Women Behind Bars - Season 2, Episode 7 - Jessica and Shannon - Full Episode | Forensic Files

on this episode of women behind bars one woman is convicted in the murder of her adoptive grandmother
jessica was one that suggested that putting a bag over her head to kill joyce i was aware of what was going on but it
was like i had no control over like i was scared to do anything say anything then shannon bourard is found guilty of
killing an innocent bystander at a neighborhood dice game she had something to prove to somebody that
they just wasn't gonna win and that's what she did she retaliate her daughter looked up at her shook her
head and exhaled her last breath and died leaving little two-year-old baby charles
motherless two women two brutal crimes these are the stories of jessica gentry and shannon bouard
[Music] [Music] on february 12 1999 a construction company discovered the body of a woman
floating in a creek bed below a bridge just into the water was a partially submerged body
we didn't have any indication who she would be the jane doe was later identified as 57-year-old carolyn joyce
thomas the investigation led to the victim's granddaughter 21 year old jessica gentry
and her friends sean barclay and drew alexander shawn and drew put a a bag over her head and suffocated her
jessica was their access into joyce's home so the killing could be accomplished her
obsession with sean barkley is what drove her involvement all i wanted was him i never wanted her
to die was jessica gentry the mastermind in a plot to murder her grandmother or was she unable to stop her boyfriend
from committing the crime [Music] i was born at parkland memorial hospital my early years
i spent roaming around my parents were nomads never had a stable place her father he's an alcoholic and did
drugs and couldn't ever hold a job down and her mother she couldn't stay off the booze when jessica
was three her birth mother had jessica's brother jason and justin joined the family three
years later at six years old jessica found herself in what she says was an unstable
parental environment taking care of her young siblings my main concern was my brothers i did everything to look
out for them at one time they were living in the back of their car out the lake jessica claims her early childhood was
also colored by abuse from her biological father he was real abusive towards my mom he
was abusive towards me physical abuse sexual abuse in 1983 when jessica was seven years old
her biological parents realized they were unable to support their children her father told us that he couldn't take
care of him anymore so we went over and picked him up sandy and her husband royce gentry jessica's
biological uncle who had no children of their own adopted both jessica and jason another
aunt took jessica's baby brother justin for the seven-year-old girl the ordeal was emotionally damaging
i felt abandoned and i grew up feeling like i was trash and that's just the way i felt growing
up all my life with new parents jessica finally got to have a childhood i didn't have to worry about where i was
going to sleep where my next meal was going to come from but in school the young girls
insecurities continued to mount from the very beginning i was always the outcast
she struggled in school jessica was a follower if you told her go jump off the side of
the cliff she probably would just to have a friend when jessica was 14 years old her
adoptive parents royce and sandy divorced jessica chose to stay with royce but she
quickly started to rebel i was skipping class i had started falling in with the wrong kids and i
started drinking and smoking cigarettes jessica also struggled with her weight which made her feel even lonelier during
her high school years jessica was a heavyset girl but she was a very pretty girl
but she didn't feel that way being overweight is like you would do anything to be accepted um
sleeping with the boys just it didn't matter whoever just whatever they wanted jessie used
sex to get boys to like her jessie had jessie didn't feel like anybody could like her she just had no
self-esteem whatsoever at age 16 jessica moved in with sandy and her new husband
during the week she stayed in alvarado with sandy's mother carolyn joyce thomas known as joyce so
that she could attend a better school it was really freedom to me because my grandmother didn't didn't
hold a fist over me but jessica returned to sandy's house every weekend where they eventually
realized that the arrangement was not working out they seemed that i was getting out of
control i started smoking marijuana and getting into the heavier drugs and so they brought me back bought a new house
put me in a different school district sandy and her husband enrolled jessica in her third high
school which was in arlington in 1997 she finally earned her diploma i had repeated grades six and nine and i
was 20 16 to be 21 when i graduated fresh out of high school jessica was more interested in partying than going
to work and she had a job and we couldn't figure out why she wasn't going to work
i found reasons to call in go hang out with my friends and sneak out at night and just
i went crazy jessica would either get fired because of her drug use or she just preferred to mooch off of
