasn't been that many cases in Baton Rouge and you can chime in and correct me if I'm
wrong.
Where Baton Rouge police have seen to be so mom and part of it is like were they chasing
leads that we didn't know about.
But you have to wonder why a lot of information hasn't been released or come out in this case.
Well, I guess let me explain this process just a tad bit.
In having the amount of sources that I do have, I'm blessed with them, but so often they'll
tell you things and they ask you, hey, we're telling you things, but you can't repeat
some of this because it would disrupt the integrity of the investigation, understood and respected.
In BRPD's defense, this happened at 2 o'clock on Friday morning.
So pulling together a quick press conference, let's just say Friday morning, that's next
day impossible.
Even maybe Friday afternoon, they still don't know what's happening.
They don't know what to say.
They don't know the why.
They don't know what suspect.
So what are they going to get up there and say?
Okay.
Next to it, then you have a weekend, so Saturday and Sunday.
But by Monday, the public needs to hear from you that we are aware of this something.
Maybe by Tuesday, it was September the 22nd, so almost a whole week later that Baton Ridge
police actually, I say Baton Ridge police, the mayor, the mayor's office ended up holding
a safety press conference.
It was not all about alley rice.
It was about safety.
And I do believe that was because of the upper or from the public, like you said, Daniel,
the September 22 was a very deadly month.
And people were just on edge.
They wanted answers.
They needed to hear from their officials.
So no, it's not common to just go that long after such a case that's made national headlines.
And there weren't many updates after that news conference that they did have.
We have to also remember this is a case that was picked up by the national media.
People magazine covered it really extensively.
Fox News, CNN, NBC, ABC CBS, they all covered it as well.
So this is a story where they're pulling a lot of information from the local affiliates.
But a lot of the national media is also covering this case themselves.
They're following up on their own leads.
They had people in Baton Ridge covering the funeral and trying to get information.
So this was elevated and to be quite honest, the mayor was almost forced to do this news
conference.
Someone needed to talk.
I was going to say that was on edge at this time.
Not only was Baton Ridge on edge, but I remember going and covering that press conference,
it was very heated at times, very heated.
They didn't want to answer the questions.
It was one of those that they wanted to get up there, say what they wanted to say and
be done.
That's it.
And crime has continued since.
Numbers are down for 23 compared to 22, which is definitely a good thing.
But I think any public official will tell you one murders too many.
And Alley's case is also interesting because it's one of the few unsolved cases of 22.
There's still a few others.
But most of these cases, you have a suspect.
It's moving through the criminal justice system.
These may not have the closure, but they have more closure than Alley's family because they
at least have someone to blame or sort of hope.
They have hope.
Yes.
In this case, you don't have that.
And you spoke to her father several times over the past year.
Multiple times.
And it's not just her father, her stepmom, her mom, her aunt.
And it's tough.
It's not just this family.
Unfortunately, the bad part about this job is I do come across so many families of victims,
of people who have lost loved ones.
And it's just you see the struggle they go through waking up is a struggle.
Going through the motions of the day is a struggle.
But then when it comes to the holidays, there's that empty seat.
There's that person who should be laughing and being the goofball of the family and you're
missing them.
It's not like her and the group.
Yeah, seriously.
It's not like they're in their room and you can call them and say, come out.
It's a struggle.
And sadly, this case has gone cold.
It's been 15 months.
This case has gone cold.
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Here we talked a little bit about how there is a lack of evidence and there has been
a lot of time since the actual case happened to kind of where we were to get today.
In cases of a cold, there is a lot of questions about the integrity of the case and how these
things move forward.
One person that has a lot of perspective on that is a retired Patent's Police Officer,
a former homicide detective worked in the cold case unit, John Dothier.
He's not tied to the case.
He hasn't been part of this case, but he can give us some perspective on cold cases in general,
specifically related to some of the evidence in this case.
What is a little bit about why cases this long, why there is such a challenge with having
them solved?
It's just like anything.
As time passes, as leads grow, after you exhaust your investigative leads and you've processed
your evidence and you've talked to the known witnesses and you've knocked on every door,
you've reviewed every video camera.
It becomes what we call cold.
Oftentimes I'm asked, at what point, how long does it take a case to go cold?
That's probably the most common question when people talk to me about cold cases.
