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What led a Cajun millionaire to brutally stab his British wife?

Murder at the Manor 41:52

Produced by Allen Alter

[This story was originally broadcast on Nov. 26, 2011. It was updated on June 19, 2012]

Writing letters is the way H., as Harold Landry is known to his friends, can communicate with most of them, including Helen Knifton.

"This is a letter from H. in prison sent on the eighth of September 2010," she told "48 Hours Mystery" before reading the letter: "I am truly settled in-keep so busy doing so many things."

H. left the majesty of his country house for Her Majesty's prison system. He had confessed. He stabbed his wife, Lucy, to death.

"All I ever did was love her. Still do."

His correspondence from behind bars reads like love letters to the woman he killed.

"All I ever did was give her everything she asked for. For 10 years, she never ever worried about anything."

Knifton is used to communicating with H. in writing from her home in the English countryside. They met online before H. met Lucy. The virtual world made it possible for her to befriend someone from a very different world.

"His handle was Cajun H," she said.

"H. grew up in a small town on the bayou called Berwick, La., with a dozen brothers and sisters," Pat Fanning, a lawyer and H.'s friend in New Orleans, explained. "He managed to pull himself from that meager existence that he lived there and made millions in the oil field."

Landry made his fortune designing cranes for offshore oil platforms and was a well-known employer around Covington, La.

"When it came to business, he was a very tough guy, but he was never that way with his family," according to Fanning. "He had been divorced a couple of times, but he took care of his kids and made sure they were educated and had everything they needed."

By 1999, he was healthy, wealthy and lonely. And that's when he went looking for love in that thoroughly modern way -- online.

"Call me old fashioned," Fanning told correspondent Richard Schlesinger, "but I don't find that a particularly romantic way to find a bride."

But H. Landry found the woman for him. Lucy Davies, whose online name was "Misery," was a music student who lived in England with her 4-year-old son.

H. was 53; Lucy was 28.

Wanda and Ernie Richardson are two of H.'s closest friends.

"At first I was a little bit negative about it," said Ernie.

"What are you doing? Wanda said. "Look at the age difference!"

"But I know H. loves to be around lively, beautiful things and Lucy was certainly that," added Ernie.

"There was something about her that was kind of like, what you see is what you get," Wanda said. "I liked her a lot."

And the Richardson's enjoyed seeing H. so happy with Lucy.

Wanda said, "He doted on her, oh my, gosh, did he."

"Lucy was being pampered and she was enjoying it," said Ernie.

"She enjoyed beautiful clothes, beautiful jewelry," said Wanda.

And H. was willing to buy whatever Lucy wanted.

"If you want to get the hoochie you got to buy the Gucci and he knows that," said Fanning.

More "bayou wisdom" from Pat Fanning
Psycho Jo, with Curtis Coubello, performs "The Big Mamou"

Some of H.'s friends soon began wondering if Lucy enjoyed the clothes and the jewelry more than she enjoyed H.

"H. at one point showed me a diamond ring that he bought for Lucy that he wanted to give to her as an engagement ring," Fanning said. "Lucy wanted the diamond but she didn't want H as part of the deal. ...He wasn't exactly a hunk a hunk of burning love-looking kind of a guy."

Fanning describes the romance, such as it was, as a little more like a business deal.

"The love affair between H. and Lucy was that Lucy loved H.'s money and H. loved Lucy's appearance," he said.

It may not have been for love or money, but H. and Lucy did get married shortly after Lucy got pregnant. And Harold Landry, Bayou born and bred, tried to become an English country gentleman.

"He'd say, 'Well, let's go get the lift,' and I'd say, 'Why don't you take the elevator, dummy," said Fanning.

"I'd go, 'Come on H., you're from south Louisiana. Quit it," Wanda said with a laugh. "But he just dove right into it."

Landry bought a big house in the country for his new bride and settled into his new life as a retiree and as a new father, when his daughter was born.

"He was a very proud papa, no doubt about it," said Ernie.

"What did he tell you about her?" Schlesinger asked.

"Oh, just everything about her, every minor detail," Wanda replied.

"H. is a happy guy," Fanning said. "H. has got his young girl. He got what he wanted."

But both H. and Lucy might have gotten more than they could handle. There were signs, after a few years, that the marriage had become a volatile mixture of anger and alcohol.

The couple had known each other for 10 years when Lucy finally asked for the divorce.