others instead of supporting herself at that job they did random drug tests and when i knew the drug test was coming
up i just stopped going to work well they called and that's how she found out i said jessica what are you doing and
she says i'm smoking pot and i said when are you smoking this pot i have some in my bedroom right now
she was hurt and my stepfather couldn't take me abusing my mom like that and he just put me out
with nothing jessica was concerned about one person and that was herself and even when people would try to help
her she would take advantage of people even those that loved her on her own jessica worked odd jobs and
got an apartment with friends but everything changed when she met sean barclay i don't believe in love at first sight
but that's what it felt like i knew that he was going to change my life i didn't know it was going to be
like this but i knew that somehow we were going to be connected forever for the rest of our lives
when jesse met him he was just bouncing around he had been to the penitentiary before for a burglary of a habitation
he didn't work he generally just lived off other people he had a girlfriend but he started
living with me we became inseparable according to her she loved him a whole lot more than he
loved her but i think that both sean and jessica were using each other in the meantime jessica could no longer
pay rent so she turned to her grandmother for help i had called him and asked her if
i'd come stay with her and she let me come with the promise that i was going to get a job and help
her pay her bills when women behind bars continues jessica helped in the the planning of the
killing they wanted to find out what it was like to kill a person i said just just dump her right here
in 1998 21 year old jessica gentry was unable to hold down a job due to drug use she appealed to her
adoptive grandmother carolyn joyce thomas to take her in she spoiled us she would spend lots of
money on clothes and shoes and food she was loving but i never felt like i was her
granddaughter i always felt like my cousins who were her biological blood were who she cared for most
mom did say something to jessica several times about jessica you need to get out
and find a job but she never did then jessica began taking advantage of joyce's hospitality
when she would go to sleep i would take her keys and go and see shawn one night while jessica was on the phone
with sean and their friend eighteen-year-old drew alexander shawn made a comment about her grandmother
shawn wanted me to come over and i told him that my grandmother was still awake he was
like well put her to bed i didn't take it as anything it was just boys talking but the topic
resurfaced several days later they were talking about ways to kill somebody and everybody was participating things
that we had seen in the movies they read in books somehow they began talking about
how they could go about killing miss thomas jessica was one that suggested that putting a bag over her head to kill
joyce gentry says the subject did not come up again until two weeks later on february 11 1999 jessica had an
argument with her grandmother when she was caught sneaking shawn into the house she was telling me that she
wanted him out the house and i kept promising he'll be gone he'll be gone well he never left sean hung out with
jessica that day while her grandmother was at work he just stood up and said i'm gonna kill
her and i was like what jessica maintains she still didn't take sean seriously later that night when joyce came home
from work jessica's boyfriend made a declaration sean barkley said tonight is the night
or has to be done now or something along those lines according to jessica sean had made up his
mind to kill her grandmother all i know is that shawn kept talking about the car
the car was a sense of freedom i can't say that that's why he killed her and at the time that's all
he talked about jessica says she felt powerless and could not oppose her boyfriend
she was afraid jessie is the type of person she's not going to argue she also was
madly in love with sean barkley and sean barkley and her grandmother did not get along
i wanted sean to come live with me to be closer i didn't like the fact that he was all
the way out in fort worth but according to the prosecution it was jessica who pressured sean into killing
her grandmother all along the motive in this case was to simply get her car i think that
jessica knew that her grandmother was getting ready to kick her out and she wanted to use her grandmother's
property and when jessica said that she wanted to know what it was like to kill someone i think that that was a large
part of the motive [Music] sean had tried to sneak up on miss thomas and was not successful
and sean was angry with himself for not being able to just attack this woman and kill her so
miss thomas lies down on the couch and goes to sleep and shawn recruited jessie to kill her grandmother
and she says i'm not helping you jessica claims she called their friend drew alexander to help her calm sean
down shawn ended up taking my grandmother's keys and going to pick drew up and by the time
they got back it was like shawn had convinced drew that this is what they were going to do
