In November 1956, A hunter and his son are hunting in the woods along the shore of Lake Pontchartrain when they walk past a car with 2 people inside "making babies" ;) The next day, the hunter comes across the car in the same position and finds the guy shot dead in the car. The woman is nowhere to be seen. That night, it is discovered that the woman was Audrey Moate after keys found at the crime scene managed to unlock her abandoned car.

A few weeks later, Audrey's mother got a strange phone call supposedly from Audrey, saying he needed help, then she hung up. At around the same time, a waitress reported seeing Audrey at her restaurant wearing old, scraggy clothes. "Audrey" then left the store after she realised the waitress was looking at her. Audrey has not been seen or heard of since.

In 1980, An old man who lived in the area told his kids that his wife, who had died in 1979, had killed the couple when they came to the house. He said that they took the body of the man and left him where he was later found. He said that he tied Audrey to an old civil war cannon and dumped it in the swamp. The old man died in 1983.


I believe Audrey was not killed and she in fact did escape. However she was left so embarrassed and ashamed and possibly frightened by what had happened that she went into hiding, hence the restaurant sighting. You have to remember, this happened in 1956, maybe she felt she would have been ridiculed by everyone if they had found out about their affair. The old man's claims I think are simply an attempt at attention.


Any updates on this story?

I guess this one is up on that evil site now. :lol:

This is one of my fave UM stories. I think the music they play during this segment fits the story well. I dont believe Mr. Houtard was killed in that couples home who lived by the swamp. From the evidence I have seen it is obvious he was shot in the car. As for Audrey that is when it gets complicated. From the footprints seen at the crime scene I believe she escaped the car & ran. What I am having a time believing is the person who shot Mr. Houtard which I believe is the guy that lived by the swap would let Audrey get away risking that she could go to the cops & report what had happened. Then again she may not have given that she was having an affair with a married man.

The evidence of her escaping- the footprints & 2 waitresses claiming they saw her 2 weeks later. Granted they could have been mistaken but if we believe what happened in the UM segment, Audrey got up & left after noticing the 2 waitresses staring at her. Now if this was any other person I dont see why they would just up & leave just because some waitresses were staring at them. Then you have the phone call that Audrey's previous MIL received claiming it was Audrey & that she needed help. There is a possibility she could be mistaken as well but I would think she would know if it was Audrey's voice or not.

It is a possibilty that Audrey could have outrun the person who was chasing her but I doubt that. So that is why I am having a time with she really did escape. I just cannot see the person who commited this crime let Audrey get away.

I guess this one is up on that evil site now. :lol:

Yes, I put it up last night. The natives really get restless when I go a few days without putting one up. 470 subscribers and more joining every day. I may be in over my head. :crazy:

Yes, I put it up last night. The natives really get restless when I go a few days without putting one up. 470 subscribers and more joining every day. I may be in over my head. :crazy:

Yeah I check it everyday mutiple times to see if any new ones are added. :lol:

Thanks for adding these. Much appreciated. :)

Yes, I put it up last night. The natives really get restless when I go a few days without putting one up. 470 subscribers and more joining every day. I may be in over my head. :crazy:

I'm one of the proud 470 myself. :)

I'm one of the proud 470 myself. :)

As am I.

Peachysquirt21 (once again, I love your nick ;) ) does present an interesting case. I do believe that the guy was shot in the car where they were found, but by who? At first glance, it would look like the guy who later "confessed" may have done it, but why would he kill one but not the other? I think that it's possible that the hunter who was shown could have accidentally killed the guy with a stray bullet, but this seems unlikely due to the shot through the car window apparently being from close range.
Another possibility could be that the attack wasn't a random attack, and that they were followed. Someone could have been after the guy, went and killed him, then Audrey tried to escape, when a struggle broke out. Maybe Audrey wasn't killed because the killer only had the one bullet for the guy, and wasn't expecting a second person with him.

Me too, thanks agaian!!

Another possibility could be that the attack wasn't a random attack, and that they were followed. Someone could have been after the guy, went and killed him, then Audrey tried to escape, when a struggle broke out. Maybe Audrey wasn't killed because the killer only had the one bullet for the guy, and wasn't expecting a second person with him.

What confuses me is the phone call she made to her ex-mother-in-law and the sighting of her in the diner. Was she hiding out? Why wouldn't she go home to her family?

What confuses me is the phone call she made to her ex-mother-in-law and the sighting of her in the diner. Was she hiding out? Why wouldn't she go home to her family?

It was 1956. Adultery would have been seen as a much more serious thing than it is today. Plus it made it more worse now that there was a murder in the mix. The sighting in the diner cannot be confirmed in my opinion, as I don't think she stayed there long enough for a positive identification to be made. The phone call in a way confirms that she was not killed, but was that actually Audrey on the phone?

It was 1956. Adultery would have been seen as a much more serious thing than it is today. Plus it made it more worse now that there was a murder in the mix. The sighting in the diner cannot be confirmed in my opinion, as I don't think she stayed there long enough for a positive identification to be made. The phone call in a way confirms that she was not killed, but was that actually Audrey on the phone?

Yeah that's the only thing I can think of why she wouldnt return to her family cause of the shame of the affair & dealing with her lover being murdered.

I don't invest much in the sighting at the restaurant, nor do I think all that much of the supposed "confession" reported by the swamp guy's daughter. I'm sure she was telling the truth about what her father told her, but it sounds to me like he was lying to her. He was obviously lying about a major detail (that Houtard was shot somewhere else and left in the car), which leads me to believe the mean-spirited old blow hard was probably lying about the whole thing. I wouldn't dismiss him as a suspect altogether, because he did live right near the murder site (within a mile) and he was evidently notoriously short-tempered, but according to the segment Houtard and Moate were parking in that lovers' lane every day for a year or more; why would he pick that particular day to decide to shoot them? Surely he must have noticed them before? I strongly feel that someone else was responsible.

