48 Hours - Murder at the Manor

Episode Date: February 1, 2024

Harold “H” Landry,  a self-made Cajun millionaire, left behind his life in Louisiana to pursue an international romance with a British woman, Lucy Davies, whom he met online. This seemingly perfect relationship ended when Lucy Landry was murdered at their home over a decade later in February 2010. Landry didn't deny killing her, but when the trial began, the past came back to haunt him. “48 Hours" correspondent Richard Schlesinger reports. This classic "48 Hours" episode last aired on 6/19/2012. Watch all-new episodes of “48 Hours” on Saturdays, and stream on demand on Paramount+.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to this podcast ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app today. Even if you love the thrill of true crime stories as much as I do, there are times when you want to mix it up. And that's where Audible comes in, with all the genres you love and new ones to discover. Explore thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. Listening to Audible can lead to positive change in your mood, your habits,

and even your overall well-being. And you can enjoy Audible anytime, while doing household chores, exercising, commuting, you name it. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.ca. In 2014, Laura Heavlin was in her home in Tennessee when she received a call from California. Her daughter, Erin Corwin, was missing. The young wife of a Marine had moved to the California desert

to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park. They have to alert the military. And when they do, the NCIS gets involved. From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS. Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music. 13th of March, 2010. Wanda and Ernie, hey, quit worrying about me. I am okay.

Thanks for your love and unconditional support and love. It should comfort you to learn I met with the prison priest for an hour today. I am trying to get my spiritual side right with the man upstairs. A 65-year-old American millionaire is convicted of murder after the death of his wife. I accept full responsibility for everything, so I will pay for my actions. Sorry. H's story is a tale of two worlds. He went from down the bayou living with nothing to living in a fine British manor home. He's a millionaire. I just don't know how many million.

I'm Pat Fanning, and I'm a friend of Harold Landry, who came to be known as H. H was proud to be a Cajun from South Louisiana. His personality was big. He just embraced everything. He had met someone on the internet. She lived in England and he was going to England to visit her. She was young, nice figure.

Yeah, each did pretty good. This was a woman that he idolized. He had the most beautiful daughter with her, living a gentleman's life in the UK countryside. Oh my gosh, hang on England. You guys will never be the same. You can take the Cajun out of the bayou, but you can't take the bayou out of the Cajun. H made a phone call to us and was devastated. He just said, Lucy says she's not happy.

She wants a divorce. Uh-oh, that ain't good. Trouble in paradise. His whole world was crumbling. There's been a horrible tragedy. And Lucy, she's dead. What the hell happened with H? I do know that she posted on her Facebook page

that she'd never hated anyone like she hated at that moment. He says, I did it. But there is a story to be told. Murder at the Manor. This is a letter from H in prison sent on the 8th of September 2010. This is the letter from H in prison sent on the 8th of September, 2010. This is the way H, as Harold Landry is known to his friends, can communicate with most of them, including Helen Nifton.

I am truly settled in. Keep so busy doing so many things. He left the majesty of his country house for Her Majesty's prison system. He had confessed he stabbed his wife Lucy to death. All I ever did was love her, still do. His correspondence from behind bars reads like love letters to the woman he killed. All I ever did was give her everything she asked for. For ten years, she never ever worried about anything.

Helen is used to communicating with H in writing from her home in the English countryside. They met online before H met Lucy. The virtual world made it possible for her to befriend someone from a very different world. His handle was Cajun H. H grew up in a small town on the bayou called Berwick, Louisiana, with a dozen brothers and sisters. Pat Fanning is a lawyer and H's friend in New Orleans. He managed to pull himself from that meager existence that he lived there and made millions in the oil field.

