Going West: True Crime - Courtney Coco // 447

Episode Date: October 18, 2024

In October of 2004, a 19-year-old woman's body was found three hours away from her Louisiana home in an abandoned Texas garage. When investigators found her car and cell phone in the Houston area, they began putting the puzzle pieces together regarding what her killer had done. But as the years passed, her case went cold, leaving police wondering if she has instead died from accidental causes. Until 2019, when a true crime podcast became involved in her case, proving that she had been murdered. This is the story of Courtney Coco. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on true crime fans? I'm your host, T and I'm your host Daphne and you're listening to going west. Hello everybody. Big shout out to Valerie for recommending today's case. This one happens in Louisiana and it had a long investigative road with a shocking conclusion. So thank you everybody for tuning in. Yeah, it took a very, very long time and also some kind of different tactics to solve this case. Yeah, this one actually has a true crime podcast involved. I feel like if that true crime podcast was not involved as we're going to obviously delve into

I don't know if this would have gotten solved so pretty crazy Absolutely crazy. We appreciate you guys being here also if you want to see photos from This episode and all the other episodes that we've covered or all the other cases we've covered head on over to our socials We're on Instagram at goingwestpodcast and we're also on Facebook. And I just wanna say, I know we say this a lot,

but if you have a case that you guys wanna recommend, send it to our email. That is the best way. Sometimes when I check our messages, which we don't do very often on social media, I'll still always see so many case recommendations on socials and it's just so much easier to keep track

of over email. So please send them over email. Our email address is goingwestpodcasts.gmail.com. Thank you in advance. All right, guys, without further ado, this is episode 447 of Going West. So let's get into it. Let's heat up a cold case tonight. The murder of Courtney Coco dating back to 2004. 19 year old Courtney was found dead in Winnie, Texas. She lived in Alexandria. It was a graduate of Ash. Her killers also took her car in distant near Houston.

For the past four years, the case of Courtney Coco has been stuck. No arrests. There was a DNA sample on the car. Talk a little bit about that. Yes, there was a DNA sample found and we have tried desperately to have that DNA put in the CODIS system. And to date, we have not been told whether that is in the CODIS or not. It took 18 years to develop a suspect and build a case, but in November of last year, after 90 minutes of deliberation, a Rapids Parish jury returned a guilty verdict for second-degree murder. She was convicted of killing 19-year-old Coco in October 2004

and then dumping her body in Winnie, Texas. Prosecutors believe she was smothered. Courtney Megan Coco was born on March 30, 1985 in Alexandria, Louisiana, which is a small city of around 40,000 people. That's known now to be a relaxed historic spot with access to plenty of outdoor activities. Courtney was a bubbly and vivacious child with a ton of energy. She was a super active kid and absolutely loved sports. At five years old, Courtney was hitting home runs on the baseball field and proved her tenacity by

being the only girl on a team of all boys. We love to see it. And off the field, Courtney was super close to her family and had two older sisters named Lace and Heather. And despite being the youngest of the three girls, she was very protective of her older sisters, and it seemed that this may have especially been the case after they lost their dad when Courtney was very young. Because at eight years old, Courtney's beloved dad passed away, which completely devastated the family. Courtney and her dad were like

best friends, and when he tragically passed, she even helped to plan his funeral. Like her mom Stephanie noted in an interview that eight-year-old Courtney picked out her father's outfit for the burial, she helped select flowers for the service, and she even chose the plot where he was buried. And it was then that Courtney decided that the best way to remain close with her dad

was to be laid to rest beside him, you know, eventually someday. And she actually chose a plot for herself right next to him. Courtney grieved her father's death for a long time and would make constant visits to his grave. But again, she really got through this time thanks to her strong family unit

of females just leaning on each other and supporting each other. Now, an important detail of this story is that before Courtney's dad passed away, he suffered an injury at work where unfortunately he lost his leg. So he received a hefty workers' comp settlement. And with this, her dad listed her, Courtney, as the sole beneficiary of his settlement money, which is a huge testament to their bond. But this kinda is gonna come up later

because we don't know why he did this, why he didn't have it split amongst his wife and three daughters equally, like why it only went to Courtney, we do not know. But Courtney wasn't even aware that she was the beneficiary equally like why it only went to Courtney, we do not know. But Courtney wasn't even aware that she was the beneficiary until she was a little bit older. And when she turned 18, payments started hitting her bank account, which was, you know, obviously

a big surprise to her. So this settlement money that Courtney received started at $1,500 a month with a bonus payment every five years. So like every five years she would get a lump sum of money. And before this and after the loss of her father, Courtney proved to blossom into a very well-rounded young woman. In high school, she joined the cheer squad and was apparently the best on the team because not

only was she athletic, as I mentioned mentioned but she had such a vibrant spirit. She even hoped to one day start a program for underprivileged young girls to have access to cheer lessons for free. Well in June of 2003 18 year old Courtney graduated from Alexandria Senior High. She was accepted into Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana, which is about an hour from her hometown of Alexandria. And Courtney began her freshman year that autumn. Now, Natchitoches is a historic city lined with French Creole style townhouses, a gorgeous Catholic Church with stained glass windows, and curved red brick roads. This charming downtown is lit with European-style iron streetlights and Northwestern State

