LEONARD GRAY / L’Observateur / September 25, 2000

LAPLACE – Either John Francis Wille murdered 8-year-old Nichole Lopatta back in 1985 or he didn’t. He starts four days of hearings Monday todetermine if his conviction and death sentence should be overturned.

Wille, 36, arrived in St. John the Baptist Parish from Angola’s death row lastweek to meet with his lawyers and prepare for hearings which he hopes will clear his name and save him from execution.

Judith Walters, now 46, will commute daily from St. Gabriel where she isserving two life sentences at the Women’s Correctional Center, as she likewise tries to prove her own innocence.

At issue in the Edgard courthouse will be not only claims of prosecutory misconduct, incompetent defense and coerced false confessions, but also testimony never before presented to show Wille was nowhere near LaPlace at the time of Lopatta’s murder.

Wille opened his petition: “John Francis Wille did not kill Nichole Lopatta, nor did he have anything to do with her abduction and death. He is innocent of thecrime for which he is convicted and sentenced to death.”He continued: “He walked into a charged courtroom, burdened with false confessions, missing access to critical information hidden by the state showing that it was physically impossible for him to have committed the crime with a lawyer woefully inadequate for the job.”He continued: “If the crimes had happened as John Wille confessed, there would have been blood all over the car; there was none. If the crime hadhappened as John Wille confessed, Billy Phillips would have bled to death; but he drowned. If the crimes had happened as John Wille alleged, he would havehad to drive at least 60 miles, commit horrendous acts, stopping here and there, in a little over a one-hour period of time; physically impossible.”The Crime According to the petition Jodee Lopatta last saw her daughter, Nichole, about 4:30 p.m. on June 2, 1985 in the Tres Vidas apartment complex inTerrytown, near Gretna.

Four days later Lopatta’s savagely brutalized body was found in a wooded area eight miles north of LaPlace. That same day, and two miles fromLopatta’s remains, the body of Billy Phillips was recovered from under Interstate 55, floating in the water.

Wille’s attorney, Nick Trenticosta, said it was “astonishing” for anyone to believe Wille could pick up Phillips hitchhiking and immediately fall into a plot to kidnap and rape a child. “Pedophiles don’t work in pairs,” the attorneysaid.

According to the state’s case, Lopatta was enticed from the apartment complex’s swimming pool on the afternoon of June 2 by Billy Phillips, a hitchhiker friend of Wille’s picked up that same day, and Sheila Walters.

Nichole was taken back to the Chevrolet Impala where John Wille and Sheila’s mother, Judith Walters, waited.

The state contends that while going to U.S. Highway 51 Lopatta wasrepeatedly raped by both Wille and Phillips. Finally, Lopatta was strangled andher body further violated. Shortly thereafter, the four went to Manchacwhere they paired off and had sex repeatedly, after which Phillips was also killed while fighting with Wille.

The Investigation Wille’s petition described him as a chronic liar who, as a child, protected his younger sisters and confessed and took beatings for their own misdeeds.

Judith Walters, now 46, was repeatedly molested by her stepfather, beginning at age 7, until she married at age 15. She soon divorced andmarried another man almost immediately, bearing him a daughter, Sheila, and son, Billy.

This husband enticed her into an abusive, sexually perverted lifestyle, according to the petition. That ended when she met Wille in early 1985 whilethe couple were living on Good Hope Street in Norco.

Wille, Judith and Sheila Walters, then 13, ran away together in May 1985 to Milton, Fla. Wille soon had problems with neighbors Jane and Jerry Wells, whotipped off the Santa Rose County Sheriff’s Office about Wille’s wild claims of having murdered people all along the Gulf Coast.

At the apartment complex where Lopatta lived, an initial suspect, George Perez, was picked from a lineup by one of Lopatta’s friends as one who had molested both of them. Perez was never arrested.On Aug. 7, St. John Parish Sheriff’s detectives arrived in Florida to beginquestioning Wille. On Aug. 27, after first claiming several murders and thenrecanting his confessions, he confessed to raping and killing Lopatta and killing Phillips. He ended his statement by saying, “I think I just put my ass inthe electric chair.”Likewise, on Aug. 7, Judith Walters began undergoing questioning byinvestigators as she lay in an intensive care room at the Santa Rosa County Hospital after a suicide attempt. She likewise implicated Wille while in adrugged condition.