Landry made his fortune designing cranes for offshore oil platforms and was a well-known employer around Covington, Louisiana. When it came to business, he was a very tough guy, but he was never that way with his family. He had been divorced a couple of times, but he took care of his kids and made sure they were educated and had everything they needed. By 1999, he was healthy, wealthy, and lonely. And that's when he went looking for love in that thoroughly modern way, online. Call me old-fashioned, but I don't find that a particularly romantic way to find a bride. But H found the woman for him, Lucy Davies. Her online name was Misery. She was a music student who lived in

England with her four-year-old son, James. H was 53. Lucy was 28. At first, I was a little bit negative about it. What are you doing? Look at the age difference. Wanda and Ernie Richardson are two of H's closest friends. But I know H loves to be around lively, beautiful things, and Lucy was certainly that. There was something about her. It was kind of like what you see is what you get. I liked her a lot. And the Richardsons enjoyed seeing H so happy with Lucy. He doted on her. Oh my gosh, did he? Lucy was being pampered and she was enjoying it.

She enjoyed beautiful clothes, beautiful jewelry. And H was willing to buy whatever Lucy wanted. If you want to get the hoochie, you got to buy the Gucci. He knows that. Some of H's friends soon began wondering if Lucy enjoyed the clothes and the jewelry more than she enjoyed H. H at one point showed me a diamond ring that he bought for Lucy that he wanted to give to her as an engagement ring. Lucy wanted the diamond, but she didn't want H as part of the deal. He wasn't exactly a hunk-a-hunk-a-burnin'-love-lookin' kind of guy. Fanning describes the romance, such as it was, as a little more like a business deal.

The love affair between H and Lucy was that Lucy loved H's money and H loved Lucy's appearance. It may not have been for love or money, but H and Lucy did get married shortly after Lucy got pregnant. did get married shortly after Lucy got pregnant. And Harold Landry, Bayou born and bred, tried to become an English country gentleman. Did his speech change? Yeah. He'd say, well, let me go get the lift.

And I'd say, well, why don't you take the elevator, dummy? I'm going, come on, H, you're from South Louisiana. Quit it, you know? But he just dove right into it. He bought that big house in the country for his new bride and settled into his new life as a retiree and as a new father when his daughter was born. He was a very proud papa, no doubt about it. What did he tell you about her? Oh, just everything about her. Every minor detail. H is a happy guy. H has got a young girl.

He got what he wanted. But both H and Lucy might have gotten more than they could handle. There were signs after a few years that the marriage had become a volatile mixture of anger and alcohol. H would certainly start drinking early. Lucy's son James, age 15. He'd get a lot more aggressive when he did drink. James saw the marriage deteriorate.

My mom would perhaps want something or ask something and it would just end up being shouting matches. It sounds a little scary. It wasn't pleasant. Lucy and H had known each other for 10 years when she finally asked for the divorce. How was he in that period? Oh, in a terrible state. The most important thing to him, wants to leave him, and he didn't understand, and he didn't know what to do. Of course, H had already been married twice and divorced twice.

Of course, H had already been married twice and divorced twice. This time, things would be very different. I heard glass smashing. I heard my mum screaming. James had seen H and his mother fight many times before February 1st, 2010, but never like this. I knew at that point that something had happened, something major, something bad. I was one of the first officers on the scene,

and I'd certainly never been to anything like it before. Police officer Steve Elcox. The paramedics were working on Lucy. There was a great deal of blood. Lucy had been stabbed more than 20 times. She had a very, very large gash to her left cheek. She also had a very large butcher's knife that was still in her. Elcox had his hands full.

One of the first priorities was to find out if the children were safe. James was just 14. his sister was just 7. Police found the children in the backyard. They did not know their mother lay dying in the front. I thought for most of the night that my mom was still alive. H had fled, leaving the children alone at the bloody crime scene. Police immediately began searching for him along dark, deserted country roads. It was just before midnight. And that's where Sergeant Ian Booth found him.