University sits about a mile away. So at Northwestern State, Courtney decided to major in criminal justice because she had taken a criminology class back in high school and interestingly she found the whole process of solving a crime to be absolutely fascinating. Her mom even found notes that Courtney had written with detailed steps on how to solve a murder. While she began her freshman year at Northwestern State, 19-year-old Courtney took up a job at a dental office moving into her own place nearby in her hometown of Alexandria. Now Courtney was absolutely thrilled to be all grown up and was thriving as a young adult

in Louisiana until one classically warm autumn morning in Winnie, Texas, located three hours away by car from where Courtney lived, when this wonderful criminal justice major was about to spark a case of her own. But this time, instead of studying the crime, she would tragically turn out to be the victim. It was still early fall and the leaves weren't changing in color quite yet, but the open brush of southeastern Texas held a certain beauty in its stillness. It was about 8 a.m. on Monday, October 4th, 2004, and temperatures were already surpassing 70 degrees. A local farmer was cruising on his tractor

by Route 1406 in Winnie, which is a small census designated place in southeast Texas, not far from the coast, where the vast land meets the Gulf of Mexico. The farmer was passing by a small abandoned building, which was actually an unfinished house, and believed he saw a body lying on the concrete floors through the open garage-like door. Upon stumbling across this scene, unsure and disturbed at what he was seeing obviously, the farmer called a State Patrol officer and upon the

officer's arrival he made an urgent call to a detective. When the detective pulled up he immediately spotted the young woman on the ground inside the otherwise empty garage type area. Her body was lying there and the way her legs were bent made it appear that her body had been staged. But also the positioning of her body alluded to a possible sexual assault as well. But tests were later done to analyze if this had occurred and there was no evidence proving so.

Along with his sexual assault kit, the woman's fingernails were tested, of course, to see if any other person's DNA was present, to which there was surprisingly none. The still unknown victim was wearing a blue LSU T-shirt for the Louisiana State University that was pulled up to her neck exposing her bra and she was nude from the waist down.

Her body was already entering stages of decomposition, but oddly, there was no obvious cause of death upon looking at her. Since her body was already starting to deteriorate, it was originally assumed that she had been deceased for several days. The detectives and state troopers noticed tire tracks in the dirt outside of the garage area leading up to the open door, which made them believe that somebody pulled up a vehicle before dumping the body and driving away. Now the woman didn't have any clear form of identification on her person, like she

didn't have a wallet or a cell phone, but as authorities investigated her further, they noticed that she was wearing an engraved ring on her finger. The ring was gold with a reddish-pink jewel in the center, and outlining the stone were the words Alexandria Senior High 2003. I mean, this is an amazing clue. The fact that she has nothing on her, she's in this random abandoned house, they have no idea who she is, where she came from, how she died, and she happens to have this major clue that essentially says exactly who she is.

Yeah, it almost feels like the perpetrator kind of tried to take any identifying features away from this young woman, but missed one clue. I mean, imagine if they had taken this ring, how they would have been able to identify her. It would have taken probably a long time. Absolutely. So, you know, it was obvious to the detectives, sorry, that this was a class ring, which for those who don't know, I don't know if these exist everywhere. This is a common piece of jewelry for a student to receive upon graduating high school. I didn't get one. I don't know if they're still a thing.

I think I could have got one, but I didn't. Yeah. I don't remember that being an option. I don't know. Maybe they're still a thing. it was like one of those things where you could like you could pay for a Yearbook and then you could also spend a little bit of extra money to get the ring and I didn't want to spend the extra Money, I feel like this is such an older thing anyway, like you hear about oh the guy gives the girl his class ring or whatever So and she wore it, you know, she graduated high school, you know the year, and she's still wearing it. But it wasn't just the name of her high school and her graduating year that were on the ring, because also engraved was the name Courtney Coco

inside the ring. So the police in Winnie, Texas, called the Alexandria Police Department in Louisiana and began their investigation. And this call would be the start of a 15 plus year long journey to find the truth about what happened to this young woman. When Sergeant Cedric Green of the Alexandria Police Department received the call from police in Texas, he discovered that while Courtney Coco hadn't been reported missing,

a string of robberies at her home had been reported over the past two months. Now this immediately made Sergeant Green skeptical about the body found in Texas being Courtney's, because the ring may have been stolen and then worn by somebody else. Which is a fair thought. Yeah, but I mean just to be safe, Sergeant Green did some more digging and made a call to Courtney's mom Stephanie to see if Courtney had been missing, or if the ring had been stolen and the thieves could then be connected to this other woman's death. Sergeant Green told Stephanie that he believed officials may have discovered her daughter's body

three hours away in Winnie, Texas. Now of course, Stephanie was absolutely baffled by what he was saying and just didn't believe it. Especially since she had just been with her daughter a few days prior at her home in Alexandria. So let's back up just a little bit because the Friday before, so Friday, October 1st, 2004 was the start of squirrel hunting season. So Stephanie and her husband were busy packing the car for a weekend camping trip. Courtney had stopped by her mom's house that day, and Stephanie invited her daughter to

