Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - NEW ORLEANS HOMICIDE DETECTIVE SLEUTHS "THE WORST OF THE WORST"

Episode Date: December 30, 2025

James Fyfe leaves his Massachusetts security screening job to follow his dreams of becoming acop. New Orleans catches Fyfe’s eye, actually circulating ‘help wanted’ posters amid a hiringslump. Fyfe begins as a patrol officer in Algiers, and works his way up the Fourth District TaskForce into property crimes. After time on the Violent Crime Abatement Investigation team,Fyfe finally gets a shot in the homicide division, just as NOLA sees a huge spike in violent crime.While many detectives only handle about 5 homicide cases a year, Fyfe is assigned to nearly 40cases over three years because he keeps clearing them! Since 2022, Fyfe closes 24 consecutive cases he is assigned to, his co-workers keeping track on a white board they’ve dubbed the ‘Fyfe-o-meter.' Fyfe’s work helps the homicide division bring its ‘clearance rate’ from 40% in 2022 to above 76%.  As 2024 nears the end, Thanh Vu tends her supermarket,  but three ‘customers’ are seeking more than groceries. Thanh, 61, held at gunpoint while thieves empty the register and pocketcigarettes. When Thanh fights back, she’s shot and left for dead.  Joining Nancy Grace: James Fyfe - Homicide Detective, New Orleans Police Department, Criminal law degree from Northeastern University, master’s at Suffolk University. Increased homicide unit’s clearance rate from 40% to 75% from 2022-2024 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Get started at goaddy.com with GoDaddy Arrow. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. A New Orleans homicide detective, the modern day, Eircule Poirot, slews the worst of the worst. Now, hold on right there. Number one, very high crime city, New Orleans, the Big Easy. So are some murders worse than other murders? How bad can it be? This guy has the answer to that.

I'm Nancy Grace. This is crime stories. I want to thank you for being with us. Detective James Fife began his career with the New Orleans Police Department as a patrol officer before advancing to detective in the fall of 2021. Since his promotion, he has successfully solved over 24 consecutive cases showcasing his dedication and skill. It's not just dedication. It's not just hard hours to close 24 consecutive homicides in a row.

That takes serious sleuthing. Who is this guy? Listen. James Fife leaves his Massachusetts security screening job to follow his dreams of becoming a cop. New Orleans catches Fife's eye, actually circulating help-wanted posters amid a hiring slump. Fife begins as a patrol officer in Algiers and works his way up the four. 4th District Task Force into property crimes. After time on the violent crime abatement investigation team, Fife finally gets a shot in the homicide division, just as Nola sees a huge spike in violent

crime. And joining us now, Homicide Detective James Fife. Detective Fyfe, thank you for being with us. Thanks for having me. It's an honor. Detective Fyfe, 24 consecutive homicides. That's extremely rare. Do you recall the first homicide you investigated with New Orleans? Of course. Yeah, a case like that stays with you. I mean, each of them, really. But your first case, you know, you're analyzing every little step.

And for sure, that's not something you forget. It was in September of 2021. My first case was a shooting of three individuals on Tulane Avenue outside of a bar at the location, which was successfully cleared. Detective 5, what do you recall of that first homicide investigation? Basically every little detail. You know, I was micro-analyzing everything I was doing under, you know, management of more veteran officers, making sure you don't take any missteps because the stakes are high,

and on your first case, that pressure really sinks in. So that was a triple shooting outside of a ball. I assume at night, I have found in my own investigations, it's really hard to pin down bar goers to get a statement out of them. How did you do it? Yeah, well, in this case, the witness testimony, you know, provided some sequencing of events, but it was mostly video footage, and it's sort of one thing led to another, and it was one of those cases that unraveled really well, got some momentum. them. But our shooter was masked at the time. So it wasn't even as though we needed a witness to point to an individual and say that's the guy. It was a masked shooter? Yes, sort of a, I mean, a hit, you could call it, but it seemed pretty planned and partially organized on the

part of the perpetrator. Now, when you say it seemed planned, how do you know the difference between your routine bar shooting and a planned hit. See, that's just like you, Fife. You toss it off as your first homicide when I find out now, it was a planned execution. What happened? Yeah, and I don't mean to ever sound flippant about any of the cases I talk about. I think one of the side effects of having... No, you're modest. I mean it in that way. You never take credit for all of your work. You make it sound like, I didn't have that much to do with it. It solved itself, but no, you solved it. I didn't know the first case was a planned assassination and execution.