Slammed on the brakes, and I knew it was him straight away. Sergeant Booth arrested H and charged him with murder. Mr. Laundrie was completely compliant. There was nothing in his demeanor that suggested that he'd done something. But H didn't try to deny it. He told police what he had done. I couldn't believe it at all. It's surreal that it had come to this. How could either one of them let this happen? But Pat Fanning knew firsthand about the other side of Harold Landry. I knew H as a guy who got crossways with a guy before and shot him. I'm Erin Moriarty of 48 Hours, and of all the cases I've covered, this is the one that troubles me most. A bizarre and maddening tale involving an eyewitness account that doesn't quite make sense.

A sister testifying against a brother. A lack of physical evidence. Crosley Green has lived more than half his life behind bars for a crime he says he didn't commit. Listen to Murder in the Orange Grove, the troubled case against Crosley Green, wherever you get your podcasts. Have you ever wondered who created that bottle of sriracha that's living in your fridge? Or why nearly every house in America has at least one game of Monopoly. Introducing the best idea yet,

a brand new podcast from Wondery and T-Boy about the surprising origin stories of the products you're obsessed with and the bold risk-takers who brought them to life. Like, did you know that Super Mario, the best-selling video game character of all time, only exists because Nintendo couldn't get the rights to Popeye? Or Jack, that the idea for the McDonald's Happy Meal first came from a mom in Guatemala?

From Pez dispensers to Levi's 501s to Air Jordans, discover the surprising stories of the most viral products. Plus, we guarantee that after listening, you're going to dominate your next dinner party. So follow The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to The Best Idea Yet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+. It's just the best idea yet. 21 July, 2010. Deb and John, hi. I enrolled in Open University this week.

I'm taking an advanced mathematics course to help fill my time. Harold Landry's letters from prison to his friend John Blakeman are a curious mixture of routine news... I keep very busy. Time has gone in a flash. ...and a convict's peculiar point of view. They sometimes sound like someone else murdered Lucy. Lucy died, but I might as well have done so as well. It really stinks and very difficult for me.

Send some pictures of Emerald Greenwater and open seas. Love, H. Of course, chances are H. Landry will never again see Emerald Greenwater or open seas. Love, H. Of course, chances are H. Landry will never again see emerald green water or open seas. He was front page news, but while the American millionaire murderer might be a big fish here, his British neighbors didn't know that in his Louisiana hometown back in 1994, he was the one that got away. When I first arrived, it looked like total chaos. Captain Barney Turney of the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office was a patrol officer on February 6, 1994, when he got a call about a shooting.

I had a bloodstained car. I had an individual laying inside of a pool of blood. The victim had been shot once in the neck with a.38, and this was not going to be a very tough case at all. Just as I got out of my car, I had an individual approach me. He was making a statement. I shot him. I shot him. I shot him. I'm the man you're looking for. I shot him. I shot him. It was Harold Landry, and he couldn't stop confessing. Did he say why he shot him? He was basically dating this man's wife. Obviously, anytime someone's dating a female acquaintance or someone else, there's always red flags that would be picked up there.

The victim was Chris Price, the angry husband of H's girlfriend. And he was very lucky. He was shot right in front of a hospital and survived. I ran into the hospital. I was hysterically crying. And they said, what happened? What's going on? And I was like, there's a man and he's been shot. Kristen Harton was just 15 at the time. Her life has changed a lot since then. She's now a Muslim living in Jordan. Did this event have anything to do with the changes that you made in your life? I'm sure it did. I try not to think about it too much. Back in 1994, Kristen was a babysitter and H was giving her a ride home that afternoon after a date with Price's wife. You pulled out of the apartment house where you were babysitting.

Yes. And drove down this street. And drove down this street. 48 Hours brought her back to Louisiana so she could describe that wild ride home with H Landry. He kept looking in the rearview mirror. He said, oh, somebody's following us. And I saw a car following us backwards, driving in reverse. Chris Price was driving the other car.