I'm here to tell you that it's my opinion that there is not a time limit.
Most departments, and I know at one point the Patent's Police Department used to have a
six-month time limit.
That was just a minimum standard, if you will, for.
We're not going to consider a case cold until six months has passed without a resolution.
Some departments, I know you use a year or more, but actually a case is cold when the investigative
leads have been exhausted and there's no clear investigative path forward.
At that point, the case becomes cold and it's generally put into an inactive status.
Well, and John, I guess one of the biggest questions I have is that you worked in homicides as
well, then you also work specifically in cold cases.
How do you revive a case that has gone cold?
Well, hopefully you revive it because new information has come forward, whether that be a witness
or a piece of forensic evidence that has either been missed and found or some new scientific
technique has come along that allows you to further the value of that evidence.
At that point, you pull the case out of the drawer metaphorically and you pick up where
you left off.
Or in some cases, you might start from the beginning.
It really just depends on the nature of the new evidence that causes you to revive it.
How often is it that cases that may have gone a year plus without any new information?
How often is it that you would get information on a case like that?
Well, statistically speaking, when a case is a year old or more, the solvability factor,
if you will, is greatly reduced.
I don't think I can say that enough.
I'm not sure exactly what the rate of solving a case that is more than a year old, but
it's incredibly low.
It's generally uncommon.
And John, in your time when you were in cold case, I remember covering a case that was what?
30 plus years later, DAD, it was because DNA evolved and that's how they were able to link
a suspect.
Well, in this case, I mean, this was 15 months ago.
Do you think in your opinion, something's going to come up here that will provide this
case?
Well, it's quite possible.
So in a case like this, in the case that you're referring to, I'm pretty familiar with
because I was involved in it, that case was from physical evidence standpoint dramatically
at 180 degrees different than Miss Rice's case.
In her case, unfortunately, we had the body, we had the car, we had the shell casings as
I understand it.
And there's no question that the shell casings were put through the firearms analysis unit.
They can tell if they ever get the gun that fired those bullets, this is the gun that fired
those bullets.
There's no doubt that they did DNA testing on the shell casings, probably on the exterior
of the car anywhere that the suspect may have touched.
Maybe if they believe that the suspect reached inside the car or anything.
So in this particular case, it seems to me that all the testing, that scientific testing
that can be done has been done.
Clearly, they either, they clearly probably don't have the weapon that fired the rounds or
the weapons.
And they either don't have a DNA profile or they have a DNA profile that doesn't match to
anyone in the codeus database.
So I'm not so sure what technological advances in the future might come along to, you know,
that might change it to give them a viable path forward.
It seems to me that in her particular case, or at least from what I know, which is probably
not more than the average person knows.
At this point, you really probably are praying for an eyewitness or a codependent or someone
who can point you to a suspect because they have knowledge of it.
It just seems, unfortunately, that based upon what I know that the chances at this point
are pretty grim.
And John, there was an eyewitness in this case, and we spoke with them, we spoke with this
person, they were on the opposite end of the train tracks as Ali, so kind of facing the
opposite direction as that train was kind of stopped on the tracks.
We know from our reporting, based on what that eyewitness told us that having trouble
kind of getting to talk to Baton Rouge Police, when you have a witness like this who kind
of saw the crime, but, you know, had an obstructed view, how does that kind of factor into the
investigation?
Well, it's, you know, an eyewitness to a crime, what you're hoping is that this person can
identify the person who did it either because they know them or because they saw enough physical
characteristics of this person so that they could identify them generally from a photographic
line up.
And I mean, that's what you're hoping for an eyewitness.
And if they have an eyewitness and there's not an arrest, either that eyewitness was not credible
or they weren't able to provide enough information to give an identification that, you know, identify
someone specifically.
And I know you mentioned the other side that aspect of this is as far as eyewitnesses go
and you mentioned this was the cameras.
We discussed this, there were no cameras in this area.
So you have an eyewitness who may not have seen enough to give you information.
You don't have any cameras.
I mean, talk to us about if you were on this case and you were working this case, like where
do you go from here?
You have these shell casings and you may not have a match to the gun and then you have an eyewitness
who doesn't see anything.
You have these crime cameras.
So where do you go from here?
