murder in 1970's or early 1980'

does anyone remember a triple murder in the Winnie, Hamshire or that area... a man's wife left him and her parents would not disclose her location. The grandparents were keeping the couples little boy i think he was around 2 or 4 yrs old...anyway the x-husband drove out to this location (Winnie/hamshire area and with a woman from vidor (if I remember correctly) took the old couple his x-inlaws and little boy into the woods and shot and killed them and buried them... I know I have sketchy details here but how many triple murders like this could have ever happened in this area. Thanks for your help.

I was in High School when it happened. I believe it was in 77 or 78. I remember the whole town was covered in news media, since the family had not been found. The suspect had been arrested if I remember correctly, but he wouldn't lead them to the bodies. I remember they found them in the Fannet Hamshire woods, buried, somewhat. It was so sad and pathetic. It had just been a few years earlier that the Highway Patrol man that owned the Pizza place in Winnie had been kidnapped by the looney. I think it was the Crone family.

In todays Beaumont Enterprise the was a story about the Winnie murders.Todays date is 10-21-07. it is on the front page~~Female felonys add up.

This was in '78. I remember because it was the summer I went and helped out on my uncle's rice farm. The killer was arraigned in Judge (Cravy's?) office in Hamshire and that was carried on live TV. Kids weren't allowed out of the house while the family was missing. Couldn't even walk down the road to the store to get a Coke. Of course if I lived there today, I probably wouldn't let my kids do it, murder or no murder.

The papers at the time said that the murders were the first in the area since a Winnie snack vendor was murdered in 1966. I wonder if anyone knows the details of that crime?

Debra massey wrote:

does anyone remember a triple murder in the Winnie, Hamshire or that area... a man's wife left him and her parents would not disclose her location. The grandparents were keeping the couples little boy i think he was around 2 or 4 yrs old...anyway the x-husband drove out to this location (Winnie/hamshire area and with a woman from vidor (if I remember correctly) took the old couple his x-inlaws and little boy into the woods and shot and killed them and buried them... I know I have sketchy details here but how many triple murders like this could have ever happened in this area. Thanks for your help.

was that in the 1970's cause im looking for imformation from the 1970's prefferably news

was that from the 1970's I NEED INFORMATION FROM THE 1970'S PLS!!! But that was really scary i feel sorry for the little boy he never lived his life fully

I remeber when a little 9 year old girl was brutaly raped and then killed because she was white. The killer took pictures of her naked body and put them all around town. She was told if you cried or screamed then she would get killed. She was killed anyway. If any one knows about this please tell me!!!!!!!

I remember this case very well, I've been thinking of writing a book on it. I work for the old Texaco plant in Port arthur where, Joe Dugus worked at the time. The stories about him at work at the time of the murders are very erie, to say the least. Do you remember what happened to Linda may Burnett??

Debra massey wrote:

does anyone remember a triple murder in the Winnie, Hamshire or that area... a man's wife left him and her parents would not disclose her location. The grandparents were keeping the couples little boy i think he was around 2 or 4 yrs old...anyway the x-husband drove out to this location (Winnie/hamshire area and with a woman from vidor (if I remember correctly) took the old couple his x-inlaws and little boy into the woods and shot and killed them and buried them... I know I have sketchy details here but how many triple murders like this could have ever happened in this area. Thanks for your help.

I remember this case very well, an thought of it often, throughout the years, because it was so horrible. I've thought about writing a book on it. I work at the old Texaco plant in Port Arthur where Joe Dugus worked at the time of the murders. The stories about him at work at the time of the murders are very erie, to say the least. Do you remember what happened to Linda May Burnett???

Does anyone remember the case of a family being murdered in Pine Hill, NJ, by an intruder sometime in the late 1980s? Only one child, an adopted little girl, survived by running to a neighbor's house. It was said that it might have been a case of mistaken identity.

Joe Dugas was later killed being transported,supposly he had a knife and the driver shot and killed him. Sounds like other people need to take note of this procedure. The story as it that Linda May Burnett shot the little boy.

I was the District Attorney Investigator who got Joe Dugas to show me the graves and recovered the bodies..On June 20 1983 while returning Joe to Huntsville,he stabbed me and I shot and killed him.I am now retired and was 81 yrs young on Feb7th.2008

Susan Thibodeaux wrote:

I remember this case very well, I've been thinking of writing a book on it. I work for the old Texaco plant in Port arthur where, Joe Dugus worked at the time. The stories about him at work at the time of the murders are very erie, to say the least. Do you remember what happened to Linda may Burnett?? <quoted text>

Susan my name is Russell J.Landry ,I was the Investigator who got Joe to show me the graves and recovered the bodies.On June 20 1983 I was returning Joe to Huntsville when he stabbed me and I had to shoot and killed him.Linda is still in the pen and don't think she will come out alive.I am now retired and at the young age of 81 still recall any information you may wish to know about the case...

alton wrote:

Joe Dugas was later killed being transported,supposly he had a knife and the driver shot and killed him. Sounds like other people need to take note of this procedure. The story as it that Linda May Burnett shot the little boy.