When we got to the traffic light, Chris Price's car pulled up alongside of us. Chris got out of the car, and he was screaming. And Mr. Landry just grabbed the gun out and he held it out the window. And Mr. Landry said, I'm going to shoot you. And he said, go ahead and shoot me. And then he did. Chris Price had fallen backwards onto his car and I saw his hands on his face and there was blood. And then I jumped out of the car and I said, I can't believe you shot him. And H seemed to take it all in stride. He didn't try to run away?

He didn't try to, say, stay away from me? No. I guess he knew what he did, so he just kind of hung around and waited for his fate, I guess. He was arrested for attempted murder. It was hardly a surprise. So let me get this straight. This was done in broad daylight.

Yes. In front of a hospital, in front of witnesses. Yes. Who saw him with a gun in the hand, in his hand. Pat Fanning was H's attorney. The defense was self-defense. And Fanning got to like H so much they became good friends. But at the time, Fanning had a lot of work to do.

How tough a case was this? This was a difficult case. He had to convince a jury that H was right to be afraid of Chris Price, even though H was the man pointing the gun at Price. We had to sell to the jury that Chris Price, he was young enough and strong enough compared to H that he could have overpowered H and taken the gun away. He was Muhammad Ali by the time we got finished with him.

It was, to say the least, a creative defense. There was nothing to indicate that Chris Price was all that close to your client. Yeah, and I had a bigger obstacle than that. I also had H. H was not a guy that you could put on a stand to defend himself. H was an angry guy, not a sympathetic guy. Did he want to go on? Not after I got finished talking to him. How did you talk him out of it? You'd be just an idiot to get up there and do this. Landry was smart enough to listen to his lawyer and was found guilty of a much lesser charge, aggravated battery.

After the verdict, he fired me. Was he not happy with the verdict? No, he thought he should have been acquitted. He thought he should have been not guilty. He thought he was 100% right. Thought this was a no-brainer. Thought this was a travesty of justice. He could have gotten five years in prison, thought he was 100% right, thought this was a no-brainer, thought this was a travesty of justice.

He could have gotten five years in prison, but Landry decided to appeal. And in the end, all he got was probation, a $500 fine, and some community service for shooting a man in front of witnesses. Boy, this guy, he doesn't quit, man. He's relentless in getting the outcome that he's seeking. At the time, it all looked a little suspicious because one of the judges involved in H's case got a substantial campaign contribution in the name of a member of Landry's family. I think Harold Landry may use a different set of standards than we would about what's appropriate and what's not.

He used a different set of standards than we would about what's appropriate and what's not. Within about eight years, H. Landry had begun a new life with a new wife and a new country. H. says Lucy knew all about his past and married him anyway. But neither of them could know that Landry's history would come back to haunt him. People emailed me to say, do you know about this guy? Do you know about his past? When we got the story, it was just a phone call and we knew somebody had died. When Richard Vernels, a reporter for the Worcester News in the British Midlands, got that call that someone had died on February 1st, 2010, he knew this story was going to be big.

Whenever we get a fatal, we'll always go out to the scene. The fatality was in the middle of a neighborhood with very rich residents. Former company executives, the great and the good. And a very rich history. It used to be a Catholic seminary for training priests. It used to be a seminary. Yeah. And now it's a crime scene.

And now it's a crime scene. But it wasn't just what happened or where it happened that made this crime so unusual. The question, the key question is always the why of it. Why would you do that? So you have to find out the backstory. You have to find out about the character of that person. I got a call from a reporter from England. Pat Fanning was the right guy to call.