Like what would be like the logical kind of next step?
When you talk about cameras, you're always hoping that you have a camera that actually
called the crime occurring, right?
Well, it goes beyond that.
I mean, you might step out and I'm sure they've done this, okay?
I know these guys and their professionals and their thorough.
I know them.
But you step and you go out another block or another block or a third block away and you
start looking for videos that might show, you know, possible suspects walking or a suspicious
car that's going into the area.
And so it's not just cameras that are focused exactly where it happened.
You branch out and you look for these cameras in the area that might lead you back to a possible
suspect.
But I think that once you've done that and you've exhausted, you've knocked on every door.
You've checked every house in a three, four, five, whatever block area that the investigators
deemed irrelevant.
You've processed your physical evidence.
You've worked in fornance on the streets.
You've done all of that, that police work.
This is where you unfortunately end up is this is why we call it cold because we've done
everything and there's nothing, nothing's hot anymore and nothing's giving us a lead
and that we refer to it as a cold and it, unfortunately, it seems like that's where this
case is.
Well, and having worked in cold cases, John, you have dealt with the families of these
loved ones who are no longer alive.
I guess if you can put that in words for us that I don't know if the question is what
do they go through but how difficult is it when their loved ones case is the one that's
gone cold?
Well, imagine that you're worried about a situation at work and it's bugging you.
You might be getting laid off.
Maybe you have a friend who's going through a tough time and it's playing on you and it bothers
you because your friend is going through something and that stays with you all day every day.
Now multiply that times a billion and you can begin to have some understanding of the
nightmare that these folks are living day in and day out.
It's the last thing on their mind when they lay their head down at night is the first thing
when they wake up.
They're consumed with it.
They all are.
Understandably so and once, unfortunately, they hear that a case is cold and imagine the
gut punch that is, right?
The sad truth of the matter is the department itself, if we talk about the boundaries of police
department, this isn't a criticism, it's just a statement of fact.
There is severely understaffed department.
It's my understanding that this particular homicide division has anywhere from 10 to 12
detectives that are assigned to work, homicides.
That is a horrifically low number for the caseload that they have.
When I first started homicide many moons ago, we had 14 detectives and we were averaging
about 60 homicides per year at that time.
You know the numbers now are 90, 100 or above.
If you divide that by, let's just use the lower number just because it's easy to, let's
say there's 100 murders in a year in a particular given year and you have 10 homicide detectives.
That's 10 cases apiece that they are lead investigator on.
The FBI recommended maximum caseload for a homicide detective is four cases that they're
ready to lead investigators on.
Right there you can stop and see that another part of this scenario is that we talk about
co-cases and what we do and how we move them forward.
The first thing you have to have is a person who does that.
Back when I was the department's co-case detective, I was the only one but at least there was
someone dedicated to it.
They don't have that now.
There is not a co-case division and I don't know if people realize or understand the significance
of that.
These guys are going from case to case to case to case to case and not only that, how many
shootings have we had that are life threatening that are assigned to the homicide division,
not to mention suicides.
Any deaths that occur inside the city that have, they're not just homicide detectives, they're
death investigators.
The fentanyl overdoses, the over, I mean my goodness, I can't tell you exactly how many
it was per year but I think we had 15 or 20 per year if memory serves a couple of hundred
per year now or between a hundred and two hundred.
This workload that is added on to these guys, the unfortunate reality is how do they, there's
just not enough time in a day.
The side reality for a family that's waiting for an answer and they hear that there's no
one who's sitting around with no time in their hands.
It says, let me go reopen this file and let me just start over.
Let me see what we missed.
I'm not saying that they missed anything.
But there's just, there just aren't the resources in this department to do that.
Now if they get a phone call, they get an email from the crime lab or anything, they'll
drop what they're doing and pick it up and go after it.
After a certain point, it's really waiting for this next tip to come in because you just
don't have the time, the manpower, you don't have resources dedicated to reviewing co-cases
just to see what the previous investigators might have missed.
I say all of that to say it's, unfortunately it's a grim outlook.
If you're a family member, waiting for resolution to a case, how do you, with those numbers,
how do you prioritize?
If you're having an estimated 10 cases you're working, you're supposed to have four, how
do you prioritize some of those cases?
What just happened in the last 10 minutes?