He did not supposly have knife...HE HAD TWO HOME MADE SHANKS.I know because I was the one he stabbed,and am the one who shot and killed him on June 20 1983 in Livingston Tx.They BOTH shot 2 yr old Jason by placing THEIR fingers on the trigger and pulling it at the smae time...Joe had already shot and killed the four adults and wanted Linda to part of the killings.She had walked them into the grave and Joe shot them as she marched them in one by one.

Debra massey wrote:

does anyone remember a triple murder in the Winnie, Hamshire or that area... a man's wife left him and her parents would not disclose her location. The grandparents were keeping the couples little boy i think he was around 2 or 4 yrs old...anyway the x-husband drove out to this location (Winnie/hamshire area and with a woman from vidor (if I remember correctly) took the old couple his x-inlaws and little boy into the woods and shot and killed them and buried them... I know I have sketchy details here but how many triple murders like this could have ever happened in this area. Thanks for your help.

Yes but the woman with Joe Dugas was named Linda Mae Burnett and she is currently in prison for life after her death conviction was overturned because of a videotape presented in court to the jurors that was later determined to have been inadmissible. Linda was married and lived in Nederland, Texas.The little boy murdered was with his parents who happened to be living in Oklahaoma and had come down to visit with the man's family when Joe and Linda came to the house and kidnapped then killed them.

Russell J Landry wrote:

<quoted text>He did not supposly have knife...HE HAD TWO HOME MADE SHANKS.I know because I was the one he stabbed,and am the one who shot and killed him on June 20 1983 in Livingston Tx.They BOTH shot 2 yr old Jason by placing THEIR fingers on the trigger and pulling it at the smae time...Joe had already shot and killed the four adults and wanted Linda to part of the killings.She had walked them into the grave and Joe shot them as she marched them in one by one.

Russell, I hired on when I was 20 years old the same time Joe Dugas was hired at the Texaco main plant in February 1977. We all had to go to the new employee class orientation at Texaco and my car broke down one day and Joe gave me a ride home. After my mother met him she told me she did not like that man as he had "evil eyes". I told her I just rode home with him that day that I was not interested in seeing him or dating him.However,I thought that Joe would never stop coming by my parents home even after I told him I was not interested in dating home. Susan, I could tell you things Joe said too because we worked at Texaco together--he was a bad, strange man!The handmade shanks Joe stabbed you with Russell were made from the braces from an old convenience store shelve braces as I recall...I remember when the graves were located I happened to be driving on Hwy 365 and the bodies were buried on the left side of the road on the old Gilbert Ranch. I saw police cars stopped on the road and so I stopped to see what had happened. When I got out of my car, the smell of death was overpowering!A highway patrol oficer came up to me and told me they were conducting a crime scene investigation of bodies buried in the dirt.I knew these bodies had to be the bodies of the missing Phillips family... I thought too about writing a book about this case as I knew Joe Dugas...maybe we should all get together and write this story..it shows a bad domestic violence is and these crimes still are occurring in the United States everyday!!

Russell J Landry wrote:

I was the District Attorney Investigator who got Joe Dugas to show me the graves and recovered the bodies..On June 20 1983 while returning Joe to Huntsville,he stabbed me and I shot and killed him.I am now retired and was 81 yrs young on Feb7th.2008

Awesome!! You are a brave man! Live long(er) and prosper!

GATESVILLE, Texas (AP)- Linda May Burnett, convicted in a heinous crime that left five people dead spent four years on death row for killing 3-year-old Jason Phillips, one of five family members abducted, bound, shot and buried in a mass grave near Fannett, west of Beaumont.
The Woodward, Okla. toddler, his parents Elmer and Martha Phillips were visiting the boy's grandparents, Bishop and Esther Phillips, when all five were driven to the pre-dug grave July 1, 1978 and then shot in the head.
Mrs. Burnett and a partner, Joe Dugas, were sentenced to death. Bishop and Esther Phillips were Dugas' former in-laws and he blamed them for the break-up of his marriage.
Dugas, en route from death row to testify at her trial, was fatally shot by detectives who were transporting him and who said he was trying to escape.
In early October 1982, Mrs. Burnett asked that all appeals in her case be dropped and that she be executed. The decision, she says, was the result of extreme depression.
Three weeks later, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, saying some evidence improperly was allowed at her trial, threw out her conviction and gave her a new trial.
Mrs. Burnett was convicted again, but this time the jury decided on a life prison term.
"My legs turned to jelly," she said of the second verdict. "My knees got weak. I was trying to look at my mom but all I could see is tears. Most of the people are sent back to death row on second trial and I was prepared to go back."
This year, on Dec. 26, she becomes eligible for parole, the only former female death row inmate still in prison in Texas among some 10,200 general population women prisoners.
"I expect to get it," she said of her parole. "I'm not a threat to anyone. I have lived by all of TDC's rules. I have a Christian base I'm going to. I'm working with people who have dealt with inmates a great deal and will be in their company."
Richard Hughes, the former Jefferson County assistant prosecutor who tried her the second time, said Monday her parole eligibility was news to him, but that he had not been aware of her behavior in prison.
Asked if he thought she should be freed, he replied: "Based on what I saw at the trial, and I haven't kept up with it since '83, my answer would be 'definitely not.' "
She says she has worked with young inmates and counseled them on the value of getting an education while behind bars.