join them, but Courtney, who was kind of like a self-proclaimed city girl, joked and said Mom, you know I don't do the woods. You know, she wasn't much of an outdoorsy girl So she politely declined the invitation and went about her weekend Stephanie was confused by the call from police because not only had she just seen her daughter a few days ago But Courtney would have no reason to be over in Texas, especially a tiny town like Winnie Yeah that they had no connection to. So Stephanie called her older daughter Lace to share the news, and the entire family was

just in complete disbelief that the deceased woman in Texas was their Courtney. But since the family hadn't heard from Courtney all weekend, they just had this like pit in their stomach that the reality of her being this missing person was a possibility. So her sister Lace called her fiance at the time Lace's fiance, his name is Anthony Burns, in a panic to explain what was going on. And Lace then rushed to her mom's house to be by her side. There the ladies were met with Sergeant Green to discuss the situation further. At this point, the woman needed to be identified by a family member before official identification

was done. So, Courtney's uncle and Sergeant Green made the trek to Winnie to identify her body. Now, Courtney recently had braces put on her teeth and she had also just gotten a butterfly tattoo. So her uncle and Sergeant Green kept this in mind when they went to identify the body. While the two men were headed to Texas, Courtney's sisters and aunts were gathered at her mom Stephanie's side just riddled with nerves. And then the phone rang.

Courtney's maternal aunt picking up the receiver. Her heart sunk and when she hung up the phone she looked at her sister Stephanie and said, we need to plan a funeral. Upon hearing that horrific sentence Stephanie actually fainted. After it was sadly confirmed that the body was indeed 19 year old Courtney Coco and autopsy was underway. So a forensic pathologist in Texas estimated that probably about 52 hours had passed between Courtney's last known whereabouts to when her body was discovered. Obviously 52 hours is only a little over two days.

So since she was found dead on Monday, this meant that she was likely killed sometime Friday evening, which was October 1st or Saturday, October 2nd. And just before we said that they, you know, the police were under the impression that her body had been in there for multiple days just based on decomposition, the impression that her body had been in there for multiple days just based on decomposition. Because typically two days would not surmount to her level of decomposition, but as horrible as it is, the severe decay of her body was attributed to the extreme heat in Texas at that time,

which was reaching temperatures upwards of 88 degrees Fahrenheit. So aside from the high temperatures outside, it was possible that the expedited decomposition of her body was attributed to being in the trunk of a car for a period of time. Because you know as we know when we're thinking of keeping our kids or our dogs in cars, just because it's hot outside doesn't mean it's that temperature inside. It's always hotter inside the vehicle, especially when the windows are closed. Right. Yeah, absolutely. So if the outdoor temps were 88 degrees, that would mean that the interior of a car's trunk would reach temperatures upwards of 140 degrees.

So that could explain the state of her body when it was found. When it came to cause of death, the autopsy concluded that Courtney Coco died of homicide by undetermined means, but it did mention that she had been asphyxiated. There was reported to be a small amount of alcohol in her system, but it is normal that post-mortem a small amount of alcohol in her system, but it is normal that postmortem, a small amount of alcohol-like chemicals can be released into the bloodstream. So that could have been what was going on here. Because also, a toxicology test denied the presence of drugs in her system at this time.

And remember this because it is going to come up again later. So while the family was mourning and trying to wrap their heads around who could have done this and why? Detectives obtained a search warrant for Courtney's home in Alexandria and they began looking for any clues as to what may have happened Her house was slightly untidy You know there were empty beer cans cigarette butts that were squashed in ashtrays, and some personal stuff just kind of strung about. Although her house was a little messy, it was nothing that originally struck them, you know, out of the norm for a college-aged young woman.

However, when Sergeant Green went into Courtney's bedroom, he noticed a pair of jeans on the ground near her bed, making him wonder if she had been wearing these jeans before she went missing, considering that she was found without any pants on. In her bedroom, Sergeant Green also noticed that her comforter was missing from her bed, which made him think that maybe she was killed in the apartment and then transported via the bedspread, which by the way, was never found. But what was found under her bed was more alarming.

Courtney had a cash box under her mattress that was completely empty, making him believe that a robbery may have been committed too. Now, although the box was empty, it wasn't obvious that it had been busted open. And to add to the list of missing items, Courtney's wallet, cell phone, and car were all absent from the apartment. But regardless of the lack of these items and the deceased victim, the murder didn't appear to be motivated by aggravated robbery, because there was no sign of forced entry here.

The front door and windows were all locked, which insinuated that the killer may have been willingly let in. Or maybe even had a key. So let's dive in and discuss the final evening that Courtney was seen alive just to try to piece this together. On Friday, October 1st, 2004, Courtney was hanging out at her place with a couple of friends. Her friends, Louis and Jackie, came over and the three were just drinking beer and playing dominoes, you know, normal Friday night stuff.