but the prosecution contended that it was jessica who had enlisted drew to participate in the murder of her
grandmother all three of them wanted to find out what it was like to kill a person
and jessica knew that shawn was going to kill her grandmother and actually when shawn said that
he couldn't do it himself she called drew to recruit him to come over and help they put a either a pillow or a garbage
bag over her nose precluding her from breathing that was shawn barkley that did that
drew was holding her feet down and then after they thought she was dead they put a cigarette out on her leg to
try to make sure that she was dead jessie says that she was in her bedroom she put a pillow over her ears to try
not to hear it was like an out of body experience was like i had no control like i was scared to do anything
say anything but jessica was perfectly in control according to the prosecution she heard
her grandmother screaming and the dogs started barking so jessica got up and put the dogs in another room
so that they'd quiet down there was virtually no credible evidence that jessica was
acting under duress or under the domination or intimidation of these two guys gentry claims that once joyce had died
she peeked out the door into the darkened living room i saw just like a lump on the couch
and i saw sean standing over the lump and drew sitting on it and i knew it was my
grandmother i immediately closed the door and just laid on my bed and cried according to jessica she remained in her
bedroom until the boys came to get her shawn told me to go out and just wait in the car they wrapped her in garbage bags
and put her in the trunk of the toyota and the three of them drove around looking for a location to dump the body
i was scared and i was throwing up they eventually ended up on a farm to market road in the southwestern portion
of tarrant county i panicked and i said just just dump it right here you know just
let's get rid of the body drew and sean took joyce's body out of the trunk and literally
tossed it over the side of the bridge to the creek bed below while jessica was acting more or less as
a lookout after they disposed of the body they went back to miss thomas's residence
drew alexander made a comment that you don't know my name i'm not here so he goes back to wherever he goes while
jessica and sean slept a construction crew 30 miles away made a grisly discovery
i received a dispatch call to go to a bridge area and just into the water was a partially
submerged body obviously it was a white female older lady the body was lying partially on on right
side but pretty much face up with the head toward the bridge and then the feet back
upstream here black trash bags were still around her feet and she had on just kind of pastel
print nightgown the body was originally a jane doe as the tarrant county sheriff's
department began their investigation on the unidentified woman sandy malone started to worry about her
mother mom was killed the day before my birthday of 1999 and mom didn't call me that day
i'm sorry i just thought that maybe she was working and that she didn't have time
i thought well she'll call me tomorrow she'd call me the next day either [Music]
when women behind bars continues i absolutely believe that jessica gentry was the mastermind of this
i told her if that means you spin the rest of your life in a 4x4 cell i hope you think about it every day
and later in this episode of women behind bars a dice game turns deadly that's all she kept saying my only
daughter why you killed my daughter on february 12 1999 jessica gentry hid in her bedroom while her boyfriend sean
barclay and their friend drew alexander smothered her grandmother 57 year old carolyn joyce thomas the
three friends then dumped the body over a bridge where it was soon found but not identified jessica and sean made
plans to leave town he said well we'll just take the stuff from your grandmother's house i'm upon
it he took vcrs and tv microwave and video cassettes shawn didn't have a picture id so that
left it up to me to pawn everything on february 13th jessica went to two pawn shops in the far western
side of fort worth and that netted them a sum of 180 dollars the last night that we were actually
here in texas sean told me that he andrew had been talking about what they would do to me
if i ever called the laws on them and i just i remember looking at sean i was like i
wouldn't do that it didn't dawn on me that my family was going to be in pain the only thing i couldn't fathom was
losing sean jessica continued following the boy's lead but she says her fear of sean was
mounting whatever sean barkley told her to do for whatever reason jesse was under the
power to do it barclay and gentry took joyce's car and drove to memphis tennessee
meanwhile jessica's mom sandy was growing more concerned about the whereabouts of her mother
i get a phone call from my brother asking me if i heard from mom he says her job's looking for her i
called the orange and police department to make a missing person report sandy met the officers at joyce's duplex in
arlington there was a little bit of blood in the in the apartment we found a letter written by jessica
laid on the dining room table and it states granny i'm sorry about the way i've been acting