Asked how Landry was during that period, Wanda Richardson told Schlesinger H. was "in a terrible state."

"The most important thing to him wants to leave him and he didn't understand and he didn't know what to do," added Ernie.

Of course, H. had already been married twice and divorced twice. This time, things would be very different.

British police officer Steve Elcocks was one of the first officials on the scene.

"And I'd certainly never been to anything like it before," he explained. "The paramedics were working on Lucy. ...There was a great deal of blood."

Lucy had been stabbed more than 20 times.

"She had a very, very large gash to her left cheek. She also had a very large butcher's knife that was still in her," the officer said.

Officer Elcocks had his hands full.

"One of the first priorities was to find out if those children were safe," he said.

Police found the children, ages 7 and 14, in the backyard. They did not know their mother lay dying in the front.

H. had fled, leaving the children alone at the bloody crime scene. Police immediately began searching for Landry along dark, deserted country roads.

And that's where Sgt. Ian Booth found him.

"It was just before midnight," Sgt. Booth said. "Slammed on the breaks and I knew it was him straight away."

Sergeant Booth arrested Landry and charged him with murder.

"Mr. Landry was completely compliant," he said. "There's nothing in his demeanor to suggest he'd just done something."

Landry didn't try to deny it. He told police what he had done.

H.'s friends couldn't believe it, but Pat Fanning knew firsthand about the other side of Harold Landry.

But Pat Fanning knew first-hand about the other side of Harold Landry.

"I knew H. as a guy who got crossways with a guy and shot him," he said.

Harold Landry's letters from prison to his friend, John Blakeman, are a curious mixture of routine news...

"21 July, 2010. Deb and John, Hi. I enrolled in open university this week. I am taking an advanced mathematics course to help fill my time...I keep very busy, time has gone in a flash."

...and a convict's peculiar point of view. They sometimes sound like someone else murdered Lucy.

"Lucy died, but I might as well have done so as well. It really stinks and very difficult for me. Send some pictures of emerald green water and open seas. Love, H."

Of course, chances are Landry will never again see emerald green water or open seas. He was front page news. But while the "American Millionaire Murderer" might be a big fish in England, his British neighbors didn't know that in his Louisiana hometown back in 1994, he was the one that got away.

Capt. Barney Tyrney of the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office was a patrol officer on Feb. 6, 1994, when he got a call about a shooting.

"When I first arrived, it looked like total chaos," Capt. Tyrney told "48 Hours Mystery" correspondent Richard Schlesinger. "I had a blood stained car. I had an individual laying inside a pool of blood."

The victim had been shot once in the neck with a .38, and this was not going to be a very tough case at all.

"Just as I got out of my car, I had an individual approach me," Tyrney said. "He was making a statement, 'I shot him, I shot him, I shot him. I'm the man you're looking for. I shot him, I shot him.'"

It was Harold Landry and he couldn't stop confessing.

"Did he say why he shot him?" Schlesinger asked.

"He was basically dating this man's wife. Obviously, anytime someone's datin' a female acquaintance of someone else there's always red flags that would be picked up there," he said.

The victim was Chris Price, the angry husband of Landry's girlfriend. He was very lucky -- he was shot right in front of a hospital and survived.

"I ran into the hospital. I was hysterically crying and they said, 'What happened, what's going on?' and I was like, 'There's a man and he's been shot,'" said Kristin Harton.

Harton was just 15 at the time. Her life has changed a lot since then. She's now a Muslim, living in Jordan.

"Did this event have anything to do with the changes you made in your life?" Schlesinger asked.

"I'm sure it did. I try not to think about it too much," she replied.

In 1994, Harton was a babysitter and Landry was giving her a ride home that afternoon after a "date" with Price's wife.

"You pulled out of the apartment house where you were babysitting...and drove down this street," said Schlesinger.

"Yes," Harton replied. "And drove down this street."

"48 Hours" brought Harton back to Louisiana so she could describe that wild ride home with Harold Landry.

"He kept looking in the rearview mirror. He said, 'Oh, somebody's following us," she explained. "And I saw a car following us backwards -- driving in reverse."

Chris Price was driving the other car.

"When we got to the traffic light, Chris Price's car pulled up alongside of us," Harton continued. "Chris got out of the car and he was screaming. ...And Mr. Landry just grabbed the gun out and he held it out the window. ...And Mr. Landry said, ' I'm gonna shoot you,' and he said, 'Go ahead and shoot me,' and then he did.