Detectives questioned Louis and Jackie pretty early on in the investigation, but they felt like they were being honest and their alibis were double checked, so it really didn't appear that they had anything to do with her murder, just that they were the last people to see her besides her killer. Jackie told police that at around 1120 pm on that Friday night, they stopped by a gas station to pick up some drinks. Police were able to gather surveillance footage of the friends at the gas station, and the timeline of them being there was confirmed. In the video, Courtney was seen wearing that blue LSU shirt that she was wearing when her

body was discovered days later. And this really proves to us that she more than likely was abducted and murdered that night or in the early hours of the next day. So Jackie said that the trio then went back to Courtney's place after making this pit stop, and a friend named Mel also stopped by to hang out. The four of them were drinking a bit and playing board games, and then Mel left, and at about 2 a.m. Courtney drove Jackie and Lewis home. So at this point, Jackie and Lewis were the last known people to see Courtney alive. Only a few days after her body was discovered, which brings us to Friday, October 8th, 2004,

Courtney's funeral was held at St. Francis Xavier Cathedral in her hometown of Alexandria, Louisiana. The service was beautiful and hundreds of people attended, including all of Courtney's friends, you know, her family, police officers who were scattered all around the church for safety purposes. Courtney's mom and sisters were so stressed and distraught at the service. Her older sister Lace's fiance, again his name is Anthony Burns, had asked if he could be one of the many Paul Bears to honor her body and take her to her grave. So it was an emotional day for everybody, especially since they didn't have any answers as to what happened. Now after the funeral, police were able to gather phone records from Courtney's cell phone, which we mentioned was nowhere to be found when Courtney was discovered.

cell phone, which we mentioned was nowhere to be found when Courtney was discovered. Records showed that her phone was last active on October 2nd, which was two days before her body was found and the day after she was last seen. And we are going to go into this call here in just a little bit, but luckily about a week after her body was discovered, police were able to locate and obtain her cell phone. And strangely, it was in the possession of a 15 year old near Houston, Texas, who had no connection to Courtney. So this teenager basically said that somebody on the street had sold this cell phone to him for $10, which police did believe, but they were wondering who had sold this cell

phone to them. Yeah, and this kid didn't I'm saying kid He was a teenager, you know kid. He didn't have very much information about who sold it to him He didn't know the guy. He just said that he was an African-American male who went by the name of red Now we even sifted through all the court documentation on this and we couldn't find any information about Like if if the teenager knew this person read or if this guy just found him on the street in Houston and for anybody wondering Houston is an hour away from Winnie so

definitely interesting especially because it connects to the car so sorry go ahead tell us about the car well yeah along with Courtney's cell phone her green Pontiac was also discovered near Houston. The police determined that the person who had her car, which had been stolen, was also not involved in her murder. Yeah, and also the person who had her car was a different person, like Heath is saying, from the person who had her phone. who had her phone and this person also said that he got the car from a guy named Red and essentially exchanged the car to Red for drugs. Yeah, my thought process here is that whoever killed Courtney, maybe her cell phone was in her car and then they just dropped it off in a parking lot. Someone saw it as, you know as an available car to steal.

They stole it, they found the cell phone, they sold the cell phone, and then basically exchanged the car for drugs, as Daphne just mentioned. Yeah, and police never figured out who Red was, so we don't even know if this person Red is the person who killed Courtney, if they are, like Heath is saying saying somebody who just stole the car and and

The phone was in it like we police never figured that out Yeah, and so while those individuals were ruled out police took a closer look into Courtney's personal life Apparently Courtney had become friends with a somewhat rough crowd and was reportedly hanging out with some pretty dodgy people around the time of her death. And because most teenagers don't really share all the ins and outs of their life, Courtney's family definitely felt like she was keeping things from them. Aside from leading, you know, somewhat of a party lifestyle, Courtney was possibly struggling with her workload at school and she actually ended up dropping out of Northwestern State in late 2003 after her very first semester. So 10 or so months before her death.

She had an on and off boyfriend who went by the nickname Jitty who sold drugs and Courtney's family believed that he was possibly abusive because Courtney would come in to work with bruises but she would never confirm whether or not they came from him. But get this, prior to Courtney's death, she allegedly expressed to her sister Lace that she was afraid of Jitti, and to look into him if anything ever happened to her. So this seemed like a huge break, leading Sergeant Greene to track down and question Jitti, who had very aloof responses on his whereabouts during the weekend that Courtney disappeared. Okay, now we can go back to that phone call that Heath was talking about. We didn't want to say it prior to Heath mentioning Jitti because it's about Jitti.

So according to the court documents, when there is an arrest in this case, as we're gonna talk about, on October 2nd at 4.30 a.m. Courtney's phone made a call to a landline that was allegedly the, like the house of the other girlfriend of Jidi. So that's really interesting that it seems like this was maybe her last phone call or somebody used her phone to call this person that she actually had somewhat of a connection to.