What happened? Yeah, and not to digress, but real quick, sometimes it can feel a little like insensitive to sort of celebrate any success in this field, because even when you've done your job well, the worst has already happened and somebody has died. So to take like a victory lap sometimes feels a little tone deaf, but you do have to allow yourself to appreciate the wins when you get them. But getting to this incident, when you're going to. when you watch the video footage, and again, it's still in phases of trial, so I can't

really speak into too much detail, but the method approach of the incident itself shows that this is not a spontaneous thing. This is definitely, you know, just the donning of a mask and the use of like a Draco firearm, you know, sort of implies that this is something with some level of organization beforehand. To those that are not familiar with a Draco firearm, could you explain? Oh, yeah, it's, so it's, it's a, it looks like an assault rifle, but technically it's an automatic pistol, but it's very much in, in favor, or it's a chic weapon, I guess, at least it was a few years ago among some of the youth, but it has like a wood grip. It's a very distinctive looking weapon. You know, to me, it looks like, a Draco looks like a sawed off shotgun

with a fancy handle, because the butt's not that long. long, is it? Yeah, I think, you know, it could be argued that it's favored because it's concealable for a big weapon. It's still something you can kind of stuff into a jacket or down your pants if need be. But yeah, it could easily be mistaken for something else like a sought-off shotgun or what I understand that you left Massachusetts security screening to follow your dream of becoming a homicide detective. When in life did you decide I want to solve murders. Oh, that's a tough one. I'm not exactly sure like when when that switch flipped, but for

sure my parents were teachers and social workers. So I've always had like a public service drive, but I think maybe I needed a little bit more excitement to what I chose to do. So wanted policing from sort of since high school, you know, much to my parents dismay at the time, but But chase that down. Those jobs back in, you know, the early 2000 is a little harder to come by, especially in New England. But if you do believe in, you know, that mission-driven work, I think you need to be willing to move where you're needed. At that time, did you have a family? No, not.

I was not married and no children at that time yet. So it was a bit easier to pick up and move across the country to chase something like this. What were you doing in your security screening job? I worked for a federal contract company that was doing background checks for people that needed security clearances, like top secret security clearance or what have you. Guys, listen to this. While many detectives only handle about five homicide cases a year, Fife is assigned to nearly 40 cases over three years because he keeps clearing them. Since 2022, Fife closes 24 consecutive cases he is assigned to, his co-workers, keeping track on a white board they've dubbed the FIFO meter.

Fife's work helps the Homicide Division bring its clearance rate from 40% in 2022 to above 76% today. I know you're probably too humble to comment on the FIFO meter, a tally that people keep within your office at the homicide. I never, never, while I was prosecuting, counted wins, if you can call them that. And I think it's hard to get, but you were alluding to it earlier, Detective Five, when you solve a homicide or when I would prosecute a homicide and the jury would return a guilty verdict, I didn't really feel any joy or celebration. I didn't go out and have a night on the town. I'd turn around, you know, feeling half dead myself after, you know, weeks of trial. And there would be the victim's family just completely. completely wrung out. Just having endured so much. And it's not like solving the homicide or getting the guilty verdict fixes things. I think victims' families think that's going to fix everything. And it doesn't. And I never felt, I didn't feel like doing it, but in retrospect,

I don't think it's appropriate to go out and celebrate a win. when the victim's family just moves on to their next step of grieving, I agree with you. Yeah, that's exactly right. You know, sometimes at its worst, this job just feels like we're kind of mitigating the damage that's already been done, trying to provide some sort of relief to the family. But you're right, when it's all said and done, the dust settles. You know, that loved one's still gone, and there's nothing we can do to undo that. I guess it's just about general public safety, making sure somebody who's able and willing to do that

can't do it again, among other things? You know, I think we've, well, not we, not you and I, but I think the world has seen too many crime shows on TV because it's not like that at all. You go to a murder scene, I've seen a rookie cop start vomiting from the smell of a dead body, hadn't even gone into the scene yet, because it really is enough to make you throw up.

