On Feb 23 2008, 63-year-old Patricia Landry was walking to her car when a man tried to snatch her purse. A struggle ensued and the man jumped into a red pickup truck driven by someone else. Speeding away, the truck hit and ran over Ms. Landry, killing her. Witnesses described the driver of the pickup as a young blonde woman in her 20s driving, and they said she was with two men. Police identified one of the men as Michael Coe - and based on his identification police homed in on a friend of his: a blonde woman named Cheri Hayden...but Cheri was older with deep facial wrinkles - very clearly not in her 20s.
However, that didn’t bother the police and they made a lineup and and after almost no investigation, Cheri was identified and eventually arrested, tried and convicted for killing Ms. Landry. Ten years later, the Innocence Project New Orleans took her case and found that the police never did a proper investigation into the crime; if they did they would have found multiple people who said the real killer confessed to them... and she was blonde and in her 20s.
To contact the Governor of Louisiana, please visit:
To contact Cheri directly, please write to her at:
Ms. Cheri Hayden
DOC # 186878
Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women
P.O. Box 26 St.
Gabriel, LA 70776
SOURCES:
Cheri with her Grandchildren