then down at the bottom it says by the way tell mom i said happy birthday love jessica. and then there was a ps on
the note and it said i took a couple of pieces of your candy [Music] the day after the report was filed
police got a hit on the jane doe found several days earlier in tarrant county they were able to determine that the
body of the victim was that of carolyn joyce thomas police zeroed in on jessica gentry as
their number one suspect investigators tracked her down at a motel in memphis and they told jessica uh your
grandmother's missing do you know where she's at no they got to hold the memphis police they wouldn't
have found the vehicle it was mothers the detective obtained warrants for sean barkley and
jessica gentry for the murder of joyce he convinced me to come back by telling me that
at that point i wasn't a suspect my family needed my help i told him that i would be back i told
him the next day i'd go get a bus ticket and we'd be back when we drove into dallas
and we got to the terminal and i seen the detective standing there and i told sean they're here to get us
on february 17th five days after the murder jessica gentry and sean barclay were arrested at
a bus station in downtown dallas drew alexander was apprehended the next day she was charged with
capital murder which is a murder committed in the course of committing a robbery
jessica gave a lengthy statement to the arlington homicide detective as far as what had happened to my
grandmother there was points where i was just convincing myself well it didn't matter i still had sean i
contacted sandy and she hung up on me i said i don't want to talk to her we find out we just lost our mother and
the way we lost her and then we find out that we have a daughter involved in it she was obviously grieving for her
mother and she was grieving somewhat for jessica too because this was a child that she had
helped raise and she wanted jessica to come to justice whenever the district attorney's tells me
that we're going to trial and we're not going to go for the death penalty i was furious i couldn't understand why
i should give three people the chance to live the rest of their life in prison when they did not give my
mother that choice [Music] there's no question in my mind that jesse did not instigate this this was
sean barkley's idea he did it solely to get miss thomas's vehicle i absolutely believe that jessica gentry
was the mastermind of this that but for the actions of jessica gentry here and none of this would have
happened and joyce would still be alive they said that i was manipulative that i was
narcissistic i was 286 pounds i had no self-esteem my actions at the time were because i
just wanted acceptance it was our theory at trial that her fear as well as her obsession with sean
barkley is what drove her involvement in this offense the defense tried to say that
jessica went along with the murders because she was afraid of shawn and drew that
was contrived in jessica's mind only and we had in our possession some letters that really blew that defensive theory
right out of the water perhaps jessica in her own mind had had thoughts of marrying sean barkley
the letter was atrocious after they were arrested for the murder of joyce jessica wrote sean a letter
expressing her love for shawn and asking that they put this whole incident behind them
and she never once showed or stated any concern about what they had done to her grandmother
the contents of that letter really hurt her so too did her testimony gentry failed to
elicit any sympathy from the jury when she took the stand the jury did not care for jessica
this young lady came off really as a very cold individual that didn't appear to really give any second
thought to the murder of her grandmother i was living outside of myself for that
whole time that i was there on december 2nd 1999 after three days of testimony the jury delivered its verdict jessica
gentry was guilty of capital murder jessica was convicted as a party to the offense
and a party under texas law can be convicted and sentenced just as the principal can
i'm not saying that i'm innocent but as far as being guilty of taking her life [Music]
it's not my fault i paid the biggest price as far as my freedom gentry was sentenced to life in prison
at the conclusion of the trial sandy made a very um moving and heartfelt allocation
statement i told her that i forgave her but it doesn't mean it can have anything
to do with you what you did you have to pay for it so if that means you spend the rest of your life in a 4x4 cell
i hope you think about it every day gentry must spend 40 years in prison before she is eligible for parole
she is serving her sentence at a maximum security prison in gatesville texas jessica tries to stay positive i've been
working to get certified as a braille typist just trying to keep my mind occupied
where i won't just give up and die her family is still coping with their loss she took so much away from this family
mom has two granddaughters that don't have her around anymore i'm still angry but like i can forgive
her because i know that it's the right thing to do but i will never be able to forget what she's done
i don't even want to think about her just makes me so upset to this day i can't give my family closure