But when you get in there, it's a lot grimyer and dirtier and stickier than any TV show that I know of has ever portrayed what it's really like. And, you know, on the movies, that's all fake blood. It's all fake. And anybody that's been in the homicide business knows what it's really like. and the celebrations they have in movies and TV when a case is solved, I don't get it. Could you explain what a homicide scene is really like? I try, but I don't think I convey it very well.

Yeah, of course. And just getting back to what you said earlier, I should say there are moments of like excitement and adrenaline rush in this job that are truly fun, like cracking mysteries, right? But at its core, homicide detective, the work we do is kind of profoundly grim and sad at times. And it takes a good deal of like emotional intelligence and endurance to sort of balance, you know, handling these cases with the sensitivity and the gravity that they deserve, but also not letting it haunt your dreams every night, you know,

because you do this job long enough. There are a lot of unsolved cases that continue to follow you. But that said, these cases, the crime scenes themselves are huge. hugely varying in what they look like and the issues that are opposed by each one. But in addition to the actual active homicide scenes, we respond to any unclassified death. So just a deceased person and we don't really know what happened to them. We go out and provide support to the district units on that. And some of those, as well as some of our homicides, can be pretty grisly, especially when it's,

you know, something that hasn't been addressed for several days, someone's been sitting in a spot. you get pretty used to, I guess, encountering and stomaching that. Detective Fyfe, you mentioned these cases, your cases, creeping into your dreams. And I remember that very well. You eat, drink, breathe, live a case. And I don't know how other trial lawyers do it. I couldn't go out to dinner.

I couldn't do anything during a trial or preparation for a trial. Because you have one shot, you have one swing, that trial. And if you don't do it all, try it all, give it 200%, you'll never get to do it again. There's no do over for the state. And yeah, I would dream about my cases a lot. And even now, all these years later, still dream about some of them, five. Yeah, I can relate to that for sure. And again, I think it's a balance.

If you're going to do like what we do or have done for a long enough period of time, you need to strike that balance between compartmentalizing work and your home life, but not getting so checked out or cynical to the point where, you know, people can tell and they're like, oh, this detective doesn't care. and you're not as invested as you ought to be. But, yeah, especially early on, you know, I'm up at night thinking about what I could have missed or just that case that I haven't solved for sure.

When you say you're up at night thinking about what you could have missed, you know, like a lot of people, they leave the house and go, oh, did I turn off the coffee pot? Or did I close the garage door? What are the kind of things that go through your, mind at night, you know, like, oh, my stars, did I fill in the blank? Yeah, for sure. Did I handle that interview the right way? Could it have been this other thing? And when you find the time, a lot of it's sort of a juggling act, but you do circle back to, you know,

your 2021, 2022 cases in my case. And, you know, give them another look, see if there's anything else I could do. But when you do have a city with, you know, sort of ongoing caseload, it can be hard to sort of jump back and find time to do that. We also have a very effective cold case unit here in NOPD, which provides some support for that. But there's nothing like the initial detective that handled the case to know the ins and outs and what might have slipped through the cracks. I think anybody who's been a homicide detective knows that that there is a degree of luck, right, but followed up by hard work to be opportunistic about the lucky breaks you are given. Detective Fife has cleared 24 cases in a row, stretching back to December

2022. That's a lot in a row that have some kind of, at least short-term resolution. You know, they'll have to proceed through court. A clearance is, you know, at the detective level, what we're always trying to shoot for. Throughout his time with the NOPD, Detective Fife has played a key role in reducing crime across New Orleans. His efforts have directly contributed to a dramatic increase in the city's homicide clearance rate, which has risen from 40% to an impressive 75%. Joining us is Veteran Homicide Detective, Detective Fife, who is now racked up 24 consecutive solves. Detective Fife, have these cases gone to trial yet?

