Top 10 stories of 2023: Parole granted, rescinded for KK’s Corner killer
Published 3:49 pm Saturday, December 30, 2023
- Calcasieu Parish Sheriff Beth Lundy escorts Thomas Frank Cisco Jr. into the Calcasieu Correctional Center after he was transferred here from death row at Angola State Penitentiary. (Donna Price / American Press Archives)
Thomas Cisco — who was sentenced to 90 years in prison for the July 6, 1997, KK’s Corner triple homicide — was granted parole on Feb. 8 after serving 24 years. And then it was rescinded the next day.
Cisco’s victims were store employees Mark Patrick “Marty” LeBouef, 21, and Staci Lynn Reeves, 24, and 14-year-old Nicole Guidry, who had been dropped off to go home with Reeves to babysit for her twin daughters.
Cisco pleaded guilty to three manslaughter counts in 2010 — after being convicted and sentenced to death in a previous ruling that was later overturned — as part of a plea deal worked out between then-Assistant Attorney General David Caldwell and defense attorney Michelle Fournet of Baton Rouge. Cisco’s initial murder trial ended Nov. 7, 2000, with three guilty verdicts. Jurors unanimously recommended a death sentence, but in December 2003 the state Supreme Court threw out the convictions, saying Cisco’s court-appointed attorney for the trial, Evelyn Oubre, shouldn’t have represented him because of a conflict of interest.
At the time Oubre was representing Cisco, she was also representing former Deputy Donald “Lucky” DeLouche in domestic court matters. DeLouche was the state’s leading witness and the former director of the now-defunct Violent Crimes Task Force.
On Feb. 12, 2004, then-Calcasieu Parish District Attorney Rick Bryant formally transferred the Cisco case to the Attorney General’s Office, citing a similar possible conflict of interest with his office. At that time, then-Assistant District Attorney Ric Oustalet was representing DeLouche in domestic court matters. Bryant said he didn’t want another conflict to arise in the Cisco case. The case was then assigned to Caldwell, whose father, Buddy Caldwell, was attorney general.
In 2008, Cisco’s charges were amended to second-degree murder, which meant Cisco couldn’t face the possibility of another death sentence.
Caldwell amended the second-degree murder counts to manslaughter for the 2010 plea agreement and recommended the maximum sentence of 40 years on each count. Two terms and 10 years for the third were to run back to back for a total of 90 years. By amending the charge, the Attorney General’s Office paved the way for quicker prosecution of the case, he said.
When Cisco was interviewed, he admitted his involvement, Caldwell said, and gave details of the crime such as the location of the bodies and descriptions of the wounds — all of it information that only the perpetrators could have known. In accepting the plea agreement, Judge Robert Wyatt told Cisco, “You have ruined so many lives, the least of which is yours, and changed the course of Calcasieu Parish.”
Calcasieu Parish District Attorney Stephen Dwight said he requested the chance to review all disciplinary records for Cisco following the parole board hearing and was informed of an unreported infraction of contraband that would render ineligibility of parole. The infraction occurred before the parole hearing took place on Feb. 8.
On Feb. 9, Cisco went before a disciplinary board and pled guilty to the infraction. Dwight said it has been confirmed that Cisco’s parole has been rescinded.