"Chris Price had fallen backwards onto his car and I saw his hands on his face and there was blood," Harton continued. "And then I jumped out of the car and I said, 'I can't believe you shot him!'"

Landry seemed to take it all in stride.

"He didn't try to run away? He didn't try and say, 'Stay away from me?'" Schlesinger asked.

"No," Harton replied. "I guess he knew what he did so he just kind of hung around and waited for his fate, I guess."

Landry was arrested for attempted murder... it was hardly a surprise.

"So, let me get this straight. This was done in broad daylight?" Schlesinger asked Pat Fanning, who was Landry's lawyer.

"Yes," he replied.

"In front of a hospital?"

"Yes."

"In front of witnesses?

"Yes."

"Who saw him with a gun in the hand -- in his hand?"

"Yes. The-- the defense was self-defense," said Fanning

Pat Fanning got to like H. so much, they became good friends. But at the time, Fanning had a lot of work to do. He had to convince a jury that H. was right to be afraid of Chris Price, even though H. was the man pointing the gun at Price.

"We had to sell to the jury that Chris Price was young enough and strong enough compared to H. that he could have overpowered H. and taken the gun away," Fanning explained. "He was Muhammad Ali by the time we got finished with him [laughs]."

It was, to say the least, a creative defense.

"There was nothing to indicate that Chris Price was all that close to your client," Schlesinger noted.

"Yeah. And I had a bigger obstacle than that.... I also had H.," Fanning said. "H. was not a guy you could put on the stand to defend himself. H. was an angry guy, not a sympathetic guy."

"Did he want to go on?"

"Not after I got finished talking to him."

"How did you talk him out of it?"

"'You'd be just an idiot to get up there and do this,'" said Fanning.

Landry was smart enough to listen to his lawyer and was found guilty of a much lesser charge: aggravated battery.

"After the verdict, he fired me," said Fanning.

Schlesinger asked, "Was he not happy with the verdict?"

"No. He thought he should have been acquitted," Fanning replied. "He thought he should have been not guilty. He thought he was 100 percent right. Thought this was a no-brainer, thought this was a travesty of justice."

He could have gotten 5 years in prison, but Landry decided to appeal. In the end, all he got was probation, a $500 fine and some community service for shooting a man in front of witnesses.

"Boy, this guy, H., he doesn't quit, man," Fanning said with a laugh. "I mean, he's -- he's relentless in getting his, you know, the outcome that he's seeking."

At the time it all looked a little suspicious, because one of the judges involved in Landry's case got a substantial campaign contribution in the name of a member of Landry's family.

"I think Harold Landry may use a different set of standards than we would about what's appropriate and what's not," said Fanning.

Within about 8 years, Harold Landry had begun a new life with a new wife and a new country. Landry says Lucy knew all about his past and married him anyway.

But neither of them could know that Landry's history would come back to haunt him.

When Richard Vernalls, a reporter for The Worcester News in the British midlands, got that call that someone had died on Feb. 1, 2010, he knew this story was going to be big.

"Whenever we get a fatal we'll always go out to the scene," he told Richard Schlesinger.

The fatality was in the middle of a neighborhood with very rich residents and a very rich history.

"Former company executives... The great and the good," Vernalls explained. "It used to be like a Catholic seminary, for training priests."

But it wasn't just what happened or where it happened that made this crime so unusual.

"The question, the key question is always the why of it. Why would you do that?" Vernalls said. "So you have to find out the back story, you have to find out about the character of that person."

"I got a call from a reporter from England... Asking me if I was the guy who had represented Harold Landry in the past," said Pat Fanning.

Fanning was the right guy to call. Of course, he wasn't just Landry's lawyer. He was also his friend, despite the shooting.

"And you'd still hang out with him? Schlesinger asked Fanning.

"Sure, why not?" he replied. "He didn't kill any friends of mine."

They even had vacation homes in the same condo in Mexico. And it was there that Fanning met Landry's new bride, Lucy, in 2002.

"That was sort of an eye opener," said Fanning.

Fanning quickly noticed the somewhat odd nature of H. and Lucy's relationship. When they came to Mexico, the newlyweds were not alone.

"He came with the new bride, her son, the baby daddy and himself on vacation together," he explained. "She seemed more interested in spending time with the son's daddy than she did with H. And so I was like, this is just kind of weird."

But there they all were -- including the ex-lover, living it up and Landry was paying for everything.