The question, of course, is who that someone else was. What I find interesting is that the segment did not go where I expected at all --- when an unmarried woman with a child (especially at that time) gets heavily involved with a married man, one expects that at some point she would start to press the issue with the married man, asking him to leave his wife for her, etc. The segment does not delve too deeply into the personal histories of Moate and Houtard, but I find it surprising that she did not attempt to force his hand after two years of seeing him. This makes me wonder why, and the answer I keep coming back to is that Houtard's wasn't the only pencil she was sharpening, so to speak. This is speculation, but my first guess would be that Audrey was involved with at least one other man (perhaps more) and that that man (or one of those men) followed Audrey and Hoate that night, killed her lover, and either murdered or struggled with her in some way. My guess is that she died in the area that night and her body either taken somewhere and buried elsewhere or submerged in the lake, but I suppose it is possible she reasoned with the guy, escaped, and left town.

The most interesting piece of evidence presented in the segment, if it can be taken at face value, is the claim that Audrey told her own mother, three months before the incident, that if anything happened to her, she should take her daughter and get as far away from the town as possible. This suggests to me that she either knew there was a situation that she had been managing but that was slipping out of her control (a love triangel, perhaps), or that she was setting up her own disappearance, either with another lover or by herself. I don't think Audrey could have killed Houtard by herself, however, as the shoe print near the scene suggests someone else (a man) was there. Interesting case, because I feel like there must be some things that are being left out that would help to narrow down the possibilities.

...a poster from the "evil sight" made a good point. Why didn't the police ever interview those evil rednecks that lived less than a mile from the crime scene? Was the police afraid of them too?

...a poster from the "evil sight" made a good point. Why didn't the police ever interview those evil rednecks that lived less than a mile from the crime scene? Was the police afraid of them too?

By the way dynoguy88, thanks for all you do --- I'm a subscriber (lafhilism). Even PMed you once about the Sara Jo case (I subsequently acquied via crystaldawn).

Yes I agree the old man's story did not make any sense, perhaps he used it as a way to control his kids, a pretty sick individual by the sounds of it.

Yes I agree the old man's story did not make any sense, perhaps he used it as a way to control his kids, a pretty sick individual by the sounds of it.

Well he was a few fries short of a happy meal. None of his claims have been justified, and he only made the claims after his wife died when she couldnt deny them. It seems most likely he was just using the case as an empty threat.

I personally think he made up aspects of the story but was, as a whole, clearing his conscience. His wife had died, so he could pin anything on her that was incriminating to that degree, but I agree with the theory that he did it. The only other person I see having a motive would be Mr. Houtard's wife finding out and going psycho, killing him and then chasing her down and destroying her. However, I doubt that, so we're left with a random person walking in the swamp.

Was anyone else outraged that they used a Civil War cannon? When I heard that I wanted to cry.

Does anyone think that Audrey could have had anything to do with the murder? Just trying to examine this case from every angle.

I saw this case about two days ago. The blast that killed the man in the car was from a 16 guage shotgun. This is not typically the kind of weapon that a robber/mugger would carry around, but it is the kind of weapon that most residents within that immediate rural area owned. That's why I do not think it was an assassination. I am inclined to believe the old man's story as he was a known hoodlum and only lived less than a mile from the scene. As the Sheriff in the segment said, the old man probably killed Moate himself and then blamed it on his wife so he could avoid truly confessing to the crime.

I think it was a sex crime that turned into murder. The old man ambushed the couple, shot the man through the window, then Moate ran from the car (as the footprints indicated) and he grabbed her. He later did whatever it was he did to her, then dumped her in the swamp. This theory is as good as any until any hard evidence or other confessions arise.

This is a case where I think the authorities in the segment were right on target.

I think it was a sex crime that turned into murder. The old man killed Moate's lover, then Moate ran from the car (as the footprints indicated) and he grabbed her. He later did whatever it was he did to her, then dumped her in the swamp. This theory is as good as any until any hard evidence or other confessions arise.

Yes Thiussat I agree with you. As grim as it sounds, I think Audrey was sexually assaulted and then probably thrown in the swamp. That is the only thing that makes sense since Thomas' body was found and hers wasn't. I do think though that the man probably planned to kill Audrey as well when the assault was finished as he killed Thomas without a second thought and of course he didn't want her to be able to tell what she knew. The man was probably afraid if they found her body they would know that she had been assaulted (even though I know there wasn't dna back then) and he could possibly have been arrested and convicted for the murder. Just my opinion.

I would agree that the creepy couple that lived in the area are probably to blame, and that Audrey probably was killed around that time. The scenario that Audrey was assaulted and that's why her body wasn't found is definitely a plausible one, although there's one thing that makes me believe that assault might not have been the motive: the segment depicts that the creepy couple really didn't enjoy Audrey and Hotard on their property, engaging in you know what. Audrey and Hotard certainly didn't deserve to be killed, but infidelity and having sex while unmarried would have been really frowned upon in 1956 Louisiana.

Unfortunately, since this case is over 50 years old, and that the supsects are long gone, and that Audrey Moat is probably dead, I don't think any new evidence is going to surface.

Wasn't Audrey somehow related to the couple who lived near the lover's lane?

Wasn't Audrey somehow related to the couple who lived near the lover's lane?

yes, although I can't recall what the relationship was or even if the segment mentioned it.

I think Thomas was somehow related to Caroline, the old man's common-law wife.

According to the old man's daughter, Audrey was related to Caroline in some way & that Audrey & Mr. Hotard knew something about Caroline.

Does anyone know if there are any newspaper articles about this perplexing case available online?

Does anyone know if there are any newspaper articles about this perplexing case available online?

the only thing I could find online was her Doe network profile:

http://doenetwork.org/cases/2323dfla.html

Interestingly, it does mention one thing I don't think the segment discussed: that the footprints (presumably Audrey's) ran up to the road, where a single track, believed to be a motorcycle was found.