And this call was placed in Alexandria. So why she would be calling her boyfriend's other girlfriend, which is also a very confusing thing. I don't know if they were open or if he was just seeing somebody else or anything like that. But there also are no answers to this. This was discussed in trial to this point. There was nothing else said. There was nothing said about whether or not the girlfriend was questioned about it. I'm sure she was, but they never dove into what the call was about, why the call was made,

if Courtney was the one to place the call. But it's definitely interesting. So, Jiddy, when he was being questioned, he said that he didn't do anything to harm Courtney, and Sergeant Green actually didn't believe that Jiddy could have been the killer for a few reasons, one of which was because he was between 5'4 and 5'6, so it didn't seem like he was physically capable of transporting her body. And with this, Jiddy was cleared.

Now, seeing that Courtney had come into some money from the continuous payments that she her body. And with this, Jiddy was cleared. Now, seeing that Courtney had come into some money from the continuous payments that she was receiving from her father's settlement, her access to money was seen as a possible motive for her murder. And as we mentioned, Courtney was getting payments of about $1,500 a month. But a few months before her death, Courtney had received a payment of $20,000 of the settlement money, and this led police to believe whoever killed her was after this money. And we didn't find a report confirming how much of that money she had in her possession at the time of her death, but as we mentioned, the cash box under her bed was empty, and

the robberies that had been reported in the months before her death were a huge red flag. And I also want to clarify that the robberies were not these big dramatic break-ins. It was more like cash along with some other items were just sparingly going missing, and Courtney was reporting these because obviously she's noticing sparingly going missing. And Courtney was reporting these because obviously she's noticing that things are going missing, but it's not like she came home and the place was ransacked and the window was smashed

or the door was busted open. It wasn't like that. It was just suddenly wait, where's this? Suddenly wait, where's this? And that was just happening over and over again. So Courtney did have a roommate at this time. It was a young female as well. And so Courtney kind of started to think

that maybe her roommate was responsible for the theft, especially because the roommate obviously had a key to their shared home. And when money started going missing, Courtney asked her roommate to move out. Like she felt like it was so possible that it could be this roommate that she just asked her roommate to move out. Like she felt like it was so possible that it could be this roommate that she just asked her to leave, which the roommate was very very angry about.

So police questioned her as well, but she too was cleared as a suspect in Courtney's murder. So at this point police really weren't having any luck with any of the people from Courtney's inner circle, and they were at a total standstill. with any of the people from Courtney's inner circle, and they were at a total standstill. Given the amounts of money that Courtney was set to receive for life, police thought that maybe a family member had killed Courtney for financial gain, or possibly out of jealousy that she was the sole receiver of this money. Yeah, cause again, we don't know why it was just her, why her sisters or her mom didn't get any of this money. Well, there was also kind of an indication that Courtney and her mom Stephanie had argued

about the funds in the past, so police saw this as a bit of a red flag. Especially because Stephanie hadn't mentioned to officials that she and Courtney had had some tension regarding this money. So in March of 2006, a year and a half after Courtney passed, Stephanie was questioned, but she fully cooperated by giving DNA and she also took a polygraph test. Stephanie was quickly ruled out as a suspect after taking these tests, but police turned their gaze to another family member, Courtney's older sister, Lace. Police believed that Lace was hiding something and she too was given a

polygraph test which ended up being a grueling seven-hour session. Lace was highly stressed out during this test but claimed that she had nothing to do with her sister's death. Also during this interrogation Lace wasn't allowed to eat drink or use the bathroom and she wasn't even allowed to take her seizure medicine during this testing. That's rough. Yeah, pretty rough, so, you know, this was incredibly taxing for her, on top of the conversation explicitly surrounding her sister's murder. The torment of the situation led Lace to panic, ripping the wires off of her body.

So that day, Lace left the station ripping the wires off of her body. So that day Lace left the station without finishing the lie detector test, but she did end up going back the next morning. With a clear head, Lace completed the test the following day and she passed. But even though she did clear this test, police still remained a little bit suspicious of Lace and they didn't believe that she was being totally honest about what she knew. So, she was still kinda on their radar in some way. Now, the next handful of years proved to be long and drawn out, because after tons of back and forth, you know, questioning possible suspects and multiple dead-end leads,

Courtney Coco's case was going cold and her family was really giving up any hope of finding her killer. Until one day in 2016, the Coco family received a call from the Sheriff's Office, where a detective from their office asked the Coco family to meet in person to present some wild new documentation. When the family met with this detective, to their shock, the paperwork in hand was a second toxicology report. Now as you'll remember, the original manner of death was determined that Courtney died of homicide with the cause possibly being asphyxiation, but it

was undetermined means. But during this 2016 meeting, the Sheriff's Office told the Coco family that they kept a vial of Courtney's blood from all those years ago and decided to run another test on it. Although it was originally reported that there were no drugs in Courtney's system, when the second test was done, results from a toxicology report at this time allege that Courtney did have a large amount of alcohol in her system before it was a small amount, and the test also identified traces of tramadol, which is a synthetic opioid. So the police are basically telling Courtney's family that she had overdosed,

and her manner of death was now ruled accidental. So this was a total shock, because remember, they originally reported again, that only a small amount of alcohol was found in her system, and now they're saying that she OD'd and that it's not a murder after all. But think about this, even if the lab results were accurate, that doesn't answer or explain how Courtney's body ended up in an abandoned garage three hours away from her home with no pants, no mode of transportation, you know, her car is in a different

