Who killed Buffy and Momma McKenzie?
In the early morning hours of May 23, 1992, in the hilltop community of Angie, outside Pine, Louisiana, Washington Parish Justice of the Peace James McKenzie returned home from a fox hunting trip to find the bodies of his wife and daughter lifeless in the driveway.
Someone shot Jeanette “Momma” McKenzie, 46, and her 22-year-old daughter, Buffy, multiple times in the head and chest with a 22-caliber long rifle as they unloaded the car following a shopping trip to the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
In March 1994, the Washington Parish Sheriff’s Office charged Roger David Gay, 43, an alleged Dixie Mafia member, with the murders; two counts of first-degree murder, six counts of obstruction of justice, and one count of conspiracy to commit obstruction of justice.
Washington Parish Sheriff Duane Blair told reporters Gay had a Franklinton address, but he lived in Angie. On the day of the arrest, outside the home at 50101 LA-436, journalists photographed police units from the sheriff’s office, Louisiana State Police, U. S. Customs, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
On May 23, 1994, inside the Washington Parish jail, on the second anniversary of the McKenzie murders, Roger David Gay attempted suicide using a fellow inmate’s blood pressure medication but survived.
Investigators also charged Buffy McKenzie’s former fiance, Brian Ray Crain, 30, with five counts of obstruction of justice and one count of conspiracy to commit obstruction of justice.
Gay and Crain’s obstruction of justice trial began with a pool of 450 prospective jurors called in for jury duty. Assistant District Attorneys Lewis Murray Ill and Scott Gardner represented the state.
The state elected to prosecute the murders in separate trials after Mary Roa, the alleged driver of the murder getaway car, died in a hit-and-run traffic accident in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
The defense team, led by Baton Rouge attorney Lewis Unglesby, included attorneys Alan Black of Slidell, Clayton “Dinky” Knight of Franklinton, and Manon Farmer of Covington. Unglesby and Black represented Crain, with Knight and Farmer representing Gay.
After asking prospective jurors to fill out a four-page questionnaire, a jury of eight women and four men was seated, and the trial began.
The state called witnesses from the Washington Parish Sheriff’s Office, Bogalusa Police Department, U.S. Customs Service, Louisiana State Police, and U.S. Department of Justice, who testified that they received an anonymous telephone tip that a plane would drop a load of drugs at the Bogalusa Airport on January 4, 1992.
Testimony showed the drop never happened, but a small plane of similar description did approach the airport one day later. However, overhearing a radio transmission from one of the officers over an unsecured channel, the incoming pilot turned off the plane lights and disappeared before agents could track the plane with infrared equipment.
A check of incoming flights showed that only one pilot, Randy Crain of Pine, was scheduled to fly in from Florida that night. Agents his plane the next day in Pine at a private airstrip owned by the Crain family.
Richard Dwyer, a deputy U.S. Marshal, testified that he was diverted from a clandestine meeting with Jeanette and Buffy McKenzie by the search for the Crain plane.
“We were en route to meet Jeanette and Buffy but never connected with them. They were going to provide us with information,” Dwyer said.
Dwyer testified to finding no drugs of any kind on the plane. However, the Crain had not properly registered the aircraft with the Federal Aviation Authority, allowing the U.S. Government to seize the plane on January 8, 1995.
Because the ground was too wet and soggy to fly the plane out, agents left the aircraft at the airstrip in Pine, returning for it on February 3.
Dwyer testified that when they returned, someone had plowed furrows before the plane to prevent removal. When law enforcement officials placed planks over the grooves to roll the aircraft out, Brian Crain arrived on a tractor and trenches across the runway.
Questioning by the defense showed that Randy Cram had flown an elderly lady and her grandson to St. Petersburg, Florida, on January 4 after the woman, who was visiting friends in Bogalusa, became ill and needed to see her doctor in Florida.
Unglesby pointed out that Crain did not attempt to hide his trip, checking in with various air towers to report his destination as he returned to Pine.
Dwyer admitted his agents filed no charges against Randy or Brian Crain for misuse of the plane.
On the stand, James McKenzie testified that Brian Crain broke off his engagement with Buffy several months before the murders, removing any lover’s quarrel as a possible motive for the crimes.
Pat Lane with the Louisiana State Crime Lab in Baton Rouge testified to investigating the crime scene after McKenizie discovered the bodies.
He described recovering 14 cartridge casings and bullets inside and outside the house.
He told the jury, checking the house, he found a firearm in nearly every room, including one on the kitchen counter by the phone and another outside the carport door. A gun on the carport floor belonged to Jeanette McKenzie.
He said investigators found several shell casings beside a bush in the yard.
Lane told the jury that although agents took weapons from the Crain home and the Gay home, none matched the suspected murder weapon.
He also said that no fingerprints lifted at the crime scene matched Crain or Gay’s fingerprints. A footprint in a wooded area across the street from the McKenzie house also was not in Crain’s or Gay’s shoe size.
Unglesby asked Lane, “You don’t have a single shred of evidence to link either Brian Crain or David Gay to the crime scene?”
Lane replied, “That’s correct.”
After only three hours of deliberation on Saturday, December 9, 1995, the jury returned not-guilty verdicts on all 13 counts against both men.
District Attorney Walter Reed dropped the murder charges one week later following the resignation of Detective Johnnie Holcomb, the case’s lead investigator.
Today, the murders of Jeanette and Buffy McKenzie remain unsolved.