Asking if I was the guy who had represented Harold Landry in the past. Of course, Fanning wasn't just Landry's lawyer. He was also his friend, despite the shooting. And you'd still hang out with him? Sure. Why not? He didn't kill any friends of mine. They even had vacation homes in the same condo in Mexico. And it was there that Fanning met H's new bride, Lucy, back in 2002. That was sort of an eye-opener. Fanning quickly noticed the somewhat odd nature

of H and Lucy's relationship. When they came to Mexico, the newlyweds were not alone. He came with the new bride, her son, the baby daddy, and himself on vacation together. She seemed more interested in spending time with the son's daddy than she did with H. And so I was like, this is just kind of weird. But there they all were, including the ex-lover, living it up. And H was paying for everything. This did not seem to you to be the ideal marriage? Well, I usually don't bring my wife's little boyfriends on vacation with us. H didn't seem to mind. And in fact, things went pretty well for Mr. and Mrs. Landry,

at least at first, according to Lucy's son, James. As a family, we ate meals together quite happily. and every now and then we'd have a day out or something and, you know, be quite happy together. They lived in that house not far from the village of Pershore, where time is marked by the bells of a medieval abbey. But time had started running out on the marriage just seven years after it began. H's friend John Blakeman visited only months before Lucy was killed. They were arguing at night as they began drinking,

and the day wore on. They just began clashing. But over time, it wasn't just clashing that hurt the marriage. It was also cheating. Lucy found a new lover. I'm sure she knew I knew. H's friend Wanda Richardson says it was hardly a secret. A big part of this breakup was this other man.

He was very, very upset about it. H confided in his friend Helen Nifton. He felt very, very upset about it. H confided in his friend, Helen Nifton. He felt he'd failed in many ways. He began to feel somewhat out of control. He said, we just won't ever be the same. She had someone else, and that's the way it was going to be. His name? Gareth Jenkins. Lucy knew him from high school, and they reconnected on Facebook.

But before long, H began to suspect that their relationship went well beyond an innocent, online poke. He would go to bed, and Lucy would stay up hours past him online. He said, you know, I should have seen it. I should have seen something was going on. He was in a bad place. H decided to leave England for a while and go to his place in Mexico to let things cool off. It might not have been the best move. He didn't know that she was going to move the boyfriend into the big house. H was furious, but his friend John Blakeman says H still tried to save the marriage. He would have done anything and everything,

including forgiving what is hard to forgive, to keep the marriage together. But Lucy had made up her mind. She wanted out. He was crying. He was upset. His friends may say Landry was devastated, but it turned out once Lucy took a boyfriend, H found a girlfriend. And Pat Fanning thought H was prepared for what would come next.

He said, you know, I got a grip on this. I'm going to go back. We're going to get a divorce. She's not living in the expensive house that we're in now. She's going to downgrade to something that is acceptable, but not the style we're in now. H headed back to England in the fall of 2009. The marriage was effectively over. The fighting over the terms of the divorce was just beginning. He seemed to be encountering some difficulty with her with that notion that she was going to have to step down. I think she thought she was going to get the house and the cars and everything, and he was just going to leave.

She was going to keep the baby and all of his things. She did what she thought she had to. Lucy's son James believes his mother was just trying to look out for him and his younger sister. She wasn't with H necessarily because she wanted the money. She was with H because, you know, she loved him until the end when she was trying to get divorced, when she was trying to leave with us. Lucy had prepared her son for leaving. She had told James all about H's past and what he had done in Louisiana. My mom had told me about his previous conviction, how he'd shot a man and got away with it. And if Lucy ever loved H, even after everything she knew, her son says by February 2010, she felt very differently. She hated him. She loathed him because she knew what he was capable of.

And the divorce got even uglier. Lucy and H kept arguing over money. She demanded he pay for an apartment for her, and Landry agreed. She took the money that he gave her for an apartment and hired the best divorce lawyer she could get, and she played him. It all came to a head on February 1, 2010. That's when Lucy posted that last note on her Facebook page. I've never hated someone as much as I hate someone now. Lucy was talking about H.

And less than an hour after she wrote those words, Lucy and Harold Landry had their final fight with the children in the house. His face, it seemed blank. There was no happiness, no anger, no joy, no sadness, no regrets, just blank. And James is about to come face to face with H once more in a British court at Harold Landry's trial for murder.