area, she has none of her personal belongings, like it still doesn't make any sense. So understandably, the Coco family was furious and and they're not believing a word of this. So now they're just beyond fed up with police. And they had kind of already concluded that the police were pretty much useless in Courtney's investigation And now they're just feeling like the cops are are pinning her alleged You know party and drugs kind of lifestyle against her just to close the books on her death While police vehemently denied any accusations that they were not taking the case seriously The Coco family wasn't satisfied and decided

that it was time to take matters into their own hands. So in 2019, 15 years after Courtney's death, a man named Woody Overton entered the picture. Now Woody is a former investigator for the Louisiana State Police and had been in law enforcement for two decades. Stephanie and Woody had spoken years earlier but now that the family was starting their own investigation she knew that he would be the guy to help.

At this point Woody was retired and when Stephanie learned that he had started a true crime podcast she reached out to him in desperation. So Woody hosts a podcast called Real Life Real Crime where he shares cases of missing or murdered people. So when Stephanie contacted Woody she pleaded for his help and after little convincing Woody was in. So Woody got to work and started researching with the help of the Coco family and the mountains of paperwork that they had gathered over the years. In September of 2019, Woody released a series of episodes sharing Courtney's case, and told his listeners that he needed them to help.

Woody opened up a Facebook page for his listeners to share their own theories on what may have happened to her, and one possible suspect name kept coming up in this group discussion time and time again. And this name proved to be a familiar one. And it goes even a little bit deeper because a loyal fan of Woody's podcast who had been aware that this individual's name was circulating, reached out to Woody herself. Like she was seeing this name being mentioned and she had a little bit of information. So she decided, you know what,

I'm going to contact Woody and, and see if we could take this a step further. So this woman whose name is Tiffany told Woody that her ex husband's best friend was the named suspect in the discussion group. And she alleged that she knew that this man had killed Courtney. And who is this mystery man you ask? Anthony Burns, the former fiance of Courtney's sister Lace. So as you can imagine it was very shocking for his name to come up like this, especially considering that he had

been pretty close to the investigation. He is essentially in the family of the victim. And as we said, he was even one of Courtney's pallbearers. I just feel like that's such disrespect. Like the fact that even after killing Courtney, he decides that I'm going to be one of the people to carry her casket to her grave. That is sick Obviously not to jump ahead because we are gonna get into those details, but yeah pretty disturbing Yeah, it's definitely I mean it makes you wonder if he did it out of guilt or if he wanted to

Stay close as we talk about a lot with you know perpetrators and the investigation so what he now had Information on this very strong lead because so many people are talking about it. It's almost like there's this rumor going around that he is involved. So Woody is absolutely diving right into this. Now Woody and Tiffany decided that they would put a wire on Tiffany and that she would confront her ex-husband regarding his friend, Anthony Burns,

because at this point, Tiffany just wants to help, especially because she had kind of been sitting on this information for a bit because she was just unsure of what to do with it or if it was even true. So she wired up and point blank asked her ex-husband if he had been following Courtney's case. Unaware that he was being secretly recorded, Tiffany's ex, who is a man named Seamus, verbally admitted that Anthony was Courtney's killer,

that Anthony had essentially told him what he had done, because they're best friends. So immediately after this conversation, Woody obtained the physical recording and went to the Coco family with this shocking confession. And they just couldn't believe what they were hearing. I mean, the man who was a part of their family and by Lace's side during the entire aftermath of Courtney's death was allegedly responsible for it all. Although the family had stopped trusting the police at this point, they knew that they had to get them involved again with this information because they're really, of course, the only people that can actually do anything with it.

So the Alexandria Police Department used the fuel from the recorded confession to relaunch the investigation. Which honestly is kind of surprising to me because it's not like this was a recording of Anthony saying I did it And this is what I did. This is just Essentially in a way a rumor. It's his best friend saying yeah I know that he did it and right and at this point again the police think that she OD'd So I'm surprised that they didn't say ah that case is closed leave it alone Yeah, I mean your best friend could say anything You know what I mean like it's it's not coming from the killer's mouth and also again. They don't have DNA evidence they don't have a ton of evidence here to convict Anthony Burns

So I'm surprised that they went after him this hard just based on what Seamus said Yeah, just based on this secondhand information and yeah, no evidence. But still, a new investigator spoke with Tiffany's ex-husband Seamus who admitted that he knew Anthony Burns had killed Courtney. So now he is telling the police this. But now police just needed to get proof. So investigators looked back at her case files and found a tip from years prior stating that a witness in Winney, Texas back in October of 2004 had reported seeing Courtney's car

the night that she was supposedly killed. The witness claimed to see a man whose description matched Anthony Burns driving Courtney's car. So now they're ready to question Anthony. And I do want to say Anthony couldn't have been red. He is not an African American man. He is a white man. So for anybody wondering, there is no record of him being nicknamed red and he did not match reds physical description. So at this point, it was October 2019, 15 years after Courtney was killed, and Anthony