What about the phone call that Audrey's former mother-in-law supposedly received from her about two weeks after Mr. Hotard was shot?

I'm kind of suspicious of eyewitness sightings by strangers, but I would think that her own mother-in-law would know Audrey's voice pretty well. Anyone think that this might point to the possibility that Audrey survived?

Charli-Ann

the only thing I could find online was her Doe network profile:

http://doenetwork.org/cases/2323dfla.html

Interestingly, it does mention one thing I don't think the segment discussed: that the footprints (presumably Audrey's) ran up to the road, where a single track, believed to be a motorcycle was found.

I found that interesting as well. No that was not in the segment.

What about the phone call that Audrey's former mother-in-law supposedly received from her about two weeks after Mr. Hotard was shot?

I'm kind of suspicious of eyewitness sightings by strangers, but I would think that her own mother-in-law would know Audrey's voice pretty well. Anyone think that this might point to the possibility that Audrey survived?

Charli-Ann

This is one of things that makes me go back & forth on wether or not she was able to escape that day. However I cannot see the person who committed this crime, let her get away.

For anyone interested her profile is now on the doenetwork:

http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/2323dfla.html

Maybe the guy's wife hired someone to kill them both.

Update: Her body may have been found. DNA test might resolve mystery (to some extent). The daughter is dying of cancer. The last update I have is from Feb, 2011.

The following is from this link: http://www.nbcmontana.com/news/26703870/detail.html

Montana Woman Hopes DNA Will Crack "Unsolved Mysteries" Cold Case
MISSOULA COUNTY

By Matt Leach

MISSOULA, Mont. -- A Montana woman hopes DNA evidence will breathE new life into a 50-year-old Louisiana cold case. Dekki Moate's mother went missing in a Louisiana swamp in 1956.

Tuesday Moate gave DNA to the police in hopes of identifying remains recently uncovered.

Moate has been looking for her mother since she was 9-years-old. She has traveled across the country, even telling her story to the TV show "Unsolved Mysteries." Now she thinks she is closer than ever before.

Moate didn't have much time to get to know her mother, but she still remembers her. "She was very supportive, she made me believe I could do anything," says Moate.

Moate's mother Audrey disappeared in 1956 after her boyfriend was found murdered in a Louisiana parish. No one has seen or heard from her since. Now there may be a break in the case.

"Louisiana Missing Persons is collecting DNA. They may have her remains," says Moate.

She worked with the Missoula Police Department to get a DNA sample to the FACES Lab at Louisiana State University. The DNA will tested against several unidentified remains the lab has collected, hoping one is Audrey.
The Moates' story is well known. Audrey's disappearance was featured in an "Unsolved Mysteries" episode in 1987.

"She had been in a long-term affair with Mr. Hotard, who was the man that was murdered with her, when she disappeared, and her belongings were found in the car," says Moate.

An article in a Louisiana paper reports the killer was never found. Fifty years later, Moate is still waiting for news on her mother, but time is running out.
"My life is finishing very soon, or at the very most a couple of years, and it is something I really want to do," she says.

Moate has cancer. She says the outlook isn't good, but finding her mother is on her bucket list, and she plans to cross it off.

"What it means to me is we can put her to rest," she says.
Moate says it will take about three months for researchers to come up with results on the DNA testing.

Interesting that this may get some closure all these years later. I always figured this case would probably never be solved due to the passage of time.

Not sure what the board consensus is, but I always thought this one was a no-brainer. I think the older couple who lived near the swamp - specifically the man who confessed on his death bed (sorry, I can't remember names), had a hand in the murder of Hotard and Moate's disappearance.

Moate was probably killed on the day she disappeared. I think the evidence suggests she was present when Hotard was shot from outside the car and then she attempted to flee. I just don't see the perp letting her get too far considering he/she just killed Hotard. Therefore, the sightings of Moate after the fact were probably erroneous and the phone call a prank.

Not sure who killed them, if it was the man or the woman specifically, but I think they had a hand in it in some way, and Moate's body is/was probably out in the swamp somewhere.

I think the investigator's theory presented on UM is spot on. By all accounts the swamp people where sick individuals, even their own daughter attested to this. I think the man was watching Moate and Hotard, became aroused and killed Hotard, and then gave chase to Audrey where he probably sexually assaulted her and then killed her. I think his wife helped him dispose of her body, though.

There never really was any other plausible scenario presented. The "Audrey is alive" theory is unlikely, because if she were ashamed of having an affair, why start a new life but leave her daughter behind? Wouldn't she be more disgraced by the community for abandoning her daughter if she in fact were found alive later on? And there are no other likely suspects, other than the "swamp couple". Another lover of Audrey's is a possibility, but the investigation never proved there was one. I'm sure there would have been evidence of another man in Audrey's life, and her daughter would have remembered him as she remembered Hotard. This is one of the rare UM segments in which the investigator's theories are exactly what I think happened.

So did anything ever come of the DNA testing or was that a false rumor.

So did anything ever come of the DNA testing or was that a false rumor.

I actually remember reading some posts from Audrey's daughter on Websleuths around the time the article about the DNA was published. It was a pretty sad situation for her because she was apparently living in poverty at the time and felt it was important to submit her DNA before she died, as she was probably going to be buried in a pauper's grave, making it very difficult to find her body after she passed away.

But as far as I can tell, this DNA lead never went anywhere.

I actually remember reading some posts from Audrey's daughter on Websleuths around the time the article about the DNA was published. It was a pretty sad situation for her because she was apparently living in poverty at the time and felt it was important to submit her DNA before she died, as she was probably going to be buried in a pauper's grave, making it very difficult to find her body after she passed away.

But as far as I can tell, this DNA lead never went anywhere.
:(

An A+ to UM for the actors that portrayed the the creepy couple in the segment, they did a good job.

Have they ever looked for the (cannon ball) in the Water?