many not and it's generous when you say veteran detective i've been doing homicide work for just four years now so a lot of those cases are still haven't been adjudicated it takes several years in many cases for these to actually go through your trial i would say that 24 consecutive homicide investigations correct qualifies you as a veteran it's like saying i've only been in vietnam for four years uh you're a veteran how did you pay Pick, New Orleans. My girlfriend at the time, now wife, had moved down here, and I followed just for a visit and saw the hiring posters for NOPD and thought I'd just give it a shot.

And, yeah, it worked out pretty well for me. Let's talk about the second line shooting. Listen. It seems almost all of New Orleans has turned out for the nine-time social aid and pleasure club's annual second line, a parade featuring brass bands and dancers dressed to the nines. Thousands of revelers scramble for safety when gunfire rings out, injuring eight. Just 45 minutes later, a mile down the parade route, another shooting, this time killing two. The victims are identified as nephew Rishon Carter 21 and Uncle Malachi Jackson, 19.

You know, we can't say that because they were 45 minutes apart and different kind of approach of how the shooting was. So we don't know, could be, but right now don't know that. That is New Orleans PD Commissioner speaking, and that's for our friends at WDSU, the so-called second-line shooting. What is the annual second-line parade, Five? Yeah, so New Orleans is a city, right, is very proud of and kind of protective of their very unique cultural traditions, right? One of which are second-line parades, which are sort of these big on-foot processionals where people can jump in and just march to music and just. generally socialized. A lot of fun, highly recommends, if anybody's visiting, you come check these out. But because this shooting occurred, well, actually two separate incidents, but because my shooting,

the homicide that you mentioned, occurred during one of these events, it had a lot of extra scrutiny upon it. Besides the fact that two individuals were deceased, which is terrible, this also could have had way more victims when you see that the crowd's present. And I think the public had a very strong interest in making sure that this was dealt with very quickly so that people could feel safe at these second-line events again, which, again, is one of the things that make our city great and unique. Another thing regarding a shooting in a large group, like at a festival or a parade, and has its own set of difficulties in finding the shooter. How did you find the shooter?

Was there just one shooter or more? Yeah, in my incident, there was one shooter. And you're right, hugely chaotic scenes generally. Everybody is watching and it's broad daylight, but because there's so many people involved, it can be difficult for anyone to sequence exactly what happened or who was responsible. So we had to get at it a different way in this case.

And again, this is one of those cases that's still in court. So it's not something I can get too into the nitty-gritty, but it again got its own momentum and one thing led to another, and we were able to make two arrests related to the homicide part. Detective Fyfe is refusing to comment on the facts of the case so as not to taint the investigation. I, however, can comment on the facts. Listen.

Investigators learn of an ongoing feud between West Wago and Marrero, Roshan and Malachi's neighborhood. Surveillance footage and phone records place Curtis Gray on the Almanaster Bridge at the time of the shootings and recovered shell casings match a gun registered to his mother. There is enough evidence to charge Gray with Rishon and Malachi's murders, and his mother, Ashley Gray, is charged as an accessory for trying to dispose of the gun and fabricate an alibi for her sign. New Year's Resolution. Own how you show up online. It's easy with a domain and matching email from GoDaddy. Now just 99 cents per month for new customers their first year. Ring in 2026 with a domain and matching email at godaddy.com slash new year. That's go daddy.com slash new year to own how you show up online. Crime stories with Nancy Grace.

You know, to take a five, it's sometimes, for some people, hard to blame a mother who is trying to help her defendant, son. So let's step away from the exact case and talk about that bond in general. Very often prosecutors and cops are attacked for pursuing a mother or father who's trying to protect their child. But on the other side of the pendulum is the victim and the victim's mother and father. So when you get a mother, for instance, trying to get rid of evidence to clear. the son, you've got to go after them. And sometimes that's a hard thing to do to go after somebody's mother. Yeah, for sure.