"This did not seem to you to be the ideal marriage? Schlesinger asked Fanning.

"I usually don't bring my wife's old boyfriends on vacation with us," he replied.

H. didn't seem to mind. And in fact, things went pretty well for Mr. and Mrs. Landry, at least at first.

They lived in that house not far from the village of Pershore, where time is marked by the bells of a medieval abbey.

But time had started running out on the marriage just seven years after it began. Landry's friend, John Blakeman, visited only months before Lucy was killed.

"They were arguing at night," he recalled. "...as they began drinking, and the day wore on, they just -- began clashing."

But, over time, it wasn't just clashing that hurt the marriage; it was also cheating. Lucy took a new lover.

Landry's friend, Wanda Richardson, says it was hardly a secret.

"I'm sure she knew I knew," Richardson said. "A big part of this breakup was this other man."

Landry confided in his friend, Helen Knifton.

"He was very, very upset about it," she said. "He felt he failed in many ways."

"He began to feel somewhat out of control," Richardson said. "He said, 'We just won't ever be the same. ...She had someone else and that's the way it was going to be."

His name: Gareth Jenkins. Lucy knew him from high school and they reconnected on Facebook. But before long, H. began to suspect that their relationship went well beyond an innocent online poke.

"He would go to bed and Lucy would stay up hours past him online. He said, 'You know? I should've seen it. I should've seen something was going on,'" Richardson said. "He was in a bad place."

Landry decided to leave England for awhile and go to his place in Mexico to let things cool off. It might not have been the best move.

"He didn't know that she was going to move the boyfriend into the big house," said Fanning.

Harold Landry was furious, but his friend, John Blakeman, says H. still tried to save the marriage.

"He would have done anything and everything, including forgiving what is hard to forgive -- to keep the marriage together," he explained.

Lucy had made up her mind... she wanted out.

"He was crying, he was upset," said Richardson.

His friends say Landry was devastated, but it turned out that once Lucy took a boyfriend, H. found a girlfriend. Pat Fanning thought Landry was prepared for what would come next.

"He said, 'You know, I got a grip on this. I'm gonna go back and we're gonna get a divorce. She's not living in the expensive house we're in now ... She's gonna downgrade to something that is acceptable, but not the style we're in now,'" said Fanning.

Landry headed back to England in the fall of 2009. The marriage was effectively over and the fighting over the terms of the divorce was just beginning.

"He seemed to be encountering some difficulty with her with that notion that she was gonna [laughs] have to step down. I think she thought she was gonna get the house and the cars and everything and he was just gonna leave. And she was gonna keep the baby and all of his things," said Fanning.

Lucy, though, was preparing for the possibility of leaving with her children.

And if Lucy ever loved H., even after everything she knew, by February 2010, she felt very differently. And the divorce got even uglier. Lucy and H. kept arguing over money. She demanded he pay for an apartment for her and Landry agreed.

"She took the money that he gave her for an apartment and hired the best divorce lawyer she could get. And she played him," said Fanning.

It all came to a head on Feb. 1, 2010. That's when Lucy posted that last note on her Facebook page: "I've never hated someone as much as I hate someone now."

Lucy was talking about H. And less than an hour after she wrote those words, Lucy and Harold Landry had their final fight... with the children in the house.

And now, charged with Lucy's murder, Harold Landry is about to face a British jury at trial.

Wolverhampton, England has seen plenty of dank and cloudy days. But the Crown Court in town has never seen a case quite like this one.

Harold Landry has always said he has a story to tell, and this is it. He says he was provoked by an angry Lucy; that he had no choice but to kill her.

"The level of provocation was such, that the normal guy walking down the street may well have reacted in the same fashion," according to Andy Childs, one of Landry's lawyers.

Landry has insisted he was provoked since day one. Outside of court hearings, he had not spoken publicly about his case before. And the only way to interview him was by long-distance phone call from behind bars in England, where he's being held.

"Was Lucy a violent woman?" Schlesinger asked Landry.

"Absolutely," he replied. "When she got mad she went to punchin' and -- [laughs] and slappin' and kickin' and bitin'. That was her M.O."

"Had she injured you before?"

"Yes, she had," Landry said.

Landry told that story to Pat Fanning, who got him out of that tight spot in Louisiana, back in 1994.

"He's told me...his wife attacked him. And he was responding to her attack when he killed her," said Fanning.

It's a story that's hard to believe, both lawyers agree, in their own way.