If that search did take place, it was barely reported. Such an object certainly would still be there after 60 years. Whether any human remains would still be around after being in a swamp and the wildlife that inhabits such an area ... that seems less likely to me.
In response to another earlier post, yes, the call to the mother-in-law was featured in the UM segment,
This was always one of those cases that stuck with me.

As far as I know there were never any searches in the lake for the cannon, but the original investigation searched around 12 miles of the swamp and the garbage dump (a Dec. 1963 article in The Times of Shreveport, LA mentioned that several weeks after the murder, investigators believed that Moate and Hotard had been killed by a trapper). I think Acosta was lying about the motive and possibly placed Moate's remains elsewhere in the area.

I don't know if anyone has read this thread from websleuths. There is some very interesting posts through out about Audrey. If you have not read it, I recommend it.

There is even a poster who was a teenager at the time was in that area where Audrey & Mr. Hotard were that fateful day. She talks about what she saw.

http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?60103-LA-Audrey-Moate-31-Laplace-24-Nov-1956&highlight=audrey+moate

I just watched the Farina segment of the Moate case on Amazon, and was captivated by it (had vague memories of seeing it years before).

I did a Google search and found a listing for "Audrey A. Moate" on Find a Grave which I don't believe can possibly be her as she's never been found (the grave/memorial site is also in Coos County, Oregon, which doesn't add up given the Moate disappearance occurred in Louisiana).

My assumption is that it's just a mere coincidence, but what makes it a rather extraordinary coincidence is that the Audrey Moate listed on the grave/memorial has a birthdate of November 25, 1925—just one day after the DOB of Audrey Moate from the segment—and it also lists her death date as December 5, 1956, a little over a week after the Audrey Moate from the segment went missing.

They can't possibly be the same person, but it is very odd that they not only have the same first and last name, but also were born within 24 hours of each other and died within a week or so of one another as well.

Here is the link if anyone's interested. Someone has uploaded a photo of the Audrey Moate from the UM segment, probably by mistake, but I'm curious what others think:
https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=108018482

From what I can tell, Dekki is still alive and living somewhere around Missoula, Montana...

I've been on a kick with this one for the past week.

From what I've been reading around in old newspaper articles, I'm halfway beginning to wonder if the Acosta story is just a big old red herring and if someone acting on Hotard's wife's behalf didn't kill them instead. This is based on little more than the speculation that the child Audrey returned with from Baton Rouge was covertly adopted by Hotard (the implication is obvious), and Beulah, Hotard's wife, describes both Moate and Hotard in bitter terms in just about every article I've read so far in which she's interviewed (she even says she hated Audrey, who apparently moved in with the couple for half a year around 1954). Further, she's the only one with a totally clear motive. I'm not sure I could see a middle-aged woman in 1956 following her husband down to a remote swamp early on a Saturday morning to pull something like that off, but I could maybe see a person sympathetic to Beulah's plight doing such.

I've been on a kick with this one for the past week.

From what I've been reading around in old newspaper articles, I'm halfway beginning to wonder if the Acosta story is just a big old red herring and if someone acting on Hotard's wife's behalf didn't kill them instead. This is based on little more than the speculation that the child Audrey returned with from Baton Rouge was covertly adopted by Hotard (the implication is obvious), and Beulah, Hotard's wife, describes both Moate and Hotard in bitter terms in just about every article I've read so far in which she's interviewed (she even says she hated Audrey, who apparently moved in with the couple for half a year around 1954). Further, she's the only one with a totally clear motive. I'm not sure I could see a middle-aged woman in 1956 following her husband down to a remote swamp early on a Saturday morning to pull something like that off, but I could maybe see a person sympathetic to Beulah's plight doing such.

Good point about Acosta's story being a red herring. He changed details (says that Hotard was killed inside their home before being moved to the car is a big one) about the crime itself and his involvement. Maybe he didn't have anything to do with it. I haven't seen the segment in a long time, did they mention the 1950's suspect at all? Apparently he shot a woman parked in her car near the spot where Hotard was killed, and had a purse in his possession that resembled Audrey's. Although this guy used a pistol on his attack whereas Hotard was killed with a shotgun.

I don't know if either Mrs. Hotard or Audrey's ex would have had the means (money) to hire someone to off them, though. That's my biggest hang up with that theory.

I haven't seen the segment in a long time, did they mention the 1950's suspect at all? Apparently he shot a woman parked in her car near the spot where Hotard was killed, and had a purse in his possession that resembled Audrey's. Although this guy used a pistol on his attack whereas Hotard was killed with a shotgun.

No mention of this suspect in the segment, although I did read about him. I think that shooting occurred maybe two or three years after the Hotard/Moate murder/disappearance. When his home was searched, indeed there was a purse (among four or five other women's purses) that reportedly resembled the one Moate carried at the time of her disappearance.

I don't know if either Mrs. Hotard or Audrey's ex would have had the means (money) to hire someone to off them, though. That's my biggest hang up with that theory.

I sort of got the feeling it might not have been a traditional murder-for-hire scenario, but rather someone acting to "defend" Mrs. Hotard, possibly a family member or close friend, perhaps without her knowledge at all.

I read a post from a WebSleuther from years back who seemed to have made a family connection between the hunter who reported the discovery of Hotard's body (Henry 'Jack' Monaret). At the time, he was apparently married to a Vicknair. Vicknair is Beulah Hotard's maiden name. May mean nothing, but I thought that was interesting.

https://www.websleuths.com/forums/threads/la-audrey-moate-31-laplace-24-nov-1956.60103/page-7

I read a post from a WebSleuther from years back who seemed to have made a family connection between the hunter who reported the discovery of Hotard's body (Henry 'Jack' Monaret). At the time, he was apparently married to a Vicknair. Vicknair is Beulah Hotard's maiden name. May mean nothing, but I thought that was interesting.

That is very interesting. I still have a problem with this scenario. If it was someone set out to defend the honor of Mrs. Hotard, why brutally murder Thomas first and then set chase to Audrey? And if it was to get Audrey out of the picture, why not do it when she was alone? All indications are that Mrs. Hotard hated Audrey and seemed to blame her for the affair more than her husband, so I don't know why someone would kill both of them unless they were unrelated to them.

