Why would Eric Selders murder Mary Alvarez?

Four months before 41-year-old Eric O’Neal Selders allegedly killed 63-year-old Hammond business owner Mary Alvarez, the reputed drug dealer earned a 15-year vacation to the state prison in Angola.

On July 29, 2012, Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s deputies responded to a domestic disturbance call in Independence, Louisiana, where Eric Selders threatened his ex-girlfriend. Speaking to the 911 dispatcher, “Tierra” said her former boyfriend, who she called “Head,” pointed a firearm at her chest and threatened to kill her.

Interviewed later, Tierra described what happened. Sleeping in her bedroom, her children entered, waking her, saying “Head” was outside the home, attempting to gain entry. Before she could respond, Selders entered the house and approached her bedroom.

Selders asked if they could talk, and Tierra told him to leave. Their relationship had ended two days prior.

At that point, Selders pulled a black handgun from his back pocket and pushed Tierra onto the bed. Then, with the muzzle six inches from her face, Selders said she would talk, or he would kill her.

When Tierra told the children to call the police, Selders left the residence driving a baby blue four-door Oldsmobile Cutlass.

Responding to the call, a deputy passed an Oldsmobile Cutlass traveling oppositely and made a U-turn. Before the officer could read the vehicle’s license plate, the Cutlass gained speed, exceeding the 35-mile-per-hour speed limit. The deputy activated his emergency lights and siren, attempting a traffic stop. However, the driver made a sharp right turn and drove into a ditch.

As Selders climbed from the car, the deputy recognized him from prior arrests, read him his Miranda rights, and placed him in custody.

Before this incident, Selders saw 21st Judicial District Court convictions for the Distribution of Cocaine on August 9, 1989, Aggravated Battery on October 25, 1991, and Possession with Intent to Distribute a Controlled Substance on March 9, 1998.

Approaching the Cutlass, the deputy found a black .38 caliber revolver with a brown grip on the ground beside the driver’s door. The firearm, identified as an RG Industries .38 caliber revolver, Model RG40, with serial number R098452, was fully loaded with six hollow point cartridges.

Later that day, a criminal history check confirmed Selders’s prior convictions on multiple felony offenses, and the sheriff’s office charged him as a Felon in Possession of a Firearm, along with Aggravated Assault, Domestic Abuse Battery, Careless Operation of a Vehicle, and Speeding.

Selders’s prior convictions qualified him as an Armed Career Criminal. Therefore, the firearm conviction should have earned him a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years to life.

However, according to the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s Office, Eric Selders is the lead suspect in a Hammond murder four months after this arrest.

On November 14, 2012, just after 4:30 in the afternoon, Victor “Vic” Alvarez found his wife shot inside the couple’s plant nursery on Morrison Boulevard north of Hammond. According to the sheriff’s office, investigators had no suspects in the case until one year later. Then, on November 2013, an informant fingered Selders for the crime.

Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff Daniel Edwards told The Advocate in an October 2015 interview that his deputies arrested Selders a few days after receiving the tip from the informant.

The sheriff also confirmed that Selders in 2015 was serving a 15-year sentence on federal charges and faced additional drug distribution charges in federal court in Baton Rouge.

Selders was among 39 people named in an unsealed indictment in July 2015. The document described their involvement in a “violent drug trafficking” network. According to U.S. Attorney Walt Green, the network used a Baton Rouge daycare center called the Emmanuel Child Development and Learning Center for storage.

The indictment, the product of a 29-month drug ring investigation dubbed “Operation Third World,” accused Selders and others of planning the sale of Ecstasy, cocaine, and marijuana. Included in the 58-page indictment were allegations of a murder plot, threats to use a hatchet to cut off fingers, and the use of a child to transport 18 kilograms of cocaine.

Aside from Selders, the operation charged no one else in Tangipahoa Parish. Instead, according to investigators, the large-scale distribution organization, headquartered in Ascension Parish, obtained the drugs for distribution across South Louisiana from a Houston-based cartel with ties to Latin America.

In the two years following Selders’s 2013 arrest, the sheriff said, Tangipahoa Parish detectives continued to build a strong enough case to successfully prosecute him for killing Mary Alvarez. The sheriff did not discuss Selders’s motive or how Alvarez Nursery might connect with Operation Third World.

Two months before his 2013 arrest, Eric O’Neal Selders advertised the blue Oldsmobile Cutlass for sale on social media, along with a second beige-colored Oldsmobile. His next social media post came five years later, in April 2018. He stopped posting again in February 2021 when he took up residence at the Rayburn Correctional Center in Angie, Louisiana.

“At this point,” the sheriff said in 2015, “Our detectives believe we have sufficient evidence to obtain an arrest warrant for Eric Selders. Selders is in jail and serving a lengthy sentence. We are working with the District Attorney’s Office to bolster the case against Selders before we make an arrest.”

Sheriff Edwards issued the above statement seven years ago. Someone murdered Mary Alvarez ten years ago.

Last week, I requested an update from Crimestoppers of Tangipahoa and the sheriff’s office. In 2015, these organizations jointly offered a $25,000 reward for information on the Mary Alvarez murder. They directed me to Lieutenant Ethan Dunn, who consulted with the TPSO detectives for me.

The detectives reported, “The charges we sought against Selders never came to fruition. However, he remains our primary suspect in the case. He is expected to remain in jail on other charges until 2029. Meanwhile, our investigation remains active.”