And understandably, the motive for that is something a lot of parents can relate to. But I think, you know, as a parent, we all have a point at which, you know, you need to draw a line and say, no, I am not supporting much out if X, Y, Z. And there needs to be community buy-in for a lot of these homicides. When you have, you know, whole groups or families sort of circling and protecting defendants in some of these cases, it can be hugely problematic. So you need community buy-in and everyone to be invested and concerned about the outcomes of these investigations. I think our district attorney, Jason Williams, addressed this issue very well regarding this case

specifically in the press conference where, you know, enough is enough at some point. And if you provide aid, shelter, or seek to obfuscate an investigation, even for a loved one, you are potentially culpable. Detective Fife, of course, as you know, the state, the prosecution, never has to prove motive. The state is not expected to get into the mind of a murder defendant and poke around like you're in Granny's attic and find the motive. However, when you go to trial, very often the jury will want a motive.

Here's a good example. the Alex Murdoch, double murder trial that went down in South Carolina. His wife and son were murdered. And I'm sure the jurors may have wondered, well, why would a dad murder the wife and the son? I mean, we see domestic homicides all the time, or spouse kills spouse. But the wife and the son, the state did not have to prove the motive, but they did. an upcoming divorce would have called for financial legal discovery. And Alex Murdoch's multi-million dollar con on his clients, his family, his wife, and many

others, his law partners, would have been found out. So his answer, kill them both. Here's another example, Brian Coburger. I'm sure you're familiar with the quadruple homicide in Idaho, where the defendant Brian Koberger had no ostensible connection, no link to the victims. So what would be the motive?

That would have been a hurdle for the state. The defense could have argued he doesn't even know these people. Why would you believe he came in in the middle of the night and killed them, slaughtered them? Well, as it turned out, he was a criminology student and was obsessed with

murder and what it would feel like and what would go through the mind of the killer. He wanted to feel it and he did. And I'm very interested in your second line homicide case because no one knew that there was a feud going on and the defense could have argued, hey, they pulled my guy off a bridge and now they're trying to pin this on him. You would never have known what was behind it. You had to get to the feud, the motive. How difficult is it for you, to ferret out a motive in your cases, Detective Fife?

Yeah, it's a good question. And for sure, you were right to characterize motive not always being available to us. It can be seen sometimes as like a bonus in our investigations, but if the facts of the incident speak for themselves and if it's clear that this person did it, then a lot of times we don't need to know what was going on in their heads, as you said. But sometimes you get clues to it, conversations the person's had with other people. we got a lot of help from social media sometimes phone record history and such and in this case the second line incident there was some some contextual stuff that we unraveled digitally that sort of did back up what we have been hearing on the street as it were

and again five i don't want to push you on any facts sensitive to the case because that that case is pending and if you were to comment on it any of those facts that could be a problem and i don't want you to have a problem problem. Let's move on to another case, but one of your cases, but before that, I want to go back to the Fifeometer, the tally that is on big whiteboard that other people within the homicide unit are keeping on your cases. You're not worried that might jinx you? Let me guess. You're not superstitious. Well, so just as a point of clarification, that white board exists in our public affairs office and not in homicide, per se. But yeah, there's a lot of superstition in the fields, policing in general, but in homicide

in particular. We talk a lot about the homicide gods and what you've done to anger them, which resulted in this terrible case you've been given sometimes. But, yeah, again, I need to take the opportunity to praise my homicide unit in general. We have, I think, an 80% clearance rate this year, which is very high, as I understand it, nationally. But we're looking for any source of, like, enthusiasm or motivation a lot of the times, very supportive of one another's successes and reaching out to try and provide help whenever somebody seems to be faltering. And, you know, keeping track of a clearance streak, yeah, that might be seen as a potential jinx. But, again, I guess it can be something that, you know, provide some enthusiasm and motivation.