I read a post from a WebSleuther from years back who seemed to have made a family connection between the hunter who reported the discovery of Hotard's body (Henry 'Jack' Monaret). At the time, he was apparently married to a Vicknair. Vicknair is Beulah Hotard's maiden name. May mean nothing, but I thought that was interesting.

https://www.websleuths.com/forums/threads/la-audrey-moate-31-laplace-24-nov-1956.60103/page-7

Wow. That is interesting. It would be different if it were a common last name like Smith. But how many Vicknairs could there have been?

I don't think that's a common name. Like you said, it could mean nothing. But still enough to make you go hmmmmmmm.

Indeed, it potentially changes the whole case.

I did a quick google calculation. Depending on where the spot was it could've taken nearly an hour to get there. That said, the terrain is different now which could include the roads so there's really no way to be truly accurate with that.

The hunter spotted them there around 9am. Thomas and Audrey were apparently killed while in the process of making love which means they were likely killed relatively soon after they arrived.

Of course there's no set time for how long a couple makes love but that certainly puts the hunter very close to the scene around the time of death. Add to that the fact he's possibly connected to Beulah Hotard, who had the biggest motive for wanting both of them dead and that one technique killers use to cover their tracks is to "discover" the scene of the crime and you have a very interesting picture.

The only thing that doesn't really fit into that is the hunter apparently had his son with him. However, we don't know the age of the son. Considering he was old enough to hunt with his father I'm guessing he was at least a preteen. This makes him old enough that he could've been complacent.

If Beulah Hotard found out that Audrey's "adopted" child was in fact Audrey and Thomas' illegitimate child, that might explain why Audrey was afraid for their safety. Audrey lived with her for a time, perhaps she got a glimpse of what Beulah was capable of which is why she gave her mother that warning soon before her disappearance.

Hmm...

Gotta say, feels good to be doing a case analysis again. Been too long. :P

Indeed, it potentially changes the whole case.

I did a quick google calculation. Depending on where the spot was it could've taken nearly an hour to get there. That said, the terrain is different now which could include the roads so there's really no way to be truly accurate with that.

The hunter spotted them there around 9am. Thomas and Audrey were apparently killed while in the process of making love which means they were likely killed relatively soon after they arrived.

Of course there's no set time for how long a couple makes love but that certainly puts the hunter very close to the scene around the time of death. Add to that the fact he's possibly connected to Beulah Hotard, who had the biggest motive for wanting both of them dead and that one technique killers use to cover their tracks is to "discover" the scene of the crime and you have a very interesting picture.

The only thing that doesn't really fit into that is the hunter apparently had his son with him. However, we don't know the age of the son. Considering he was old enough to hunt with his father I'm guessing he was at least a preteen. This makes him old enough that he could've been complacent.

If Beulah Hotard found out that Audrey's "adopted" child was in fact Audrey and Thomas' illegitimate child, that might explain why Audrey was afraid for their safety. Audrey lived with her for a time, perhaps she got a glimpse of what Beulah was capable of which is why she gave her mother that warning soon before her disappearance.

Hmm...

Gotta say, feels good to be doing a case analysis again. Been too long. :P

Admittedly, I have at the very least one problem with the theory, and it's precisely what Cars mentioned: why was Hotard shot and Audrey taken from the scene if it was someone acting on Beulah's behalf? My initial thought is that perhaps it could have been an attempt to stage a scene as though, as Percy Hebert initially believed, it was a lover's spat gone awry, or a sexually motivated crime, as was posited in the segment. Either would fit a scenario casting less suspicion toward anyone in the Hotard family (as a scene in which both were shot and left together might) and less favor toward Audrey (her absence has the potential to raise suspicion that she either killed Hotard herself, or to demonstrate she was "doing something she wasn't supposed to" and may have even "deserved" what she got). Nonetheless, it can be argued it doesn't seem to fit.

In that same WS thread, there is a poster who claims to have been at Frenier Beach that very morning. The poster claims he/she had just learned to drive, and flubbed a story to his or her parents about going to a street fair with friends when in fact, they loaded up in the car and headed out to the remote location instead. The poster said that as they were approaching the beach, a truck passed them (assumed to be Monaret's, based on the time of day), and that upon arriving on the beach they noted the car with one of its rear doors hanging open. He/she claims that they hung out at the beach for some time without approaching the car or noticing anyone inside. Then they left. I seem to remember something about the poster saying they waded or swam in the water, which seems unlikely given the fact that this was late November and described as a chill morning. I think the poster either has his or her date wrong, or is flat-out fibbing.

I'm a little curious about where Hotard and Moate were residing at the time of the crime, respectively. I've read (and heard on Robin's podcast) that Audrey was living in Baton Rouge, while Hotard was living in Gretna. Their meeting cafe was in LaPlace, as is Frenier Beach. That's a little better than an hour for Audrey coming from Baton Rouge, and a little better than half an hour for Hotard coming from Gretna (and both are based on modern-day estimations involving some interstate travel, which may not have even existed in 1956 in that part of the country for all I know).

Moate and Hotard were, for a time, coworkers at Celotex (which was located within Jefferson Parish, the county seat of which is Gretna). It seems as though Audrey began working for Kaiser (which I presume is Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical) after the so-called "nervous breakdown" that sent her to St. Louis for several months, after which she returned with a four-day old infant. Kaiser indeed had a plant in Baton Rouge at that time, as well as another in Chalmette (which may be familiar to you as the hometown of Mary Ann Perez, another UM disappearance). Chalmette is less than half an hour from Gretna. I mention all this to say that it seems as though Audrey may have made an attempt to remove herself from the greater New Orleans area upon learning she was pregnant and subsequently giving birth to her daughter. Whether this was to avoid scandal or avoid somebody (or perhaps both), I don't know, but it is rather intriguing. Regardless, she continued seeing Hotard in LaPlace (driving a considerable distance to do it, apparently).