Did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder? Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, early and ad-free on Wondery Plus and the Wondery app. Hot shot Australian attorney Nicola Gaba was born into legal royalty. Her specialty? Representing some of the city's most infamous gangland criminals. However, while Nicola held the underworld's darkest secrets, the most dangerous secret was her own. She's going to all the major groups within Melbourne's underworld, and she's informing on them all. I'm Marsha Clark, host of the new podcast, Informants Lawyer X. In my long career in criminal justice

as a prosecutor and defense attorney, I've seen some crazy cases, and this one belongs right at the top of the list. She was addicted to the game she had created. She just didn't know how to stop. Now, through dramatic interviews and access, I'll reveal the truth behind one of the world's most shocking legal scandals. Listen to Informants Lawyer X exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery

app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, and listen to more Exhibit C true crime shows early and ad-free right now. Deb and John, hi. Six months from now, I'm on trial at Wolverhampton Crown Court. Wolverhampton, England has seen plenty of dank and cloudy days like this one. But the Crown Court in town has never seen a case quite like this one. Harold Landry has always said he has a story to tell and this is it. He says he was provoked by an angry Lucy, that he had no choice but to kill her. Andy Childs is one of H's lawyers. The level of provocation was such that the normal guy walking down the street may well have reacted in the same fashion. Landry has insisted he was provoked since day one. Outside of court hearings, Landry spoke publicly only to 48 hours. And the only way we

could interview him was over the phone from behind bars in England where he's being held. Mr. Landry, are you there? Yeah, I'm here, Richard. Was Lucy a violent woman? Absolutely. When she got mad, she went to punching and slapping and kicking and biting. That was her M.O. Had she injured you before? Yes, she had. M.O. Had she injured you before? Yes, she had. H told that story to Pat Fanning, who got him out of that tight spot in Louisiana back in 1994. He told me that his wife attacked him and he was responding to her attack when he killed her. It's a story that's hard to believe. Both lawyers agree in their own way. It's the violence of the act which would make it hard for the jury to be one round with that argument. In my business, you know, they say you can't make chicken salad out of chicken.

You know what? Droppings. It would be a tough sell. It might get a little easier. On the eve of trial, H's team scores a big win. The prosecution is pushing for permission to tell the jury about H shooting Chris Price. But the judge sides with the defense, so the jury will never know about Landry's violent past. It lifts one

great burden from the defense, but just one. There will still be powerful testimony from, among other people, Lucy's son James. I needed to tell someone what I'd seen. I needed to make sure I gave the evidence that I could. I had to go in there and do my best for my mum. James was just 15 at the time of the trial, but he decided he had to come to court to tell his story. I just had to say, you know, he's the enemy because he was. James tells the court what he saw during the fight that ended with his mother lying on the ground, dead. I remember on February the 1st that she just wanted some furniture. Landry and Lucy had been arguing for months over who would get what in their increasingly acrimonious divorce.

He'd agreed to the house, but she couldn't move out if we didn't have furniture. That's what started that fight, the last fight. Landry's lawyers argue in court that fight was the latest and last example of Lucy goading Landry with never-ending financial demands and threats. I think what happened to Lucy is, yeah, I think at the last bit of it, she turned into a pure gold digger because all of the fights were over the money. And then there was the flashpoint that evening, and that's what set him off. It wasn't just an instantaneous thing.

I just all of a sudden got pissed off. I had been pushed and pushed and pushed by my wife for six months, and I'd been humiliated nonstop. He says Lucy called him a sexual pervert and flaunted her affair with Gareth Jenkins. And, you know, at some point, you just had enough. And I reached that point where I just had enough. At first, James thought the fight on that evening of February 1st was just another argument.