Burns was brought in for questioning. Anthony gave detailed claims that he was with his former fiance Lace during the weekend that Courtney went missing, but when his alibi was cross-referenced with Lace, she said that she saw her former fiance late Friday night, which is when Courtney went missing, and that she didn't see him again until after Courtney was found dead. So he was MIA that whole weekend. It's hard though because so much time had passed that nobody that he would have been with would probably even remember that,

even though it was a significant week in their lives, but it just sucks that they couldn't ask this originally. Yeah, it definitely was kind of like the ball was dropped there, but I just wanted to mention that Lace also claimed that she had no idea that Anthony was responsible for her sister's death until this point in time. She was staunch that she hadn't been withholding this information to protect him. Anthony Burns took a polygraph test and of course, as you guys can guess, he failed, which felt like somewhat of a slam dunk, and finally, police had an answer to their questions

after all those painful years. Cut to a year and a half later, on April 13, 2021, Anthony Burns was indicted and arrested for the murder of Courtney Coco, with police believing that Anthony killed Courtney in 2004 by smothering her during an attempt to rob her. Months after his arrest, Anthony's trial began in November of 2022. However, there was one more twist revealed during the trial that would shock everyone. During the trial, her sister Lace testified that 19-year-old Courtney was apparently having a secret affair with Anthony, who

was in his late twenties at the time and it was also reported that Anthony had even given Courtney a promise ring before her death. Okay a lot of people are skeptical about Lace's potential involvement I don't want to talk badly about her sister because I want to believe what she's saying that she didn't know anything that she wasn't actually involved but she's saying that she didn't know anything that she wasn't actually involved. Um, but she also said that she had been suspicious of their alleged affair back in the day before Courtney passed. So some point out that, you know, this mixed with the fact that she hadn't seen him all weekend,

like maybe it would have been a good idea to ask police to question him then, but also she was the only person who really said anything about the affair during the trial or during the investigation at all. So like there's no proof that this affair happened. Anthony is saying that it didn't happen. Nobody else can claim for sure that it happened. So some people think that this was concocted.

I don't know why Lace would make this up, but you know, police did look into her. They were very suspicious of her. And is there a reason that they should be? I don't know. Well, I'm not saying at all that this could be true, but I can understand where people's minds are going with this. That possibly because Courtney had all this money from the settlement and Lace didn't get any

of that money, maybe it's possible that Anthony and Lace, you know, possibly thought out a plan to get this money from Courtney and then after, you know, Anthony was found out to have killed Courtney, Lace is kind of protecting herself. Not saying that that's what happened, but I can see where people's minds would go to with that. But that is what is so frustrating about this case, is there's so many questions that we have, and even though there was a freaking trial and a almost two decade long investigation,

there are so many answers that we don't have. Police never figured out if Lace, you know, seemingly came into some money after Courtney went missing or if Anthony did. There's no proof that they, you know, deposited this cash in their bank account, which I don't think they would have done. Right. Like after Courtney was killed, then all of a sudden, you know, they've got $20,000 in their bank account. Yeah, Lace has a new car. Like, there was nothing like that. Which is, again, what's so frustrating about this story is I feel like there's

literally so many dead ends. Yeah, and that just is kind of a testament to the police work that was done here. As the Coco family mentioned, they really kind of dropped the ball and they were not very confident in what the police were doing to solve Courtney's murder. Well, here's another big thing about this case that felt very disappointing is that Anthony's DNA was nowhere at the scene. His DNA was not in Courtney's car, it wasn't in her home, but there was one piece of DNA that was found on the latch of the trunk of her car and this was a match for not Anthony but a man named Fred Landry who she had been

seeing at the time that she was with her boyfriend Jidi. So again, I feel like they either had an open relationship or they weren't serious boyfriend girlfriend because it seems like Jidi had another girl. Courtney was seeing this other guy named Fred and possibly other guys. You know, she's 19 years old, so that's fair. But basically Fred Landry did testify regarding their relationship during Anthony's trial. And he said that he wasn't surprised that his DNA was found there because they had a sexual relationship, they hung out,

he had been in her car before, so he's like, yeah, of course my DNA is on the trunk of her car because we knew each other. We hung out. But also, we have to remember that police believe that her body was transported in her own car. There was a stain in the trunk that matched her DNA. And now there is DNA evidence of a man's on the latch to open the trunk. But I think I don't know how much weight I put into this because there was no other evidence that Fred was involved.

So this wasn't enough to point to him as a suspect because even though you're looking at Anthony and you're like, they don't have DNA, they only have circumstantial evidence, other than this piece of DNA of Fred's, they have nothing else against Fred. They have nobody saying, I saw Fred in this area, Fred told me that he killed Courtney. You know what I mean?