i can't answer their questions as to why it was selfish and it was needless and now i wish i could take it back
next up on women behind bars she had a gun down by her side she had something to prove to somebody
and that's what she did she retaliate for more information about women behind bars go to wetv.com
on a warm april afternoon in 1998 shots were fired into a courtyard where neighbors played cards and dice at an
apartment complex in south dallas a 19 year old girl shawana moss was struck in the chest
the bullet pierces her heart and she dies almost instantly the suspect of the shooting was 28 year
old shannon bouillard addicted to drugs shannon allegedly spun into a rage when she lost her crack
cocaine money in a craps game her intention was to injure the man running the table lester earl boyd
he was a person that miss bouillard had her dispute with he was shot in the lake
he survived their shooting shannon thought that because she just didn't mean to kill shawana that she that she shouldn't
be in trouble and wouldn't be maybe it was an accident but she was killed was the death of shawana moss an
accident or did shannon bouard shoot to kill [Music] shannon yvette bouillard grew up in the
tough oak cliff section of south dallas opportunity is not there there's not a lot of money flowing through oak cliff
and the kids in the neighborhood is doing whatever they can to survive shannon had a very rough childhood she
was a rebel in the family and she didn't like authority and she didn't have a father figure
reviewing shannon's case i would suspect maybe a mismanaged home in which she was allowed
too much freedom as a child shannon attended sarah zumwalt middle school but dropped out in the eighth
grade when she discovered she was pregnant on march 17 1983 the 13 year old gave
birth to a son antoine she had a child when she was very young and it did formulate her life because
she had to be a responsible parent and she was not two years later she had another son
dominique but instead of caring for her kids shannon used drugs to escape from the reality of her difficult
situation it was pretty tough on dominican's brother he said a lot of times they was at home
alone by themselves he said his mother was doing some drugs when they was kids shannon had the bad bad end of the
stick as far as raising the kids and and not being there as a mother for me not a good example leaving them walking
out on them quite possibly she used to self-heal or medicate some of the traumas that had
happened in her life crack cocaine was shannon's drug of choice and the addiction was fierce
it quickly consumed her life the crack cocaine seemingly makes everything else go away
drugs are more important to an addict than their their children their parents their siblings anything
she was not emotionally capable of being a stay-at-home mom in 1987 shannon was arrested on theft
charges soon after her young sons were taken away and placed in foster care she wanted to be a mom but she got into
the drugs and it just changed her life those children had to be taken away that her life was changed forever
shannon's drug use intensified when she turned to prostitution as a means of supporting
her habit it's very very easy to exchange sex for drugs they don't have to hustle money they
don't have to hold a job there's someone out there always pulling these young girls in
it's a very rough neighborhood tough lots of drugs prostitution criminal activity
i don't know how anyone makes it over there but people have to live that away because they have no other avenues out
she probably used the prostitution to support the drug habit and the drug habit in turn
fueled the need to be a prostitute just an endless cycle once you become a prostitute there's no
going back from that because of the shame bourard also continued to have run-ins
with the law majority of her arrests were for they were mainly for narcotics for
prostitution and for theft offenses and she had quite a few arrests in all of those categories meanwhile
shannon's sons were adopted by their foster family the littletons her youngest dominique was poised to
head down a similar path of drugs and crime until greg hatley intervened hatley had
started the oak cliff boxing club a gym for kids in the community i started training and picking up little
guys you know around the corner and dominic was one of them every day would pick him up and uh
bring him to the gym and train him boxing really was like another life to him for him you know it's like something he
looked forward to every day he was definitely full of talent and he was just looking for something to get
some of that anger out on as dominique littleton honed his boxing skills his mother shannon bouillard was living
just five miles away at the general rental apartments the complex was a low-rent housing area on
diceman avenue and birdsong drive in oak cliff it was a very crime ridden apartment complex
in a crime-ridden area of dallas two of shannon's neighbors were katima moss and her 19-year-old daughter
shawana katima was a hard-working woman she supported her daughter shawana shewana had just graduated she had just
got a job and she was trying to raise her son that she had just had being people
