• Murder in the Bayou

  • Who Killed the Women Known as the Jeff Davis 8?
  • By: Ethan Brown
  • Narrated by: Traber Burns
  • Length: 6 hrs and 25 mins
  • 4.1 out of 5 stars (757 ratings)

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Murder in the Bayou

By: Ethan Brown
Narrated by: Traber Burns
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Publisher's summary

An explosive, true-life southern gothic story, Murder in the Bayou chronicles the twists and turns of a high-stakes investigation into the murders of eight women in a troubled Louisiana parish.

Between 2005 and 2009, the bodies of eight women were discovered around the murky canals and crawfish ponds of Jennings, Louisiana, a bayou town of 10,000 in the heart of the Jefferson Davis parish. Local law enforcement officials were quick to pursue a serial killer theory, opening a floodgate of media coverage, from CNN to the New York Times. Collectively the victims became known as the "Jeff Davis 8," and their lives, their deaths, and the ongoing investigation reveals a small southern community's most closely guarded secrets.

As Ethan Brown suggests, these homicides were not the work of a single serial killer, but the violent fallout of Jennings' brutal sex and drug trade, a backwoods underworld hidden in plain sight. Mixing muckraking research and immersive journalism over the course of a five-year investigation, Ethan Brown reviewed thousands of pages of previously unseen homicide files to determine what happened during each victim's final hours.

Epic in scope and intensely suspenseful, Murder in the Bayou is the story of an American town buckling under the dark forces of poverty, race, and class division - and a lightning rod for justice for the daughters it lost.

©2016 Ethan Brown (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

What listeners say about Murder in the Bayou

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Terrible narrator!

They should have gotten someone who knew how to pronounce the names, street name, business names right! I am from Jennings, Louisiana. I was a sophomore in high school when the first of the 8 were found. I have read the book, but wanted to listen to it. I couldn't even get past the first 5 minutes without wanting to scream in rage. WHY WOULD YOU HIRE SOMEONE WHO DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO PRONOUNCE WHAT THEY ARE READING?!?!?!?

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13 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars

I imagine the story is better than the telling...

...but I couldn’t tell by this report. Almost everything about this book was flat. The performance, the stiff writing, the self-congratulatory presentation. Way too much of the personal pronoun “I” and not enough what-went-on.

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7 people found this helpful

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Great story, narrator butchered names tho

Excellent story, glad someone told it.

Narration - As a SWLA resident it was difficult to follow at times due to the abhorrent mispronunciation of last names. I wish the narrator had consulted someone local for that.

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6 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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impressed

I am actually impressed with this book because, as of someone who grew up Jennings like myself and actually knowing 3 of the murdered women and David Deshotel (bow-leg) that was murdered pretty much 2 houses away from where i was living on West Division Street.... and some of the others that was spoken about throughout this book... its nice to know some of the truth behind alot of the murders but i still think there is more... there was so many more things that could've been said and done and i think there is still someone out there that knows something more. but thats all i have to say.

great book and good job narrating

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terrible

the way this story is told has some good points but way too many lost moments. I never felt connected to any of the characters too many characters brought in for brief moments I felt lost throughout the whole book and the end was just the end

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Disappointing, Misdirecting and Subjective

Being from South Louisiana, with “Murder in the Bayou”, I was expecting to read an objective exposé on the troubling and tragic issue euphemistically referred to as the Jeff Davis 8. Instead what I read, mixed among the facts as they are known, is a series of unsubstantiated allegations and abuses of journalistic decorum.

Initially, Brown’s line of reasoning seemed intriguing if not a bit forced at times. As the book progresses, however, one gets the impression that Brown’s antagonism is directed at law enforcement in general, from the Jeff Davis and Calcasieu Sheriff’s Office, to the Louisiana State Police implicating the whole lot, and not focused on the real aspect of the case and actual evidence pointing to certain perpetrators. Ethan, just because someone doesn’t want to talk to you doesn’t mean they have something to hide. If I was Sheriff Wood, I wouldn’t talk to you either. Every authority figure that does talk to you is painted as a conspirator in drugs, prostitution and murder.

Of course police and political corruption exists, and probably in this case. Nevertheless, Brown, fails in his attempt to pin the murders on the Jefferson Davis Parish Sheriff’s Department. Although it has not been established, it is not beyond the realm of possibility, and may even be probable, that some in authority in Jennings are culpable in the incidents surrounding the deaths of these 8 prostitutes and others. (Most of the allegations of high level police misconduct originate from the criminal element of Jennings, by the way. Hmm, go figure.) Brown, however, finds a conspirator and accomplice under every rock, as long as it’s wearing a badge. His ridiculous attempt to implicate Governor Bobby Jindal, by association and his derisive remark that “Jindal’s dissatisfaction fixed nothing” reveals much of Brown’s agenda.

This is revealed in Brown’s jargon as well. His incessant use of term “sex worker” instead of prostitute*, is not only annoying but comes off as nothing more than a clandestine attempt to legitimise that criminal activity. The innocuous locution does not dislodge the truth, however. Sheriff Edwards in his frankness, was absolutely right, the drug-addicted prostitutes of Jennings, known as the Jeff Davis 8, lived a “high risk lifestyle.”

*The word ‘prostitute’ is used not one single time in the entire book. Not surprisingly, neither is ‘whore’, ‘hooker’, ‘harlot’, or ‘wench’.

In Brown’s reasoning, the criminal element “might” be responsible for some foul play, but they are nothing more than pawns and victims of society being controlled and manipulated by the true offenders; the law.

Sadly, some of Brown’s assumption and theories may not be far removed from the truth, but to no avail. He loses all credibility and reveals himself as someone antagonistic to law enforcement and sympathetic to thugs explicitly in the Acknowledgements at the end of the ebook.

Brown states:

“So I have to express my incredible thanks and boundless gratitude to the protesters in the Ferguson/St. Louis area for bringing the issue of law enforcement misconduct into the public discourse. In a few months, you made possible what criminal justice system reformers have been unable to achieve for decades. Thank you. The future belongs to folks like y’all.”

A group of riotous thugs burning down their neighborhood has Ethan Brown’s boundless gratitude? Very telling. Brown’s misrepresentation of the incidents in Ferguson, Baton Rouge, et.al., to which he refers in the Acknowledgements is appalling. Surely, he cannot be uninformed on the facts of the cases. All this type of attitude does is demean the victims of actual police brutality and makes it more difficult for departments to deal with those officers.

Finally, although it is reasonable to believe that some cover-up has taken place, and that some officers were involved in at least some of the events surrounding these murders, it is reporting like this that paints an unambiguous picture, confuses the real issues and perpetuates a false narrative that too many people then assume to be true; because after all, they read it in a book.

Traber Burn's narration is well done and enjoyable to listen to. I have other titles narrated by Traber and have not been disappointed.

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4 people found this helpful

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A Quiet Southern Town

Having made many trips to Jennings during this time period, I must admit to being shocked at what was going on one exit down the interstate. At one point the FBI had its task force above my clients office and we were still unaware of the depravity of the crimes and how difficult they were to investigate.

The writing was concise but not dramatized and there was no gratuitous violence - just solid reporting. Much respect to Ethan Brown and Narrator Traber Burns.

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3 people found this helpful

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Complex

That whole story was so complex. Takes a very talented and passionate author to make sense of that puzzle ! Well done!

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lawless lawmen, politicians and dead woman

Sadly, four years after publication of this book, and fifteen years after the first victim was found, no resolution has occurred.

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A must listen!

This is a very well researched, entertaining, and chilling book. It is well worth the download.

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