That's what I've got to deal with.
I've got to deal with what just happened in the last 10 minutes.
Then once you get that caught up to a certain point, if you've got something that you were
about to do on the case that you had yesterday, maybe you can go and pursue that now.
But it's a great question.
How do they do it?
I have no idea how these guys in this division are clearing any cases and they are.
Those guys, I have said this before, those homicide detectives, they're heroes.
My God, the fact that they're accomplishing anything with their workload, to me is just
something I can't fathom because I didn't have to deal with that workload when I was
there.
I don't know how they're doing it.
We don't have exact numbers on the number of cool cases from that year.
We do know most of the crimes, the murders from that year have been solved.
It's something we've talked about earlier.
Most of the crimes have been solved.
So your point could have said them.
I guess my other question before we get back to Ali specific questions, this came up
during the Nathan and Lauren investigation.
At what point do you seek outside help, a first set of eyes?
A lot of police officers that we've talked to is they don't want to do that.
It's a pride thing.
At what point do you say, "Hey, Louisiana State Police" or FBI or someone else, step in and
review the case, give us a first set of eyes, maybe see if there's something we miss.
Do you do that?
Is there a standard to do that?
Or is that not standard practice?
Well, so keep in mind that there is something called the Violent Crime Unit in Batmuruge.
There is an actual office in the State Police headquarters and it encompasses Batmuruge
Police Department, Sheriff's Office.
State Police has folks up there, ATF has people up there.
I'm not sure if it's for us.
That's Marshall's task force.
Yeah, the Marshall's task force.
The idea is that these guys, all being in the same room, almost literally, share these cases.
But the reality is, is that the Sheriff's Office is busy as well and the Marshall's task force
is busy as well, the State Police, etc., etc.
How much sharing goes on, I don't know.
I can't speak to it today.
But they have a good situation to set up that if they need some additional help, they can
walk across the hall and ask for it.
But I can tell you from first hand experience as a routine basis, Sheriff's Office is working
their cases, Police Department is working their cases, and it just kind of, you just kind
of stick with your own.
So as a routine basis to stop and say, "Hey, I want to turn this over to another agency
to look at," it's been my experience that almost never happens.
And I know like when it comes to a different agency picking it up, in Nathan Mallard's case,
his family wanted for State Police to take it from Baton Ridge Police, but the way State
Police explained it or any agency has explained it is that the other Police Department must
request you take over.
A family can't come and say that, like, BRPD would have to ask State Police you take over
the investigation, correct?
Yeah, I mean, it's a jurisdictional thing.
It's nothing to say that State Police legally can't, I guess, go to court or whatever the
steps would be to take a case from another agency, force it off of their hands.
I don't remember that ever happening.
So I understand the family saying, "Well, this agency isn't doing anything for me.
I want this other agency to do it.
I mean, I've heard that a number of times.
I can't remember a single time that's ever happened.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I certainly don't remember it."
And I guess...
And let me add, in being in conversations with the Rice family, Mr. Paula Rice, they have
full faith in Baton Ridge Police detectives.
Of course, it's a father who every single day is his daughter is not there.
His baby girl is not there.
Yes, you have to accept that reality, but he's never told me that he has lost faith within
BRPD officers.
And I guess I just want to make sure I put that out there.
Yeah, I mean, I can't blame him.
I mean, the Baton Ridge Police Department homicide detectives is one of the finest homicide
divisions in the country as far as I'm concerned.
So he has every...
He's absolutely right to not lose faith in them.
I think he's got as good a group of guys looking at his daughter's cases he possibly can have,
but you just have to keep in mind, workload, the passage of time and the realities of a
case that's a year or more old, but that doesn't...
That's not necessarily a reflection on the detectives.
It just isn't.
It's the unfortunate reality of cases that go cold every day.
And they just don't all go on as much public attention, but this is a tragic routine set of
events that happens dozens of times a year in the city of Baton Ridge.
And John, I guess my last question for you, there's been a lot of focus on this case in whether
this was gang related or workings involved.
I know police came out a few days after Al is murder and said that they didn't believe
it was gang related, but you have to imagine that's still part of the investigation and still
part of what detectives are looking like.
So what would that involve?
Like how...
To kind of rule that out or to kind of consider that...