without opportunity they had to live in places that they could afford and unfortunately
this was one [Music] katima and shawana started a card game in the courtyard as a way of socializing
other tenants joined them playing games and hanging out these apartments on diceman had a large
courtyard and katima and shawana and two other friends were playing cards and they're just
enjoying the day about two or three tables out there and they was all sitting there playing cards
and dominoes and they was gambling shannon was upstairs in her apartment smoking crack with a friend
when they ran out of drugs she left with her last five dollars to score more crack
she decided to try her luck at the craps table manned by lester earl boyd shanick makes her first bet two dollars
which she loses the next bet she makes is for the final three dollars but during this throw she
rolled up what's called a cocked die one of the dye didn't land fully on the ground
so her contention was that she was entitled to an extra roll of the dice lester said no that's not the case you lost and
took her money shannon bourne didn't think that was fair she was just furious about this
according to witnesses shannon became enraged and screamed profanities at boyd there's statements that shannon picked
up brick threatened lester with it lester in turn goes to his car gets a gun when she sticks in his waistband
she had a mean streak in her the attitude that she had with everybody you know is like she had
something to prove she was ready to fight just if you made her mad crack cocaine tends to elevate any
emotion that you have if you're angry it tends to send you in a tailspin of rage
in shannon's case she was angry obviously that she had lost her three dollars that
was her crack cocaine money and from her point of view i mean her life had just ended
i heard two people arguing and i looked up out the window shannon walked up the driveway like she
was going home instead bouiard went to a friend's apartment to borrow a weapon i heard her coming back and she had a
gun down by her side she was saying to herself they got me uh messed up and it just ain't gonna be like this she
had something to prove to somebody and that's what she did she retaliate when women behind bars continues she
lifted the gun and said all y'all big and small and just opened fire [Music] by 1998 28 year old shannon burt had
spent time in jail for prostitution theft and drugs had her kids taken away and struggled with an addiction to crack
cocaine on april 18th a dispute over three dollars lost in a dice game pushed shannon over the edge
after engaging in a verbal altercation burrard retreated to a neighbor's apartment to get a gun
the weapon is an sks 7.62 it's a assault rifle it's meant to cause as much damage to a person's body
as it possibly can everyone was sitting around the card table she was peeking around the corner and
they saw her doing that and they were laughing at her when she rounded the corner she lifted the gun
she stepped back on her right leg throw the gun up and caught it with a left she says all y'all big and small
and opens fire and then she dropped it back beside her and walked back down the driveway
i was up in that one and all this was going on i could hear people screaming and hollering so i ran that
way too the actual intended target of the shooting was lester boyd he was the person that was conducting the dice game
he was a person that miss boulard had her dispute with and he was shot in the lake
uh he survived that shooting but 19-year-old shawana moss a new mother got caught in the line of
fire shawana moss is struck in the side of her chest katima shawana's mother who was right
there runs around the apartments thinking that her daughter is behind her when she realizes she's not she goes to
her daughter and that's when we seen the uh young lady laying flat on her back and her mother was in a state of shock i
could see her picking chairs up and slaying them behind her trying to get to a doll and was calling
her daughter name and they ran to the front and called the ambulance from the pay phone
katima is literally holding her in her arms as her daughter and exhaled her last breath and died
leaving little two-month baby charles motherless the ambulance rushed shawana to baylor hospital where doctors
attempted to revive her the shooting actually occurred at approximately 6 30 p.m
miss moss was transported to the hospital and the doctor declared her deceased at 7 05 pm
meanwhile shannon returned the gun to her neighbor and fled soon after officers from the dallas
police department arrived at the general rental apartment complex when the police officers got there they
were given a physical description of who was involved according to shannon she returned to the
scene to explain to the police that she did not intend to shoot shawana she thought because she was having a
fight with lester and she killed someone else by accident that should be okay other witnesses remember it differently
she hid in the dumpster and people seen her coming out the dumpster she walked back towards the
general room i mean walk past police and everything shanna did not approach the police there
were people at the scene who said that's her that's the woman who committed the crime and so the police