So they don't have anything else against him. So it's definitely possible that he had just opened her trunk at a different time. It kind of feels like they don't have anything against anybody. I know exactly. That's what I'm saying. So also though, I feel like if his DNA was on the trunk of her car, wouldn't you imagine that it would also be on the steering wheel and on her body under her fingernails somewhere else, you know, in her apartment. So it seems like maybe whoever attacked her, again,

if this is Anthony was wearing gloves and was very, very careful. Um, that is just where my mind goes. But yeah. I mean, just so much of this case was built around this witness who picked out Anthony Burns in a lineup saying that he looked like a guy who was by her car in Houston, Texas. Did this person actually see him? It is very possible,

but they really, really ran with that. And I mean, they really don't even have concrete answers regarding her death or her cause of death because a doctor also did testify in court that the amount of tramadol that was in her system was just over the therapeutic level. So a doctor even said that in his professional opinion, there was not enough tramadol to be in her system to actually kill her, like the police had insinuated. So it does seem that she was asphyxiated and she was murdered, but what happened, you know? Although the evidence presented during trial was entirely circumstantial. After only 90 minutes of deliberation, the jury unanimously found then 46-year-old Anthony Burns guilty of second-degree murder.

During the victim impact statement, Courtney's mom, aunts, and other family members addressed Anthony head-on. Between tears and broken words, they expressed how his deceit and lies destroyed them. They admitted to at one point loving Anthony and talked about how utterly betrayed they felt by him. Her mom Stephanie looked at him and told him that she had zero mercy for him. Anthony Burns sat there mostly keeping his head down and avoiding eye contact. And on November 29th 2022 Anthony Burns was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. I also want to mention that Tiffany also said that she was told by Seamus that Lace and Anthony did this

together for the money. Again I'm not saying that that's what happened but I do wonder what Anthony's motive would have been on his own unless he knew about the money and he wanted to steal it. Like I just wish that there was more evidence here. It doesn't feel totally satisfactory you know?? Yeah, no, I agree with you. It feels like there are still so many questions that don't have answers. I do feel like in a lot of ways he does feel like the most likely suspect. I do understand in some ways why he was convicted. I don't think beyond a shadow of a doubt he did it.

But obviously a jury convicted him and that doesn't always mean that the jury is right, but I don't know. I guess just because so many people had heard that he did it, his own best friend is saying that he told, he was told by Anthony that he had done it. The fact that he was so close to Courtney and her family, the fact that Lace was very sus in a lot of ways to the investigation and then it happened to be her fiance at the time, you know, like there are things that lead us to this. Yeah, I mean, I do think it's really strange that, you know, as you just mentioned that Tiffany was told by Seamus that Lace and Anthony did it together. Like that's one of those things you you really have to kind of take into account here and think about.

Yeah. And a lot of people are wondering, well, then why didn't he say that? Why did he point the finger at Lace? And maybe because he was proclaiming innocence, he thought that if he said, oh, Lace and I did it together and it was her idea, then it would just be proving him to be guilty. But also, but also I just wanted to say that like $20,000 to murder your family member, that doesn't feel like... I mean we talked about this, we talked about this in so many cases. We covered a case recently where somebody was paid $10,000 to murder somebody.

Right, like that's not going to last you any amount of time. Yeah, I mean nothing is worth murder. So I also read a lot of things about how because her body was found in Texas, I just want to go back to what Heath and I were saying a little bit ago about the ball being dropped in the investigation. You know, the fact that her body was found in Texas, there was apparently certain evidence that fell through the cracks, a certain DNA evidence potentially that was not shared with Louisiana law enforcement. I couldn't substantiate this. This is just what a lot of people are saying and there is definitely still a lot of outrage regarding this investigation as a whole. Because I'm also sitting here wondering, did Anthony Burns have any connections to Winnie, Texas?

How would he have found this abandoned house? Three hours away like you know what I mean Would he was he just driving and he came upon it? How do you know nobody lived there was the garage door already open? What what up with that? You know that yeah? That's my question as well like was it just one of those things where you? Drive until you find a convenient location to dump a body? Or had you been to Winnie, Texas before? Did you know it in any sort of way at all? So many unanswered questions. It's frustrating.

But between wrongful accusations, seemingly lazy police work, and a grueling trial, the aftermath of Courtney's death was an agonizing road for her whole family. After her October 2004 funeral, Courtney Coco was laid to rest beside her beloved father where she now remains forever, just like she had wished when he was buried up all those years ago. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode. As I mentioned in the beginning of this episode, if you're interested in seeing photos from this case and all the other cases that we've covered this far. I just like brain farted. Wow. That was a glitch. Wow. I'm stupid. Yeah. All the other

cases that we've covered thus far going over to our socials. We're on Instagram at going West podcast. We're also on Facebook. And I'm so sorry guys. I know that it's so frustrating when it feels like we get answers, but we don't have any. And that is something we noticed researching this case is how again, many loose ends there are and dead ends there were. And I know none of us like that, but we wanted to share Courtney's story anyway, of course, because her story deserves to be told. And hopefully there will be more answers eventually.

Like I hope that Anthony confesses. I hope he tells her family exactly what happened because they deserve to know that. Yeah, maybe there will be an update in the future. If there is, we will let you guys know. Absolutely. Thank you guys so much for tuning in again. Thank you so much to Valerie for recommending this case.

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