You know, I have found that like baseball players, I was extremely superstitious during every trial. And I would stick to certain behavior, stick to certain rituals before I would go to trial, every single trial. Now, I don't know if it's too personal, but do you? have superstitions that you follow in your investigations? I don't. I guess I'm kind of boring in that regard. I'm not a very superstitious person. I do, I find that the best cure for any anxiety about a case is to just kind of dive into the material itself. If you spend hours going over something before you have to appear in court, that can kind of calm me down. Nothing's worse than just going into something, feeling unprepared.

But beyond that, you know, no, there's no ritual. That's the worst. Feeling unprepared. Oh, too, never, never. Have you ever watched someone work that's unprepared? It's the worst. You just see it. It's like a slow motion train wreck. Yeah, you need to be master of your own case. So sort of be the single best source of that narrative and everything that was done. Have an answer for everything. For sure, we all get caught off guard. But I guess you want to try. and, you know, mitigate that and just be the guy who knows everything about this incident that can be known. Which leads me to the Thon Vue case. When I saw the blood on the head, I tell myself that's a no way she could be alive.

In the final hours of 2024, Taun Vue tends her supermarket, a pillar of the Nola Vietnamese community since she opened 30 years ago. but three customers are seeking more than groceries. Tahn held at gunpoint while the thieves empty the register and pocket cigarettes. When Tahn fights back, she's shot and left for dead. Her killers quickly brought to justice. Anjanoe Hennie Davis, Adrian Harris, and Nathaniel Carpenter, all charged in the fatal robbery, Carpenter confessing to the crime. That original sound from our friends at Fox 8.

Detective 5. What happened to Thon View? Yeah, that was a tough case. Again, we try not to qualify any of our murders. You know, none are any better or worse than any others. But Ms. Vu was sort of a fixture of the Vietnamese community in the New Orleans East area and was a longtime owner of a convenience store at that area that had stood the test of time. Other businesses opened and closed.

That store has been around for as long as many people can remember. And this is sort of just one of those senseless, you know, botched robberies as we understand it. Again, this is another one that is still in court proceedings, but you had the right of it as you explained that there were three people charged with this. Detective Fife, I don't like what you just said. You refer to the murder of Thon Vue as a botched robbery. I don't like that terminology going forward because somehow it lessens the degree of intent to have a group of men enter a grocery store and confront an unarmed defenseless female in order to rob her and then oops she got shot like what the gun just

went off on its own that was a big accident I botched that BS that is an intentional murder under the law, the time for formation of intent can be as brief as a twinkling of a moment, the blink of an eye, much less time it takes to raise the gun and pull the trigger. That was intentional. And I take umbrage at anyone describing as, oh, it was a botched robbery. She's dead. They pulled the trigger. Right. And it's no less terrible the context or the motive behind it. But that's just, I suppose, in the business, one of the ways in which we would describe a certain type of incident. But you're right that, you know, they're just as culpable as any other homicide, whether it was a robbery or somebody that you just loathed and wanted to put out of this world, just as bad.

Hey, Five, you know it hurts me on top of dealing with crime victims. You know, in my line of business, it was always a violent felony, either homicide, family, left behind, rape victims, child molestation victims, arson victims. But it made it worse for me when the victim would come from a part of our world. world that is not really represented as it should be. It could be a minority. It could be a woman, an infant, in this case the Asian community. Many of them not advocated for as strongly as for other people, right? And so it kind of heaps insult to individuals.

injury, pain upon pain. When I saw Nguyen Vuthan's husband speaking, and he said, I saw the blood on her head, I told myself, there's no way she can still be alive. They must sometimes feel like no one cares about them. Do you ever hear that from minorities or women? I mean, the data is out there. There are certain demographics that are affected more by violent crime. And those groups are, it's really important to make inroads with them and sort of establish some trust. And that can be hard when, you know, certain groups don't feel like they've had the support of police or the criminal justice system in general in the past. So you have to sort of find a way to show somebody you do care and you are invested. And look, I'm here to help not to

to hinder and, you know, not just write people off because maybe that's what they've been getting up until now. Detective Five, the vast, vast majority of victims that I represented in felony court were women, children, and minorities. And they felt like nobody cared about them and that nobody would fight for them, and that nobody cared about their cases. So on top of trying to investigate and prosecute the case, I felt this burden of trying to convince them that someone did care. That's a big burden that you are now carrying. And I want to talk about another case that you handle,

which is dear to my heart, the case of Raven Francis. Listen. I miss my mom a lot. She's pretty funny. She was a nice person. She loved us very much. She would do anything for us, and she will always be with me. Raven Francis, a mom of four, enjoys one of her first nights out since welcoming her youngest six months ago.

