Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
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What's going on, everybody? I'm Marah. And I'm Tez. And welcome back to Sisters Who Kill. Okay, everybody really enjoyed last week's episode. And in our discussion group, the question was brought up about nature versus nurture when it comes to our murderesses. And last week's case was a very good example of it. But this week's case, oh, it is going to take you for a whirlwind. ♪♪
The players this week are Deputy Clinton A. Lewis Jr. This is the first husband. James Robert Shepard, known as Jimmy. This is our first victim. Air Force Sergeant Perry Jennings Jr., but everybody called him PJ. He was our second victim. And Kiana Barnes, our murderess.
Kiana Barnes was born in November of 1979 in New Orleans and had a wealthy upbringing. Her dad was former military and worked at the cable company, and her mom was a children's book author. And she grew up without any wants. She was in private school and she loved school. She was very smart and she was beautiful and had big dreams growing up. And, you know, being successful, she wanted to be a model and be famous until she was a teenager and...
Her parents were like, you know, we really think you're kind of getting into the wrong crowd. You need to choose better friends. You're the company that you keep. And she wasn't trying to hear all that. So she decided that she was going to start to run away and do what she wanted to do. She was couch hopping with friend to friend. And in 1955, at the age of 16, she was
She left her private school and transferred to a public school and it was kind of bad and wasn't the best school you go to, especially not after transferring from a private school. Right. And she didn't transfer herself. I mean, like she did transfer. She did transfer herself. Her parents didn't transfer her. Like, I don't know how you do that, but... Basically live in emancipated without officially being emancipated. Without officially...
Okay. It's possible. But she still graduated two years later on time with a diploma. And in 1977, at the age of 18, she needed some money, you know? It's not like she can just kick it at her parents' house after she done lived wherever the fuck she wanted through high school. So she started stripping to make money. And she was in Louisiana, so she was stripping on Bourbon Street, and you know it's lit down there. So...
She had somehow managed to survive couch hopping and stripping for about two years. And then one night while she was up there shaking ass, she met the sheriff's deputy, Clinton A. Lewis Jr. Who Lord knows if I knew how to shake my ass, I would be on a pole. But they all say it's harder than you think.
I'm sure it is because I have tried. Anyways, Deputy Clinton A. Lewis Jr. was like, listen, listen, listen, Shadi, you don't have to strip on the pole. What you need to do, come on down from the pole, live with me. You can leave that stripping shit alone. And she was like, OK, yes, dad. And she stopped stripping and she was like, OK, let's give this relationship a go. They were together for a year. And then in 1999, they got married and Kiana became a wife.
Very young. Don't know why we keep having these reoccurring things of people getting married very young. But while she was a wife, you know, she was doing her cooking, her cleaning. Yes, I do the cooking. Yes, I do the cleaning. She was doing the checkbook. She was taking care of the household. But all of a sudden, it seemed like there was a lot of tension between the couple. I mean, they started getting into relationships.
arguments where the neighbors were calling the police multiple people were calling the police these domestic issues were like really starting to flare up one time when they were arguing like you know he's an officer so he has his work gun but he also has his personal gun and he keeps his personal good you know near the bedside table she pulls out the gun on him and points it at him he
He wrestles the gun, like grab lunges at her grabs, you know, he's a police officer. So he's trained to do that. Lunges at her grabs her. She shoots in the air. They're wrestling the gun away. She ends up shooting at him six times total. He didn't get shot. He said that they were living in like a, like a one bedroom studio. Not shooting at him, but pulling the trigger as they wrestled with the gun. Six shots rang out in a small one bedroom studio ish apartment and
And he did not get hit. So he was like, this is getting crazier and crazier by the second. And this is not going to last long. So in 2001, Clinton was like, OK, we got to get a divorce. He filed for divorce. And Kiana, she's 21 now and she's moved out. But imagine being 21 and divorced.
I still look back at the person that I wanted to marry at 21. Like, God, Lee, I'd probably be in prison. Jesus. So she moved out, but they were still fucking on the side. But their domestic disputes, you know, every time the police call, if there's a police report, if something happens, you know, that gets back to the station where he works. So he's not getting promotions at work. And that ain't good because how is he going to continue to make money?
