Still no justice for Nessa Hartley
Four years ago, one day before her 57th birthday, a masked man shot and killed Janessa Hartley as she dropped a friend two blocks from her own home at a Brookshire Avenue residence in their Sherwood Forest neighborhood. The Baton Rouge Police Department is still looking for her killer today.
Just after 8, the evening of January 15, 2019, “Nessa” Hartley sat in the front seat of her Honda CR-V, a sports utility vehicle, talking when a shadow near a tree became a man, waving a gun near her driver’s side window.
“We were looking down a gun barrel,” Nessa’s friend, Linda Donnelly, later told Crime Stoppers. “All we could see of the person was his eyes. He had a hoodie over his head and a cloth across his face.”
“At first, your brain doesn’t process it,” she said. “We were trying to figure out if it was a joke, somebody playing a prank on us.”
Surveillance cameras at the home of Kenny Williams, Linda Donnelly’s neighbor, and fiancé, filmed the assault. The man hid behind a large tree before approaching the car, and he appeared to shout something after attempting to open the driver’s side door.
Jonathan Ricard, who lives in the house across the street from where the shooting occurred, said he heard raised voices and a man telling someone to “get out of the car.” Then he heard one gunshot and a woman yell, “He shot me.”
Linda said she and Nessa never heard their attacker speak.
“He was just standing there, staring at us. We couldn’t figure out what he wanted. We felt protected inside the car,” she said, “And we were scared to get out.”
Linda said Nessa revved the engine to frighten their assailant away. Instead, he fired a bullet through the driver’s side door.
After hearing the shot, Jonathan Ricard phoned 911.
Nessa collapsed in the driver’s seat as the gunman pulled again at the door handle. Linda slid the SUV into reverse, and the vehicle backed down the drive. The masked man raised his gun again as the car bounced out into the road, and the driver of a passing van – nearly hit by the SUV – honked his horn.
At that moment, Linda began blowing the SUV’s horn and screaming for the neighbors to help. The masked man lowered his gun and ran across Linda’s lawn toward the van as it drove away.
Nessa’s SUV continued across the street, backing into Jonathan Ricard’s driveway. Linda put the car into neutral. It paused slightly, then rolled back into the street.
BRPD Detective Walter Griffin told Crime Stoppers what happened next. “On arrival, I saw a small SUV adjacent to the sidewalk. There was a deceased female in the driver’s seat.”
This account differs slightly from that the Baton Rouge Advocate reported the morning after the shooting. That report said, “At Tuesday night’s scene, Hartley’s body could be seen lying on the ground next to an SUV with its driver’s side window shot out. The vehicle appeared to have run off the road. Her body was lying in the grass on the driver’s side.”
“After [Linda Donnelly] exited the vehicle,” Detective Griffin explained, “Her fiancé came out, and then several neighbors came out. All focused their efforts on helping the victim. When our officers arrived, they were trying to perform all life-saving techniques. At that point, we started collecting evidence, working the scene, and interviewing witnesses who may have seen the incident.”
After interviewing Linda, Detective Griffin noted in his report, “They had gone out for a typical night out with the girls. They had dinner to celebrate Janessa’s upcoming birthday. They drove home, and nothing unusual happened. It was a routine drive home with no incidents of road rage or anything. They didn’t cut anyone off. No one cut them off. They had no words with anybody at a red light or anything of that nature.”
Linda later told WAFB-TV that she believed Nessa’s murder was no more than a carjacking gone wrong.
“We were sitting in the car. The engine was on. Her foot was on the brake, so the lights were on. When a car passes by, they see the lights. That’s an easy carjacking,” Linda said. “This, to me, was a random carjacking. People don’t want to say that can happen here, but it can happen anywhere.”
In another television interview, BRPD Detective Ross Williams agreed, explaining that this neighborhood is a thruway between two major roads. “Some of the side streets that cut through from Old Hammond Highway to Goodwood are the ones that access the thruway,” Williams said. He said one of those cut-through roads is Havenwood Drive, which intersects with Brookshire Avenue, very near the address where Nessa and Linda were sitting in the Honda CR-V that night.
Nessa was born the fourth child of Lee and Jackie Hargroder. Born and raised in Baton Rouge, she graduated from Redemptorist High School in 1980. In 1984, she married Peter Hartley and started a family. Pete and Nessa became parents to 3 children: Jake, Megan, and Seth.
She worked as a classroom assistant at St. Thomas More Preschool in Baton Rouge for years before retiring in 2014.
“She was so kindhearted and loving to everyone she interacted with. She was beautiful inside and out,” Camilla Ponson, the preschool’s receptionist, told newspaper reporters the day following Nessa’s murder. “It’s so tragic,” she said. “I still can’t believe it happened.”
Camilla Ponson said Nessa retired to spend time with her grandchildren. She had five at the time of her death.
“Nessa and I have been dear and close friends for 36 years,” Linda Donnelly told reporters. “We shared our lives and raised our families together. Her children and grandbabies were her worlds. This senseless crime has devastated all of those close to her.”
This week, Nessa’s older sister, Cheryl, reached out to me, saying, “It is much appreciated that you are keeping Nessa’s murder case in the public eye. Thank you!”
And Heather wrote to say Nessa was her Nanny. She said, “It’s just so unfair that there are so many murders that get solved daily yet her murder stays cold. It hurts so bad. We were a close family and I miss her so much. There have been several articles on her murder, but your article covered everything. It was a great tribute to her as well. Thank you for speaking on her life and her death. It means a lot.”