apprehended her there i seen the mother store trying to fight and the police and stuff grabbed her
and they had kind of shattered him and put her in the car and she wanted to know how come you killed my daughter
that's all she kept saying my only daughter why you killed my daughter board was taken to dallas police
headquarters where she confessed to the shooting i made her a plea bargain offer offer of
40 years she turned it down that's her option and so you just roll the dice she still
believed that she didn't do anything wrong because the mind is so messed up with
drugs you you have an illusion as to what really happened at the time shannon board was charged with
first-degree murder under the theory of transferred intent which means that if you intend to kill
one person but then miss and hit another person your intent to kill is transferred to
the person that you actually killed the defense argued that lester earl boyd pointed a gun at shannon
and threatened to kill her the allegations from shannon was that lester had a gun
lester admitted during the trial that he had a gun in his pocket but denied ever pointing it at shannon
maybe he just flashed it on a raised shirt or something i did not see him point no gun at him it all had
everything to do with self-defense the whole a whole trial of course because that's
the only way she could get out from under this but i couldn't prove it she went upstairs and got that gun in
and opened fire because she was mad because they were all laughing at her she had a great deal of remorse even all
the way through the trial i mean she never intended to ever hurt that girl during the trial she cried a
lot um i think a lot of it was also sorry for herself and on the witness stand when she testified which she said
i didn't mean to kill that girl i was trying to shoot earl they weren't sympathetic to to her
on february 26th the jury returned with a guilty verdict shannon bourad was sentenced to 85 years
in prison and given a ten thousand dollar fine the jury was really really pissed this little girl should
never have died over what over three dollars and some crack as shannon adjusted to prison life in
gatesfield texas her son dominique littleton thrived as an up-and-coming boxer dominique was a three-time dallas golden
globe champion two-time texas state champion he's a two-time national champion became
ranked number two in the united states at uh 18 years old so he had quite a bit of
accomplishment in the boxing amateur boxing arena but despite his success dominique
struggled to come to terms with his mother's choices he never really got a chance to know
where his mom was and he was here behind his mom you know she used to write letters to dominique
and when he couldn't read well so i used to read the letters to him she was telling that she was sorry for
you know things the decisions she made in life and you know keep the boxing up in 2004 dominique just missed a spot on
the athens olympic team later that year tragedy struck [Music] i got a phone call that he had just been
shot he was playing with a gun russian roulette he actually shot himself in the head and died
shannon was devastated to learn of her son's death she says she has taken some anger management classes in prison
and hopes to earn the equivalent of a high school diploma by passing the ged exam
although it's been more than a decade since shawana was taken away from them the moss family is still coming to terms
with their loss katima moss was utterly destroyed and devastated by shawana's death i mean they were
mother-daughter team i honestly think that if katima hadn't had to have you know raised
charles shawana's little boy that she would not have made it and for shannon bourd
three dollars cost her her freedom it shouldn't happen she feel like what she was doing was
right because this man took three dollars from her and she just wanted to get even with him
i think that as the root of all crime it just it comes down to drugs i think that's why she prostituted
herself and i think that's why she made bad choices but ultimately she is responsible for
those you

Brief Summary

Jessica Gentry and Shannon Bouillard commit brutal murders driven by obsession and addiction, leading to tragic consequences for their families.

Key points

Jessica's Troubled Childhood. Jessica's early years were marked by instability and abuse, shaping her future choices.
The Murder of Carolyn Joyce Thomas. Jessica Gentry and her friends plotted to murder her grandmother, Carolyn Joyce Thomas.
The Plan to Kill. Jessica suggested a method to kill her grandmother during a conversation with friends.
The Aftermath of the Murder. After the murder, Jessica felt scared and overwhelmed, leading to a panic.
Arrest and Charges. Jessica and her accomplices were arrested days after the murder of her grandmother.
Jessica Gentry's Conviction. Jessica Gentry was found guilty of capital murder, leading to a life sentence.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I always felt like I was trash.

Jessica describes her feelings of abandonment and worthlessness.

3:58WatchJan 12, 2021

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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