LEONARD GRAY / L’Observateur / September 20, 2000

LAPLACE – The 1985 murder of 8-year-old Nichole Lopatta shocked Louisiana and stunned many people who could not believe John Francis Wille of LaPlace could have done such a monstrous crime.

But he and his girlfriend, Judith Walters, were convicted, and Wille has been on Louisiana’s death row at Angola ever since.

Today, Wille is back in LaPlace at the Sherman Walker Correctional Facility, and next week his lawyers go to court in Edgard before ad hoc Judge Remy Chiasson, intending to prove he not only did not commit the crime, but could not have done so.

While Wille confessed to the crime when he was arrested, he now says he was in Florida at the time Lopatta was abducted and killed.

His lawyers believe him, and they say they have the evidence to prove it.

Four days of testimony are planned, starting at 9 a.m. Monday, according toone of Wille’s lawyers, Nick Trenticosta. Following that a recess will be calledon the matter until early November, when Chiasson is due to return his findings.

Among those scheduled to testify is Sheila Walters Prior, daughter of Judith Walters. Prior, 14 at the time of the crime, was one of those whosestatement helped put Wille on death row. She now says her statement, likethose of her mother and of Wille, was coerced by investigators, according to a 1995 petition filed by Wille’s attorneys that has finally made it to a court hearing.

“This petition is about 60 percent of what we intend to prove,” said Trenticosta, adding, “we’ve learned a lot more since then.”The story began with the June 2, 1985 kidnapping of Nichole Michelle Lopatta from the Tres Vidas apartment complex in Terrytown, near Gretna.

According to the state’s case, Lopatta was enticed from the apartment complex’s swimming pool by Billy Phillips, a hitchhiker allegedly in the company of Sheila Walters, and taken back to the Chevrolet Impala where John Wille and Judith Walters waited.

During a nightmarish journey to U.S. Highway 51, eight miles north ofLaPlace, Lopatta was allegedly raped by Wille and Phillips. Finally, at anisolated spot off Frenier Road, Lopatta was killed and her body further violated. Shortly thereafter, Phillips was also killed.Four days later both bodies were found, by which time Wille, his girlfriend and her daughter had all returned to Milton, Fla., where they were living.Wille and Walters were indicted for murder in St. John the Baptist Parish onSept. 12, 1985. Wille’s trial began in December 1986, and Walters’ trial washeld in January 1987. Both were convicted. Sheila Walters was never chargedin the case.

Among the many claims to be heard in court on behalf of Wille include the matter of his “confession,” which Wille says was coerced after days without sleep and with drugs and hypnotism used on him. In fact, he says now, hewasn’t even in Louisiana at the time of Lopatta’s abduction.

In addition, he claims witnesses who placed Wille in Florida at the alleged time of Lopatta’s abduction were never presented to the jury; that Wille’s trial attorneys were incompetent for a capital case; that the jury was tainted; and that physical evidence which would have cleared Wille was never presented.

In addition, Wille will ask that physical evidence found at the crime scene be tested and compared to his own DNA, including a handkerchief stained with bodily fluids.

“This conviction will not stand,” Trenticosta asserted. “We will do all we cando to prove our claims have merit.”Wille was tried in December 1986 before 40th Judicial District Judge G.

Walton “Ton” Caire. He was defended by George Oubre and Robert Becnel.Among those intent to prove Wille’s innocence is LaPlace native the Rev.

John Lasseigne of Houston, a boyhood acquaintance of Wille.

Lasseigne’s connection to Wille goes back to childhood when Lasseigne’s mother taught catechism to Wille at St. Joan of Arc Catholic School.When Wille was arrested for the murder of Nichole Lopatta, Lasseigne recalled, “It shook up everyone in LaPlace. Like most people, I assumed hewas guilty.”Lasseigne had at that time been working for L’Observateur but later steered his career toward law school, during which time he became interested in death penalty cases and even published an article in the Loyola Law Review on the subject.

In time, with further study, “my eyes were opened” to the realization that many on death row did not belong there. Strengthening his position weredeclarations by the pope against capital punishment.

In late 1997 Lasseigne (by then a seminarian) began looking into Wille’s case, and at a lunch meeting with one of Wille’s attorneys he was “floored by Wille’s innocence. It stunned and amazed me.”Now, Lasseigne is steadfast in his belief that “there’s a terrible injustice going on,” and he’s working both in America and in Europe to raise funds for Wille’s defense.

“He feels this is his greatest hope to avoiding being executed,” Lasseigne said.

He added at a recent visit with Wille at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, Wille seemed “remarkably stable.”And if Wille’s conviction were set aside and he were released? Lasseigne said Wille has plans which don’t include returning to LaPlace.

Beyond that, he added nothing more.

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