What would be involved with that?
I mean, the first thing I think when you...
To rule that out is you go with statistics, okay?
So there are always these urban legends that, you know, it's a gang initiation night if
someone's got their bright lights on, don't flash them, they're gonna...
And you hear all these tales that there's, you know, it's gang related.
Well maybe these...
The suspect or the suspects, maybe they are part of a gang.
I don't know.
But the statistically speaking, this wasn't anything probably more than an attempted robbery
from what I've heard from when I've read.
They wanted her car or they wanted something she had.
And if they're in a gang, maybe, but maybe it's a normal gang activity to go out and steal
cars.
But as far as, you know, anything more fascinating than that, I doubt it.
Well, that's interesting you say that because all my sources have always said that there were
no signs of any robberies, attempted robberies or anything along those lines.
Yeah, and so again, going back to the beginning where I said, you know, I have no knowledge
or involvement in this case.
I'm just going off of everything that I've seen in the media reports.
And to me, logically, it probably wasn't had anything to do.
It was with a gang, but why would someone walk up to a car and just shoot someone just to
kill them?
In my experience, I would think it'd be much more logical that maybe they wanted her car
and she tried to leave and then they fired shots.
But again, I'm speculating.
But otherwise, what was the purpose?
I mean, are we really going to consider?
I guess I'm sure it's possible that they just wanted to hurt someone that night with no
other criminal intent in mind, but I just, I doubt that.
But that's just my opinion from a removed viewer standpoint.
And I guess that is the million dollar question, a question that we've been discussing this,
this episode, the why.
We wish we had an answer and it sounds like there is no answer as of right now.
Hopefully, eventually, there will become an answer.
And it's why this case, unfortunately, has gone cold.
How is legacy hasn't gone cold?
How is legacy is not gone cold.
In fact, I wear yellow today because her color was yellow, her, the theme, the live like
alley, there is a sun because she was so bright and it became yellow.
And that's even why I wear yellow.
And no, her legacy will always shine.
And I love that the family and her friend said that they chose to live like alley because
they wanted people to, you know, be that friend like she was, staying with her friend who
was closing up late at night waiting for them to get all for it, saying, have to leave alone.
They wanted them to be that positive, you know, force in someone's life, be that energetic
person.
You know, you know, you talked to a lot of people that knew her and they just talk about
how much she lit up a room.
And I think that that live like alley really kind of speaks to the legacy that she did, unfortunately,
leave behind agreed.
It resonates.
Case is still open.
Still looking for information on this case.
Still hoping for that it just takes one, one tip, one, you know, call that, you know, could
change everything for police and investigators and the family and they're still hoping for
that one call.
And that, that award is still out there.
Daniel reward.
$55,000.
I mean, that's a lot.
That's a big number.
That's a very big number and that that can be good and bad.
I guess like, let me explain this too.
So during the direct toddler case, the same thing.
They needed to get this person off the street.
I mean, you had multiple women showing up turning up dead all through the area.
So it was, hey, we need the public's help, but the description was a white truck in Livingston
Parish.
Everybody has a white truck in Livingston Parish.
But with the reward so high, you had officers chasing tips almost every five minutes of, oh,
it's all white truck in Livingston.
I saw another one.
Instead of following the main lead that they probably should have been following, they
were too busy following other.
Other leads because the reward was so high.
In this case, same thing.
It's $55,000, but sadly, I don't think many tips have come in.
If people do have tips, they can call crime stoppers.
You can.
I really want to get that number out for anybody that may be listening, the housing information
that like the other witness may be scared, but it's easy number to remember.
It's 3, 4, 4, stop.
3, 4, 4, 7, 8, 6, 7, and you can remain anonymous.
Yeah, 2, 2, 5, EricOd, you can remain anonymous.
You know, you don't have to give your name.
You can just kind of leave that tip.
It's a good program and crime stoppers is a great program in this city.
One of the more successful ones in Batroog and they've developed to evolve, should I say
now, to where you don't want to make a phone call.
Maybe you're worried about your voice or something.
You can go online.
You can now submit a tip online.
It's all anonymous.
So if you know something, say something, you don't know that pain you could be responsible
for easing.
On behalf of the entire Louisiana unfiltered team, I'm Karen Chauhla.
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