L— H—

I got a call from L— H— this morning. At least I think it was L— H—. In any event it was a man claiming to be L— H— and I have no reason to believe otherwise. Contrary to some comments posted here a couple months ago, he is alive and living in Ohio. He just wanted a chance to explain his side of the story to me. He want to tell his account of what happened on that day back in May of 2004.

He said he let someone else use his car, and that’s why some witnesses identified him as the person who rolled up and opened fire. He said he turned himself in to clear his name, but then some other guys (the real perps, perhaps) tried to stick the murder on him. He was set to go to trial on August 29, 2005, but we all know what happened then.

He was shipped up to north Louisiana for a while. Eventually back in New Orleans he was assigned a public defender from New Jersey. Finally his case was dropped, nolle prosequi, and he was released after three years in prison.

Now, he told me, he’s hanging out in Ohio, trying to keep it positive, trying to contribute to the community, working on his music, maybe even a book.

That was the substance of our phone conversation. Kind of a strange way to start the day.

As I said before, I regret my initial assumption of guilt. When L— H— turned himself in, I jumped to the conclusion that he must have been guilty. That’s a bad assumption. There’s a big difference between turning oneself in and pleading guilty. I don’t know the facts, but I can only hope that L— H— is indeed innocent and that he’s able to get on with his life. I’ve tried to expunge his real name from this blog and replace it with just his initials, so web searches on his name won’t turn up these pages.

That leaves the question of who killed Pissy. There are a couple names floating around. L— H— wouldn’t say, but when I mentioned the names he confirmed them.

The less said on that the better, I think.