I just ignored it, stayed in my room, on my computer, as I usually did. But James testifies, this time, Landry and Lucy were arguing all over the house. They wrestled for control of Lucy's cell phone containing her private text messages in her bedroom. This is where things went from bad to worse in their kitchen. Landry says he came down here to get away from Lucy but she chased after him screaming screaming, I hate you, and cursing at him. And then things started happening very quickly. The jury was given Landry's statement to police that added frightening details. He said Lucy shoved him in the kitchen. And I caught myself on the baker's rack, and I, pulling myself up, grabbed the first thing right next to my hand, which was a granite rolling

pin. What'd you do with the rolling pin? I grabbed the thing and I just swung it and I hit her in the head with it. She screamed, she grabbed the head and she took off running. James rushed to call the police and in that call said, quote, I'd like to report an urgent domestic incident. That was an understatement. There was blood on the walls. I would say that it wasn't long before I got hysterical. It was certainly while I was on the phone to the police.

James testified he saw blood pouring from a wound on his mother's face. He immediately went to protect his seven-year-old sister. I just did what I could to get her out of the house and make sure she was safe. Where did you take her? Outside. We went around into the garden.

James didn't know that at the same time, out there in the dark, H was chasing down Lucy, who was desperately trying to escape to the safety of a neighbor's house. The neighbor heard Lucy's screams coming from outside the house. He raced out to help, but it was too late. H had caught Lucy and stabbed her repeatedly. She collapsed and died in the road. I'll accept the fact that I've murdered my wife. I'll accept the fact that I killed my wife.

And now, in court, Harold Landry has to somehow convince the jury that he's guilty only of manslaughter, not murder, because Lucy provoked him. For this self-made millionaire, taking the stand is the sales job of a lifetime. H is not a good communicator in terms of presenting his case, arguing his case. And I think he would not come across well. Landry testifies one day before his 65th birthday. Were you nervous? Not at all. Not a bit.

Landry, since day one, has been fairly blank-faced, fairly calm and collected. Today, reporter Richard Vernels has a very different story to write about Landry. He cried three or four times in the stand. He said he loved his wife on at least three occasions. Did he express remorse? Did he say he was sorry for the attack? Did he say, I wish I hadn't done it? He never said that. But Landry did say on the stand that things escalated when Lucy picked up the knife first. Yeah, she grabbed the knife off the kitchen counter.

I was very upset. What I was wondering was, what the hell was she doing? What was her intention with the knife? Landry's lawyer says once Lucy got the knife, everything changed. Well, it clearly raised it to a different level. This was a woman who had gone halfway to saying, I hate you so much, I could kill you with this knife. On the stand, Landry says he can't remember key details of the attack.

Do you remember stabbing her? I don't remember any penetration at all. None whatsoever. But this prosecution animation shows the extraordinary level of violence. It details the more than 20 knife wounds. James witnessed H inflicting at least some of those wounds on his mother, and it is his testimony that could now put Landry away for the rest of his life as the jury begins to consider James's words and the rest of the evidence. We understand now that all that matters to him, all he's interested in, is money.

All he's interested in is himself. He's a loathsome man. In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, lies a tiny volcanic island. It's a little-known British territory called Pitcairn, and it harboured a deep, dark scandal. There wouldn't be a girl on Pitcairn once they reached the age of 10 that was still a virgin. It just happens to all of us.

I'm journalist Luke Jones and for almost two years I've been investigating a shocking story that has left deep scars on generations of women and girls from Pitcairn. When there's nobody watching, nobody going to report it, people will get away with what they can get away with. In the Pitcairn trials I'll be uncovering a story of abuse and the fight for justice that has brought a unique, lonely, Pacific island to the brink of extinction. Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

or Spotify. Far, far away from his old stomping grounds in the bayou, where Harold Landry once wriggled and wiggled and danced his way out of an attempted murder charge, he now has to face the music in a far less colorful place, Wolverhampton, England, where he is awaiting the verdict in his trial for murdering his wife. Any American watching a trial here in Britain will recognize a lot of the procedures, but it still feels very different. It's all so civil. There was not one objection from either side in the Landry case. The result? A very tidy trial that lasted just eight days.