My apologies for bumping this one. In all my years now watching UM online, this is the one case I still haven't commented on (possibly because there's no chance it'll ever be solved definitively).

I skimmed all 9 pages of the WS post linked earlier in this thread and the familial connections are fascinating reading, however nothing even remotely concrete has ever been brought forth. There has been some mention of the extreme animosity TH's wife had toward Audrey (which is eminently understandable), but trying to pin her (or some other familial relation) as the mastermind of a murder plot strains credulity to me.

Those rednecks in the swamp though - that they're responsible is obvious. If they weren't, that would raise some questions (Why/what motive would Ernest Acosta have for pinning the murder on his common law wife if neither of them had anything to do with it??).

Nothing had ever been revealed about the possible familial relation Thomas (or Audrey?) had to Acosta's wife, but either way, I think it's immaterial. Acosta knew they had been parking out there, he had some idea of what they were probably up to and one day, he finally snapped - killing Thomas, raping Audrey and then killing her too.

I found this (https://www.thewestsidejournal.com/lifestyle/many-graves-dug-in-search-for-audrey-moate/article_86a4bb90-d1ac-11ea-b695-b3d9dd926342.html) article written last year that has some very interesting nuggets. I apologize if this information has been brought up before in another thread, but there was another suspect at the time, who actually helped search for Audrey Moate. He was a man named Edmond Joseph Due.

The sheriff’s next big announcement came on March 14th, 1959, two years after the death of Thomas Hotard. Another attempted murder near Frenier Beach on the same day of the week in a similar fashion suggested a break in the case.

As before, an assailant shot someone through the closed window of an automobile parked at the end of old Frenier Road. This time, however, the shooter made a mistake that resulted in a 10-year prison sentence.

In the clearing nearest to the beach, Leonie Martinez sat in the family car while her husband, Frank, fished a short distance away. Knowing Frenier Beach was the scene of the Hotard murder, she rolled up the car windows and locked the doors.

A man fired a .38 revolver through the glass and wounded Leonie before trying to open the locked car door.

“Damn it. Open up and get out,” Leonie later quoted him as saying.

Instead, Leonie leaned on the car horn until Frank Martinez popped out of the woods, a short-cut from the bayou where he fished.

Panicked, her assailant ran to his car, backed it around, and sped off, while Frank shouted the car’s license number to Leonie, who wrote it on a newspaper in the car.

At Charity Hospital, doctors treated a flesh wound in Leonie’s right shoulder, painful, but not severe, inflicting no permanent damage.

One hour after the attack, Sheriff Hebert arrested the shooter at his swamp cabin near Reserve, less than five miles from the crime scene.

Edmond Joseph Duhe, a 40-year-old bespectacled man who worked at a nearby sugar refinery, claimed he had fished all day and knew nothing of a shooting. As he spoke, the sheriff recalled seeing him at the scene of the Hotard murder, among a group of volunteers searching for Audrey Moate.

Search warrant in hand, the deputies uncovered a vast hoard of pornographic photographs in the house, along with five women’s purses, 50 lipstick applicators, and over a dozen sex magazines.

In the trunk of Duhe’s car, they found more women’s purses, including one made of plain black cloth, matching the description of Audrey Moate’s missing handbag.

Hours after his arrest, Duhe confessed to shooting Leonie Martinez but insisted he did not kill Hotard and knew nothing of Audrey Moate’s whereabouts. He admitted owning a 16-gauge shotgun in 1956 but said he lost it hunting in 1958.

The following day, sheriff’s deputies accompanied Duhe to the spot where he tossed the old Iver Johnson .38 short revolver that he admitted using in the Martinez attack. However, deputies found the area dense and virtually impenetrable, the ground tangled and soggy, flooded in places.

After searching fruitlessly for days, Sheriff Hebert enlisted the aid of a local junk dealer, who employed an eight-foot electromagnet, mounted on a hinge and dragline, to sweep through the swamp.

The powerful magnet found Edmond Duhe’s revolver, along with many indistinguishable chunks of metal, several strands of barbed wire, a civil war sword, a tractor motor, and several corroded rifles.

Certain Duhe was involved in the Hotard murder and the disappearance of Audrey Moate; Sheriff Hebert commissioned the junk dealer to drag his magnet through “any and every accessible lakeshore, shrub, canal, and muddy bog within a thirty-mile radius” of Frenier Beach.

That week, the junk man collected a steel truck motor, two car bumpers, several boat anchors, more guns, mountains of cans, and a blade from a sawmill, but Sheriff Hebert could connect nothing found to Thomas Hotard’s murder.

Unperturbed, the sheriff persuaded Duhe to take a lie-detector test.

And after failing two polygraphs, Duhe agreed to visit a hospital in Baton Rouge, where doctors administered sodium amytal, a “truth serum” barbiturate reported to eliminate inhibitions.

“Duhe responded poorly to the drug,” the sheriff told reporters later, but before vomiting, when asked about the location of Audrey Moate’s body, Duhe mumbled something about a “commissary dump.”

Knowing the sugar refinery where Duhe worked once maintained a dump, Sheriff Hebert ordered the bulldozing of the abandoned site, searching for Audrey Moate’s bones.

Duhe, in manacles, watched the heavy machinery work, telling reporters on the scene that he did not recall saying anything about that location to police.

Once leveled, the commissary dump revealed no bones of Audrey Moate or anyone else.

Edmond Joseph Duhe pleaded guilty to the attempted murder of Leonie Martinez and served ten years in the Louisiana State Prison at Angola. He died in 2003.

The article ends on an even more bizarre note:

However, Audrey Alta Smith Moate’s tombstone is in the Norway Cemetery in Coos County, Oregon, where Audrey’s mother, Minnie Pearl Cook Smith, relocated after her daughter’s disappearance. Audrey’s marker records the day she died as December 5th, 1956.