Raven and friends head to the shamrock, but an argument breaks out with another group, and the friends try to escape in their car. As they pull out, gunfire erupts. Raven's sister is just grazed, but Raven is shot in the head, bleeding profusely. In the resulting panic, the driver clips a fire hydrant flipping the car. By the time first responders can get everyone out, Raven is gone. That was from our friends at Fox 8.

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Crime stories with Nancy Grace. I think another issue, and I want to find out how you deal with it, Fife, or the tangential murder victims, the collateral victims of murder, like Raven's 10-year-old little boy. I mean, I remember Okay, when the twins were born, they were extremely premature in my children. And I would pray every night, Lord, please just help us get out of the hospital. Please help us get out of the hospital. Okay, we got out of the hospital. Then it went to, Lord, please let me get them stabilized. Let me get them eating.

Lucy weighed two pounds, five, two pounds, as small as a kitten. All right. Then we get to one year. I'm like, Lord, please help me get them into school. Just let me live long enough. Now is let me get them through high school. Then it's going to be college. Let me get them, help them find them.

the way. I mean, it never ends. So for a mother to be wrenched away from her children, and this little boy is just 10 years old, I mean, when you get in your car and you leave the crime scene, there were times I'd have to pull over on the side of the road and just sit there and try to process all the suffering, one bullet caused. How do you deal with that? Yeah, for sure. There's, there's, there's, almost a little bit of like survivors guilt in this job sometimes if you let yourself really think about it. Like what right do I have to be unaffected by violence like this? You know, when you, you go home and if you have kids, like hug your kid after something like this

and just, you know, feel it. But yeah, you're right that so many are affected by these murders beyond just the victim. And that isn't really always clear immediately. But as you start talking to family, you establish that relationship, it really becomes evident. And then, you know, these cases take years in court. Sometimes I'll show up to court and I'll see a kid that's grown up hugely in the interim. And it, like you said, it really just hits you that this timeline, that this child is going to live, you know, their whole life and grow up on all these milestones without a parent. It's hard to stomach, especially once you have kids of your own. We were just showing photos of Raven And Francis, a mom of four, rinsed away from four children.

And then there is a teen girl, Leah Perry. Leah Perry, 17, is the latest victim in a string of drive-by shootings. Leah, mommed a five-month-old Peyton, was clearly not the shooter's intended target. Surveillance footage shows a newer model infinity with no plate and dark tint, pull up to the teen, and fire several shots. Detective Fife digs up more video of the alleged driver wearing a distinct pair of striped red pants. The same exact pair Kenneth Salisbury posts photos in with a gun tucked in the waistband. Salisbury already behind bars for two other shootings charged with an additional count of murder. So, if I'm not going to ask you to comment on the facts of the case, I'll do it.

Idiot! Idiot! So he's posting online the red striped pants with a gun stuck down the pants. I had a guy that wore a red leather ensemble the night he gunned somebody down dead. He was a dope lord. He came to court some idiot, another idiot, there's so many to pick from, gave him a bond five. What did he wear on day one of court? The red ensemble, I was so happy. I stood behind him and like was literally pointing to him. in front of the jury. So sometimes they throw you a bone. Heaven just drops a fact in your

lap for you to run with those red striped pants. I'm sure that's something you'll never forget. Five, I know you have to leave the studio and get back to the streets, but I want to understand how you deal with a crushing caseload. I remember I had been on a trial for about three weeks straight. And I would take all my evidence, all my files with me. I would carry them around on rollers and those giant postal white plastic boxes that sit around the courthouse at the mail people leave and stack them up and take them back and forth to my car after court because I didn't want to leave them anywhere for them to be tampered with. Long story short, I wasn't back in my office for about two weeks. I just go straight to the