Sheila Walters was interviewed in Laurel, Miss., on Sept. 3, 1985 by the FBI,but later denied the statements implicating Wille. Wille’s petition says herretraction was never disclosed to the jury.

Jury Selection Wille’s claims also include errors in jury selection. He detailed one jurorappointed who was a brother-in-law of co-prosecutor (now District Judge) Madeline Jasmine, another was a close friend of investigator Ken Mitchell and that nearly every juror had small children and might be predisposed to convict and sentence to death an accused child murderer.

The Trial Wille and Judith Walters were indicted on Sept. 12, 1985 for the murders.Trial opened Dec. 1, 1986 before 40th Judicial District Judge G. Walton “Ton”Caire (now retired). Lead prosecutor was Assistant District Attorney (nowFourth Circuit Court of Appeals judge) Thomas Daley.

Wille was represented at trial by former state senator George Oubre, who was “sentenced” to conduct Wille’s defense in order to fulfill probation conditions of his own felony conviction for giving false statements to banking institutions and fraud.

Furthermore, the petition says, Oubre’s trial experience consisted of one criminal and one civil trial before a jury and a traffic case before a judge. Hehad never been involved in a capital case. His assistant was Robert Becnel,fresh out of law school and likewise with no experience in capital cases.

The sole direct “evidence” against Wille was his own confession, the petition states. Circumstantial evidence included a Popeye’s Chicken employee inKenner who identified Wille and his girlfriend as having been at her store at about 8 p.m. on the evening of the murder. In addition, statements by Judithand Sheila Walters purportedly matched Wille’s account.

The only other evidence presented was a hair found at the crime scene which was “consistent” with Wille’s hair.

However, Wille claims Florida resident Sandy Becker would have placed him in Milton, Fla., at her house on the afternoon of Lopatta’s murder. Anotherwitness would have established that Billy Phillips had died two or three days before Lopatta – not on the same afternoon.

Another witness, Carley Treadway, would have testified that Lopatta was last seen by her after 7 p.m. on the day of her abduction. That, togetherwith the Popeye’s employee, would have had Wille picking the victim up in Gretna, driving to LaPlace, murdering two people and going to Kenner – in less than one hour.

Other physical evidence found at the crime scene was never positively matched to Wille, according to the petition, including between five and 20 hairs and a handkerchief stained with bodily fluids.

Other suspects were never thoroughly cleared, Wille’s petition contends, including George Perez, who was allegedly seen by the victim and her sisters performing self-abuse on their bed, and Danny Fredericks, a roommate of Billy Phillips, who was allegedly seen by Phillips’ brother Jimmy hiding a hacksaw. Phillips was found with a hand cut off. Walters claimed that wasdone by Wille, with the hand later placed in a Popeye’s bag.

What’s more, Trenticosta said, his own theory is that Phillips was really killed in his apartment bathtub and someone tried to clumsily dispose of the remains two to three days before Lopatta was taken to her death scene.

As to the lack of blood evidence in the suspect vehicle, the state contended it was a vinyl car seat, where the blood could easily be cleaned off. However,Wille says, the car seat had a cloth cover which would have retained any blood, and the covers were still on the seat sent to the FBI forensics lab.

That lab failed to find any blood samples.

Finally, Trenticosta commented, there is no evidence that Wille ever met Billy Phillips. “Nowhere can I find that they did know each other,” he said.Wille was convicted on Dec. 6, 1986 of two counts of first-degree murderand sentenced to death two days later.

Coming This Week Wille plans to have experts testify as to the psychology of false confessions.

In addition, Sheila Walters Prior, now 29, is scheduled to testify as to her own interrogation experience. Wille’s petition states she did not witness orparticipate in the murders.

Afterward Judith Walters’ trial began Jan. 19, 1987 before 40th Judicial District JudgeThomas Malik (now retired). Her attorney was former U.S. Attorney PatFanning. Walters was convicted on Jan. 23, 1987 of two counts of first-degree murder. She is serving two life sentences at the LouisianaCorrectional Institute for Women at St. Gabriel. Sheila Walters, who disappeared during her mother’s trial, along with her grandmother, was never charged for her alleged involvement in Lopatta’s abduction.

For the past 14 years Wille has been known as Inmate No. 115864. His home,for now, is Death Row Cell U-B-8 at Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola.

One day soon, he hopes to be a free man.

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