Perhaps, Minnie Smith – who died three years before the Unsolved Mysteries television series began – knew something about her daughter’s fate that she chose not to share with law enforcement.

The implication being that maybe Audrey shot Hotard and then fled before committing suicide? Seems bizarre that her mother wouldn't have told law enforcement this information if she in fact did know what happened to her daughter.

Having recently re-watched this case, one thing stood out to me. After the portion of the segment where they tell us about the possibility of them being killed in the home, the detective says that Hotard was put back into his car and drive out to the location where his body was found. He also pointed to a swampy area where LE was told that Audrey's body was tied to a cannon and dumped there. He mentions that they want to dive in and look for it once the water goes down. That segment was filmed in 1989. There are no updates. Are we to conclude that such a search never took place? That seems super strange because even though the body would long since be gone, the cannon and whatever apparatus they used to tie her to it would likely still be down there. It seems like that could pretty much solve the case if the cannon is found.

This (https://www.lobservateur.com/2020/11/04/audrey-moates-granddaughter-provides-new-information/) article provides yet another potential suspect.

Held in the jail at Donaldsonville, a 62-year-old New Orleans man named Jackson Lejeune asked to see a priest. However, he slashed his left wrist before the priest arrived. A doctor treated him, and he went to the state hospital at Jackson for observation.

Lejeune had a long, private talk with the priest there. Later that day, he told the hospital superintendent he wanted to talk to the sheriff at LaPlace. The superintendent phoned me, and I drove to Jackson. That was on Monday, April 28, 1957.

Lejeune was a gaunt, bald man, and he was a fast, smooth talker. He told me, “Hebert, I know who killed Mr. Hotard and that Moate woman. I was with the guy when he shot the two of them.”

“Well,” I said, “You better tell me all about it. Who was the man?”

“An old friend of mine. Name of Sampson Gallata. He killed the man, and then he took the woman and killed her, too, and buried her in the swamp.”

Lejeune said he met Gallata at the French Market bar in New Orleans, Friday night before the murder. Gallata asked Lejeune to have a drink with him. They took Gallata’s Buick up Airline Highway to LaPlace, stopping at several bars along the way.

“Gallata pulls into a parking lot by a restaurant, and we sat there and smoked,” Lejeune said, “He kept looking around for someone. Late, near daylight Saturday morning, he jumps and hollers, ‘That’s her.’ I look around and see this woman and man getting into a car. They drive off up the Hammond Highway, and we follow them.”

I kept listening. Lejeune told me how Gallata followed the car down Frenier Road with the Buick’s lights turned off. He parked a hundred feet from the clearing. Then Gallata reached into the back seat for a shotgun and got out of the truck.

“He went right up to the car window and raised that gun and boom. I hear this big noise,” Lejeune continued. “Then there’s a scream, and this woman comes running out of the car. He runs around and grabs her, and drags her back to the Buick. All the while, she’s crying and begging him not to kill her. He throws her in the back of the car, and I see all she has on is a kind of a slip, and it’s torn.

“I said, ‘Don’t hurt her.’

“He said, ‘If you don’t shut up, I’ll kill you too.’

“He drove up the road a ways and stops the car. He gets out and grabs the woman, and pulls her out. He tells me, ‘You wait here.’ Then he walks off into the swamp, dragging the woman with one hand and holding the shotgun with the other. They went so far back I couldn’t see them through the trees.

“I waited a long time, and then I heard a shot. Then there was another shot and another. He must have shot her three or four times. Then he comes walking back to the car. He throws the shotgun in the back and gets a shovel. Then he says to me, ‘Wait here and don’t make a move.’

“I must have smoked a pack of cigarettes waiting. He sure took a long time, burying that woman. Finally, he comes back to the car, throws the shovel in the back, and gets in. It was daylight by then, and he drove straight back to New Orleans.”

Lejeune said Gallata took him to his room in the French Quarter. And before letting him out of the car, he threatened to kill him if he told anyone what had happened. The next day Lejeune moved out of his room. He said he was afraid Gallata would come after him. Later he left New Orleans and went to Donaldsonville.

I asked him what Gallata looked like.

“A big guy,” he said. “In his forties. Maybe six-foot and 200 pounds. He’s got sandy hair, and he gets awful mad when he’s crossed.”

I asked about Gallata’s motive, and Lejeune told me Audrey Moate had been two-timing him. “She used to be his girlfriend,” Lejeune said. “Anyway, that’s how I got it.”

“How come he buried the woman and not the man?” I asked.

“Hebert,” Lejeune said, “you’ll have to ask Gallata about that.”

Lejeune gave the impression of sincerity. Although he was intelligent, he could not read or write, meaning he hadn’t pieced his story together from reading newspaper accounts.

I signed Lejeune out of the state hospital and took him back to LaPlace that evening. We drove him to Airline Highway and asked him to show us the restaurant where Gallata waited for Hotard and Audrey Moate. He picked out a restaurant, but not Stein’s. Gallata identified the 24-hour café across the street, the American Motors Restaurant. This information is significant as Stein’s closed at midnight.

As I drove onto Highway 51, I sped up to 50 miles-per-hour. Without slowing down, I passed Frenier Road, and Lejeune said, “Wait. That was the road there.”

He pointed out the clearing and the exact spot where Hotard parked his car but could not recall where Gallata buried the body. We dug for days in several areas that resembled the place he remembered without success.

The bolded portions of this were not public knowledge at the time. And the motive would also make sense. Ernest Acosta was lying, IMO. I never paid too much attention to it, but the segment made a mention that Acosta lived "less than a mile" from the murder site. Look (https://www.google.com/maps/dir/30.1015927,-90.4216944/301/@30.104456,-90.4297994,645m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m9!4m8!1m0!1m5!1m1!1s0x8620cda169587d37:0x1941f72d9000cf7!2m2!1d-90.4280792!2d30.1073559!3e0) at the route you would have had to have taken by car to get to the site. Unless he was casually strolling along the railroad tracks and stumbled onto them and then decided to murder them, I have no idea how he would have even known that Audrey and Thomas were there.