courtroom. That said, when I got back to my office, there was still a jug of milk in there that I had left there two weeks before, uneaten Krispy Cream Donuts. And every other day, the indictment division, the court records, would bring in new files while I was on trial. And the stack had gotten so tall on my desk, it had fallen over like an accordion and started going down the side of my desk. When I walked back in, I'm like, how am I going to keep up? And then I realized I couldn't, so I just took the next homicide case and started working because that's the only thing I knew to do after I threw away the milk and the Krispy Cremes. But how do you deal with a crushing caseload? Yeah, I can totally relate to that. And it's,

you know, the caseload itself, you're right to just focus on the task at hand and then sort of juggle some time and bounce back to other cases when you can. But beyond that, it's, you know, when you don't solve these, they continue to follow you and they haunt you. And families, parents of those cases will call, you know, sometimes weekly for an update. And you have to tell this parent every week for years that there are no updates on the case. I'm sorry. And that can, that's sort of collects and it's like more of a burden on your shoulders every year you do this job. So it's about not giving in to apathy, cynicism, or just treating it like it's an assembly line, you know, try to maintain that whatever optimism you can and not come with any dramatic

conclusions about the nature of mankind or anything like that. And then beyond that, everybody has their own organizational tricks. You have to really know how you work and what makes you effective as an investigator, what your weak points might be, and just try to tread water and hope for a time when the murder rate is down. You know, it's interesting to me, Five, well, so many things. But we always hear about police conspiracies, for instance, that LAPD framed OJ Simpson. That's a really good example. In my experience, I was inundated, like a tidal wave after wave.

after wave of new cases. I didn't have time to even think about framing somebody. I could hardly keep my nose above water handling all the cases I was given, right? What do you, what is your reaction? And yeah, I know they're dirty cops. I know that they're there. But all the theories that, for instance, there's a theory right now, that Brian Coburger was framed. Really? He just pled guilty. I don't get it. What's your response when everyone points back on the police? Yeah, I mean, I think not totally without justification to be suspicious of the criminal justice system. Sometimes if you go back and look at our history, yeah, there are plenty of incidents of, you know, egregious actions by many of our, you know, DA's police.

But that said, one of the frustrating things about this line of work is that the systems often see. as like this monolithic thing. Like, you know, there are so many different departments, all with varying levels of oversight and different relationships with their communities, that it feels sometimes unfair if something happens in, you know, Oklahoma. And then the community here in New Orleans

now loses trust in police. And it's a hard thing to sort of pitch to the people that know we're different because, you know, we're not them. I'm a person. We're our own department. Please trust us. But when police are all in uniform and sort of seen as the same thing, yeah, a lot of those scandals sort of follow all departments in the country. It's sort of like we're all in this together as police. Don't screw it up for the rest of us by doing something awful. You know, Fife, when I heard about all the specials about you and your solve rate so far, knock on, wood product. I didn't know what to expect. I'm glad to know that you're not a show horse. You are a workhorse. And I'm very proud that you are humble. I notice you never take credit. And you're

right. You wouldn't be where you are if it wasn't for what they are doing. It's a team. I would never have won a single case if it weren't for my investigator, Ernest, trudging out the cold and the rain, sometimes the snow, going through crack houses and horror houses and strip bars and you name it, trying to find witnesses combing through a shooting scene for any ballistics left behind, up at one o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock in the morning. I could never have done it without him, right? So, So I really appreciate you saying that it's your unit and you just happen to be in the chair right now talking about these cases. I wish you the very, very best and your ongoing struggle

against violent crime and one of my favorite cities, New Orleans. God bless you and stay safe, Detective Fife, and thank you for your time. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure. We stop now, and we remember an American hero, Sergeant Thomas Duran. L. Reno, P.D., Oklahoma, killed in the line of duty

after 14 years leaving behind a grieving wife and children with no dad. American hero Sergeant Thomas Duran. Nancy Grace, signing off. This new year.

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