"It's the violence of the act which would make it hard for the jury to be won 'round with that argument," said Childs.

"In my business, you know, they say, you can't make chicken salad out of chicken you know what," Fanning said. "It would be a tough sell."

It might get a little easier. On the eve of trial, Landry's team scores a big win.

The prosecution is pushing for permission to tell the jury about H. shooting Chris Price.

But the judge sides with the defense. So the jury will never know about Landry's violent past. It lifts one great burden from the defense... but just one.

There will still be powerful testimony.

Landry and Lucy had been arguing for months over who would get what in their increasingly acrimonious divorce.

Landry's lawyers argue in court that the final fight on the evening of Feb. 1, 2010 -- that began over furniture Lucy wanted when she moved out -- was the latest and last example of Lucy goading Landry with never-ending financial demands and threats.

"I think what happened to Lucy is, yeah, I think at the last bit of it she turned into a pure gold digger because all of the fights were over the money," Landry told Schlesinger.

"And then there was the flash point that evening," Childs explained. "And that's -- that's what set him off."

"It wasn't just -- an instantaneous thing, I just all of a sudden got pissed off," Landry continued. "I had been pushed and pushed and pushed by my wife for six months. And I had been humiliated nonstop."

He says Lucy called him a sexual pervert and flaunted her affair with Gareth Jenkins.

"And you know there's some point you -- that you just -- just had enough. And I reached that point where I just had enough," said Landry.

Landry and Lucy were arguing all over the house. They wrestled for control of Lucy's cell phone, containing her private text messages, in her bedroom.

It was in their kitchen where things went from bad to worse. Landry says he came downstairs to get away from Lucy, but she chased after him screaming, "I hate you" and cursing at him. And then things started happening very quickly.

The jury was given Landry's statement to police that added frightening details. He said Lucy shoved him in the kitchen.

"And I caught myself on the baker's rack," Landry told Schlesinger. "And I, pullin' myself up, grabbed the first thing right next to my hand, which was -- a granite rolling pin... I grabbed the thing, and I just flung it...and I hit her in the head with it. ...She screamed. She grabbed her head. And she took off runnin'."

She ran outside, into the darkness of night. Landry was chasing down Lucy, who was desperately trying to escape to the safety of a neighbor's house.

The neighbor heard Lucy's screams coming from outside the house. He raced out to help, but it was too late.

Landry had caught Lucy and stabbed her repeatedly. She collapsed and died in the road.

"I accept the fact that I -- I've murdered my wife. I accept the fact I killed my wife," said Landry.

And now in court, Harold Landry has to somehow convince the jury he's guilty of manslaughter -- not murder -- because Lucy provoked him. For this self-made millionaire, taking the stand is the sales job of a lifetime.

"H. is not a good communicator in terms of presenting his case and arguin' his case," Fanning said with a laugh. "And -- and I think he would n-- not come across well."

Landry testifies the day before his 65th birthday.

Asked if he was nervous, Landry told Schlesinger, "Not at all. Not a bit."

Hear more of Landry and Schlesinger's conversation

"Landry, since day one, has been fairly blank-faced, fairly calm and collected," reporter Richard Vernalls observed. Today, the reporter has a very different story to write about Landry.

"He cried three or four times in the stand," Vernalls said. "He said he loved his wife on at least three occasions. Did he express remorse? Did he say he was sorry for the attack?

Did he say, 'I wish I hadn't done it?' He never said that."

But Landry did say on the stand that things escalated when Lucy picked up the knife first.

"Yeah. She grabbed the knife off the kitchen counter," he explained. "I was very upset.

What I was wantin' to do is what the hell was she doin'? What was her intention with the knife?"

Landry's lawyer says once Lucy got the knife, everything changed.

"Well, it clearly raised it to a different level," Childs said. "This was a woman who had gone halfway to saying, 'I hate you so much -- I could kill you with this knife.'"

On the stand, Landry says he can't remember key details of the attack.

"Do you remember stabbing her?" asked Schlesinger.

"I don't remember any penetration at all. None whatsoever," Landry replied.

But animation presented by the prosecution shows the extraordinary level of violence, detailing more than 20 knife wounds.

And the UK jury will have to decide whether Landry is guilty of murder as charged or manslaughter with his defense of provocation.

Far, far away from his old stomping grounds in the bayou, where Harold Landry once wriggled and wiggled and danced his way out of an attempted murder charge, he now has to face the music in far less colorful place: Wolverhampton, England, where he is awaiting the verdict in his trial for murdering his wife.