I guess it comes down to pick your favorite between the two of those stories, I'd probably lean towards the Gallata story as it seems to have more behind it and is probably as close to the truth as we're going to get without Audrey's skeletal remains.

The Duhe story sounds more circumstantial, certainly odd that he had all those things, but it doesn't really add up to anything.

Here (https://www.google.com/maps/@30.0649327,-90.4776819,3a,75y,93.88h,87.23t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sARGGCQD-IgsZFn8kQYdjpQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656) is where Audrey and Thomas met before heading off to Frenier Rd.

I have gone down a bit of a rabbit hole with this case recently, and I think I may have found the reasoning behind the tombstone for Audrey having her death date listed as December 5th instead of November 24th. I found an old article written roughly 2 months after Hotard's murder and Audrey's disappearance which says her mother believed that the phone call to Audrey's former mother-in-law was legitimate and she believed it was Audrey. So IMO, since this was the last date her mother believed her to be alive, this is the one that went on the marker.

As for suspects, I don't really believe Acosta's confession. Jackson Lejeune seemed like a promising suspect (and was Sheriff Hebert's prime suspect), but he confessed to being at the crime scene when the murders occurred, but first blamed Audrey's ex husband George as the "real killer" before switching to a man named Sampson Gallata after being confronted with the fact that George Moate had an airtight alibi for that day. Sheriff Hebert thought that Lejeune was being truthful in his confession but lying about not being involved with the murders, and was minimizing his involvement. Even though he got the correct road and area where Hotard's car was found correct, a front page newspaper article written about the case was published in January of 1957 and had pictures of the crime scene detailing where the car was found as well as items scattered around. Lejeune didn't confess to Hebert until April of 1957.

Edmond Joseph Duhe should be a suspect, but Duhe's alleged confession of where he dumped Audrey's body turned up nothing, whereas he told the police the exact spot where the gun he used to injure the other woman after he confessed. What I found interesting in reading that article from January 1957 was that some of the deputies working for Sheriff Hebert had believed (at that time) that Audrey was still alive and possibly involved in Hotard's murder. A salient point is brought up: if Hotard was shot in the middle of having sex with Audrey, why would Audrey have grabbed her purse, car keys, and ID card for her job? IMO, it's much more likely that the killer ordered her out of the car at gunpoint, and after shooting Hotard is when she took off running before being captured and removed from the area.

I found a post on reddit (take this with a grain of salt) that claims that Audrey's daughter Dekki said that Hotard's son, who was 19 at the time of his father's murder and owned a motorcycle was a potential suspect in the case. Investigators believed that the tire tracks found at the crime scene where Audrey's footprints stopped to be that of a motorcycle. I don't know how her killer would have been able to handle her on a motorcycle, but I did find it interesting.

I have gone down a bit of a rabbit hole with this case recently, and I think I may have found the reasoning behind the tombstone for Audrey having her death date listed as December 5th instead of November 24th. I found an old article written roughly 2 months after Hotard's murder and Audrey's disappearance which says her mother believed that the phone call to Audrey's former mother-in-law was legitimate and she believed it was Audrey. So IMO, since this was the last date her mother believed her to be alive, this is the one that went on the marker.

Makes sense.

As for suspects, I don't really believe Acosta's confession. Jackson Lejeune seemed like a promising suspect (and was Sheriff Hebert's prime suspect), but he confessed to being at the crime scene when the murders occurred, but first blamed Audrey's ex husband George as the "real killer" before switching to a man named Sampson Gallata after being confronted with the fact that George Moate had an airtight alibi for that day. Sheriff Hebert thought that Lejeune was being truthful in his confession but lying about not being involved with the murders, and was minimizing his involvement. Even though he got the correct road and area where Hotard's car was found correct, a front page newspaper article written about the case was published in January of 1957 and had pictures of the crime scene detailing where the car was found as well as items scattered around. Lejeune didn't confess to Hebert until April of 1957.

Would be curious to know what landed Lejeune in jail, as well as any known criminal history of Gallata's--or really anything about Gallata, for that matter. I think he was probably an actual person given that Sampson Gallata isn't exactly the kind of name you just make up off the cuff. Was he a friend of Lejeune's? A coworker or acquaintance? An old cellmate? I wonder if Hebert was ever able to track him down before he passed, or anyone else who took on the case afterward.

I agree with Hebert that even if Lejeune's confession is true about being present, he was greatly minimizing his own role. I think either Lejeune and Gallata together committed the crimes or Lejeune acted alone and lied about Gallata being there, and that those are the only two likely scenarios.

One thing that kind of gives me pause on Lejeune though is that he would've been 61 years old or so at the time of Audrey's disappearance. I'm not saying men of that age don't commit sexual assault, rape, and murder, but on average that criminal population is 30-35 years younger.

There's also the fact that he was in a state hospital at the time of his confession. The wrist slashing that landed him there could have been a legitimate suicide attempt, a way to afford himself some more comfortable accommodations relative to jail, or a byproduct of some mental illness that doesn't necessarily involve suicidal ideations. The second would denote a tendency toward manipulation and might render his confession suspect from that standpoint alone; the third necessarily leads to questions of whether the things he told Hebert were, in all or part, based in reality.

The fact that Lejeune was illiterate (mentioned in another article snippet that I think you might have posted a few years ago) and therefore couldn't have read newspaper accounts of the Hotard/Moate case for himself isn't a big kicker for me. Illiterate folks often enlist people to read to them, and as a result sometimes have better recall for detail.

All of that said, I still think Lejeune is the best suspect out of the bunch.

ETA: Thanks for posting the Google Maps location of the cafe! It looks like the original sign for the restaurant is still in place on top of the building. You can also tell the highway is definitely the same one "Audrey" is traveling on in the UM segment.