And the jury was out just three hours and 52 minutes. It didn't take long for word of the jury's verdict to reach the quiet streets of Pershore, the closest town to Landry's house. I heard about it on the local radio. closest town to Landry's house. I heard about it on the local radio. A 65-year-old American millionaire has been convicted of murder after the death of his wife at their home last February. Harold Landry, guilty of murder for stabbing his wife Lucy more than 20 times. Things like that don't happen in a little sleepy town like Closeture. Landry blames the verdict on his lawyers, whom he says were unprepared.

Were you surprised by the verdict? No, I wasn't, because it was a pathetic defense that we had. Well, by pathetic, you don't mean not true, or do you? Well, no, no, no. It was an ill-prepared defense. Pat Fanning, who was once fired by H. Landry, has a great deal of sympathy for his British lawyer. I think it would have been impossible for almost anybody to win that case for H. And so he probably did the best he could with what he had and with H as a client, because you've got a little client control problem there.

H is a client, because you've got a little client control problem there. Andy Childs always knew the defense that Lucy provoked H was a long shot. I guess if you stab another human being, there must be some feeling that it's beyond just a simple act of provocation. By American standards, this case raced through the system, just over a year from crime to conviction. But for Lucy's family, it's been an eternity. They are too overwhelmed to speak. So outside court, her father looks on as a policewoman reads the family's statement.

We are relieved with the verdict today. It has been an extremely traumatic year for everyone, but finally justice has been done for Lucy. Our lives will never be the same. Of course, neither will Landry's. Just one day after his conviction, Landry learns his sentence. But first, the judge reads a blistering statement. He calls the stabbing unspeakable and unforgivable, says Landry dreamed up that story that Lucy grabbed the knife first, and he forcefully dismisses what he calls Landry's crocodile tears on the stand. Knowing ages I do, I'm sure it was water off his back. I think he could care less about what that judge said about him. Even though that judge then sentenced Landry to a minimum of 16 years, a maximum of life.

I'm expecting to die here. I'm resigned to it. And it's not the end of my life, Richard, for God's sake, man. This is just a different life. Landry has had a lot of time to think about his life and hopes people will remember the good parts. I have done a lot of good things, beneficial things, donating my time and various causes unselfishly. And no one remembers that. All they remember is I murdered my wife. It is kind of hard to get past the fact, you know, that you stabbed your wife all those times. I mean, pardon me, but it is kind of hard to see past that, isn't it?

Well, I don't expect you to see past about it. I don't expect you to see that I'm not a murderer. Looking back, Landry says he's sorry for what happened. But surprisingly, he says if faced with the same situation, he'd do the same thing again. I think I would have reacted the same way. Yes, I would. same thing again. I think I would have reacted the same way. Yes, I would. Landry knows he's hurt his family, especially the young daughter he had with Lucy. She's now living with a foster family. And James, Landry's stepson, who now lives with his biological father, has to safeguard his murdered mother's legacy. I want people to know that she always, you know, did her best for me and for my sister.

Even now that he's a convicted murderer, Landry still has his friends, whom he writes to whenever he can. And many of them, like Helen Nifton, are torn by what they now know. I think some people might wonder how you can consider him a friend if he's done this. True friends stick by each other through thick and thin, and that's what I tend to do. I can't condone what he's done, but he's still that human being that I knew.

But Landry is still as blunt and plain-spoken and self-confident as the most ragin' of all Cajuns. Listen to this final remarkable claim from a self-made widower. Do you still think of Lucy? I love her. I love her to death. If he's lucky, Landry could get out of prison in his early 80s, and nobody would be shocked if he walked free again around the countryside of Great Britain or the bayous of Louisiana. H. Landry is a very competitive guy. He's a fighter, and he will fight to the end. It would not surprise me if we have not heard the If you like this podcast, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app.

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