In this episode of Bloody Angola:A Podcast by Woody Overton and Jim Chapman, We continue to cover the stories of those inmates eventually executed at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, from the crimes to their final walk.
#Louisianastateprison #AngolaPrison #BloodyAngola #TrueCrime #Podcast #WoodyOverton #Podcasts #Deathchamberpart2 #deathchamber #Execution #Convict
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Full Transcript Death Chamber Part 2
[Bloody Angola theme]
Jim: Hey, everyone, and welcome back to Bloody- Woody: -Angola.
Jim: A podcast 142 years in the making.
Woody: The complete story of America's bloodiest prison. Jim: And I'm Jim Chapman.
Woody: And I'm Woody Overton. Thank y'all for listening and liking and sharing. Please continue to do so. Leave us a review wherever you listen up in your podcast. And Patreon members, we appreciate y'all, you rock. Thank you for your continued support. This one, we're going back to one that got a whole lot of interest and-- [crosstalk]
Jim: People loved it.
Woody: Well, I love it.
Jim: Yeah.
Woody: I guess, you're twisted y'all, right? We're going to tell you about- Jim: Death chamber.
Woody: -death chamber stuff.
Jim: Yeah, Part 2.
Woody: Execution. Yeah, Death Chamber Part due. Jim: Part duh.
Woody: Duh.
Jim: Yeah. So, we're going to get into it and what we do with these folks-- If you hadn't listened yet, you can go back and listen to Death Chamber Part 1. The good thing about these is we cover just individual convicts that were executed at Angola. We tell just a little synopsis of their crime, and they got some really interesting final words in there for these guys.
Woody: [crosstalk] -things like that.
Jim: People just loved it the first time, so we're going to continue with it. I'll start out with our first convict up for, I guess, grabs today, and that is Leslie Lowenfield. Leslie Lowenfield was executed in 1988, and he rode the lightning.
Woody: Yeah, he graduated-- [crosstalk] Jim: Electrocuted. Gruesome Gertie. Woody: Gruesome Gertie.
Jim: He had a seat in that chair. And to tell you a little bit about this guy, he was a native of Guyana. He came to Louisiana from Canada in 1981, and he met his primary victim, which was a lady named Sheila Thomas.
Woody: I think he's well-traveled. I think Guyana is like in Africa or somewhere.
Jim: Yeah, then he goes to Canada.
Woody: And then he comes to south, to Louisiana.
Jim: He figured it out. He figured out the USA was where he wanted to be, I guess. And we didn't want him here after--
Woody: To make [crosstalk] Gruesome Gertie.
Jim: Yeah. Sheila Thomas was his primary victim. She was a deputy sheriff in Jefferson
Parish, Louisiana,-
Woody: JP. Yeah.
Jim: -which is around the New Orleans area.
Woody: Actually, it's one of the largest parishes geographically, because it expands all the way around Orleans, all the way down to Grand Isle. Did you know Grand Isle is in Jefferson Parish?
Jim: I did not.
Woody: Absolutely. There it cut across all that marsh and everything else, land wise,
Tangipahoa is the longest parish in the state. North and south, I think JP is the biggest. Jim: Interesting. I didn't know Tangi was the longest.
Woody: Yeah, Tangi is longest state north and south. Very longest parish--[crosstalk]
Jim: Very interesting. So, Sheila Thomas was a deputy sheriff. And Ms. Thomas, along with her daughter, young daughter, who was Shantel Osborne moved in with Lowenfield in the summer of 1981. So, you can already see. Uh-oh.
Woody: Right.
Jim: Lowenfield and Ms. Thomas, they lived together off and on for about a year. During that year, Ms. Thomas left Lowenfield on three separate occasions and returned to live with her mother. So, they're probably fighting, having arguments.
Woody: Off and on. Went off and on.
Jim: Yeah. Lowenfield became increasingly bitter following each separation. So, every time
she would leave, he would get more and more pissed.
Woody: Right.
Jim: When Ms. Thomas returned to her mother's home for the last time, he repeatedly threatened and harassed Ms. Thomas and her mother, victim, Myrtle Griffin. In the late afternoon of August 30th, 1982, Owen Griffin, Sheila Thomas' stepfather, was in a vacant lot near his home in Marrero, which is like an outskirts of New Orleans. He was playing cards with friends. Owen Griffin, all of a sudden, hears shots ring out from their home. He runs to the house, rushed inside, where mo...