Any American watching a trial in Britain will recognize a lot of the procedures, but it still feels very different; it's all so civil. There was not one objection from either side in the Landry case. The result: a very tidy trial that lasted just 8 days and the jury was out just 3 hours and 52 minutes.

It didn't take long for word of the jury's verdict to reach the quiet streets of Pershore, the closest town to Landry's house.

British radio report: A 65-year-old American millionaire has been convicted of murder after the death of his wife at their home...last February.

Harold Landry was found guilty of murder for stabbing his wife, Lucy, more than 20 times.

Landry blames the verdict on his lawyers, whom he says were unprepared.

Asked if he was surprised about the verdict, Landry told Richard Schlesinger, "No, I wasn't. Because it was a pathetic defense that we had."

"Well, by pathetic you don't mean not true, or do you?"

"Well, no, no, no. It was an ill-prepared defense," Landry replied.

Pat Fanning, who was once fired by H. Landry, has a great deal of sympathy for his British lawyer, Andy Childs.

"I think it would've been impossible for almost anybody to -- to win that case for H," Fanning said. "And so he probably did the best he could with what he had and with H. as a client. 'Cause you got a little client control problem there."

But Andy Childs always knew the defense -- that Lucy provoked H. -- was a long shot.

"I guess if you stab another human being...there must be some -- feeling that it's...beyond a simple act of provocation," he said.

By American standards, this case raced through the system -- just over a year from crime to conviction. But for Lucy's family, it's been an eternity. They are too overwhelmed to speak, so outside court her father looks on as a policewoman reads the family's statement:

"We are relieved with the verdict today. It has been an extremely traumatic year for everyone but finally, justice has been done for Lucy," the policewoman read. "Our lives will never be the same."

Of course, neither will H. Landry's. Just one day after his conviction, Landry learns his sentence. But first, the judge reads a blistering statement.

He calls the stabbing "unspeakable and unforgivable." He says Landry "dreamed up" that story that Lucy grabbed the kitchen knife first. And he forcefully dismisses what he calls Landry's "crocodile tears" on the stand.

"Knowing H. as I do, I'm sure it was water off his back," Pat Fanning remarked with a sigh. "I think he could care less about what that judge said about him."

Even though that judge then sentenced Landry to a minimum of 16 years and a maximum of life.

"I'm expectin' to die here. I'm resigned to it. And it's not the end of my life, Richard," Landry told Schlesinger. "For God's sake man, this is-- this is just a different life."

Landry has had a lot of time to think about his life and hopes people will remember the good parts.

"I have done a lot of good things, beneficial things -- donating my time and -- to various causes unselfishly," he said. "And -- no one remembers that. All they remember is that I murdered my wife."

"Well, it is kind of hard to get past the fact of, you know, that you stabbed your wife all those times," Schlesinger remarked. "I mean, pardon me, but it is kind of hard to see past that, isn't it?"

"Well, I don't expect you to see past about it," he replied. "I don't expect you to see that I'm not a murderer."

Looking back, Landry says he's sorry for what happened. But, surprisingly, he says if faced with the same situation, he'd do the same thing again.

"I think I would have reacted the same way. Yes, I would," he said.

Landry knows he's hurt his family -- especially the young daughter he had with Lucy, who is now living with a foster family.

Even now that he's a convicted murderer, Landry still has his friends whom he writes to whenever he can. Many of them, like Helen Knifton, are torn by what they now know.

"I think some people might wonder how you can consider him a friend if he's done this," Schlesinger remarked with a sigh.

"True friends stick by each other through thick and thin. And that's what I intend to do," Knifton explained. "I can't condone what he's done. But he's still that human being that I knew."

But Landry is still as blunt and plain-spoken and self-confident as the most 'ragin of all Cajuns. Take this final, remarkable claim from a self-made widower.

"Do you still think of Lucy?" Schlesinger asked.

"I love her, I love her to death," Landry replied.

If he's lucky, Landry could get out of prison in his early 80s. And nobody would be shocked if he walked free again around the countryside of Great Britain... or the bayous of Louisiana.

"H. Landry is a very competitive guy," Fanning said. "He's a fighter and he will fight to the end. It would not surprise me if we have not heard the last of H. Landry."

Landry is planning to appeal both his murder conviction and sentence, a process which may take years.

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