So the situation between them, the relationship between him, he finally completely severed ties. And Kiana, you know, she was living on the streets, but she wasn't too mad about the severed ties because she found herself a new man. So while she was begging on the streets, because if she wasn't sleeping in his bed, she was on the streets begging. While she was begging on the street, she met Air Force Sergeant Perry Jennings Jr.,
but everybody calls him PJ. Like PJ is the type of person that was sweet. He was smiling. He was stable. He had a pretty uneventful childhood. He enlisted into the military right after high school and he wanted to see the world and he wanted to meet different people. And people said that he was just really like that big brother figure in every group that you go in. Like he's that big, like everybody wants to give him a hug and tell them about his day or cry to him. Like he was that person that was like that for everybody. And you know,
While he was in New Orleans, he was in... Y'all don't... I should have looked up how to fucking pronounce this shit. I be writing shit, y'all, and then I realized that I have to say it out loud when I'm recording. Best guess. Algiers.
He was in the Air Force and he was in Algiers, New Orleans. Y'all gonna come for me, which is a neighborhood across from the French Quarter. And that's how he met Kiana. You know, she was like, hey, can you spare a little change? And he was like, I ain't got no cash, but, you know, I'll buy you a meal. And so they kicked it off like that. He introduced her to his brother and.
And he was telling his brother, you know, she's someone she needs a little help. And, you know, she was in a marriage. She told me she was getting abused in her marriage. And I just, you know, I'm trying to help her out. Look at her. She's a pretty girl. They said, you know, his friends were like, yeah, she was pretty, but she sure was looking like she he picked up a stray puppy off the street like mangle. She was looking crazy. But throughout this entire time, he was allowing her to sleep on his couch. So she had a roof over her head.
Kiana was just fine sleeping on PJ's couch, but PJ's girlfriend was not. And she was like, don't know how long you plan on keeping this girl living on your couch or whatever, but you got to end that shit or whatever. So Kiana had to get to scooting and that's when she meets Jimmy, right? Yeah.
So it's March of 2002 and Kiana's at a truck stop with a broken down car. And she sees this 41 year old white guy with a mustache and a cul-de-sac at the top of his head. I have to fix the car, but only in the morning. And in the meantime, she could spend a night on his couch and then leave in the morning. Right. This guy, of course, was James Jimmy Robert Shepard.
And he lived in an Irish bayou in a trailer park. He was rough around the edges, but was a nice guy at the center. And Kiana agreed to sleep on Jimmy's couch while he fixed her car. Screaming red flags, but, oh, let me fix your car. It'll take a while, but you can sleep on my couch. Like, no, but she needed it. So whatever. It took Jimmy longer than a day to fix the car and
The longer it took, the longer she stayed on his couch. And eventually she made her way to his bed. It took Jimmy a total of two weeks to fix the car. And he was fixing it in a day and fucking the night. All right. So after the car got fixed, she was like, you know, I can just stay.
I don't have nowhere else to go. I'm couch hopping anyways. If you want to keep doing what we're doing, we can keep making it do what it do. Like, that's creepy behavior. But also, you living on the streets and where you going to go? Or survival behavior. It's creepy behavior for him. Oh, yeah. But definitely, I'm sure she could have figured something else out, but survival definitely for her. Yeah. Yeah.
And this arrangement, it was perfect for her. Like, she loved it. She didn't have to worry about where she was going to sleep at night. She had no issues with it. But when I tell y'all this man is not attractive, he looks like a 40-year-old white male cartoon character. I'm weak at you saying there was a cul-de-sac in his head. Mm-hmm. That's exactly what it was. And...
But then we get to April 2nd, 2002, around 6 a.m. Jimmy's coworker goes to pick him up for work and he doesn't answer the door. So he goes inside and he finds Jimmy's body on the floor, stabbed somewhere between 17 and 27 times. We've had articles say 17, but his brother said 27. And then another article said many. So a lot. And.
He was just left to die on the floor of his trailer. The knife stabs were deep. Like they went all the way through each time. He was stabbed in his neck, his arm, his back. Bloody defensive wounds all over his hands. And there was just so much blood in the carpet and the house that it looked like there had had to been a struggle.
So when the detectives started detectiving, they were told they were told by his friends and family about this petite black girl named Kiana Barnes. And they were like, you probably should talk to her because she was staying with Jimmy before he died. And so if somebody knew it would be it would be them. And then also when the police arrived.
had Jimmy's brother show up. They didn't even know Jimmy's car was gone. And they were like, oh, his car is gone. And Jimmy's like, Jimmy's brother is like, yeah, his van is missing. So they go searching for it. And Jimmy's brother went and found the van. And it was in front of a car wash a few blocks away from this battered women's shelter. And this is like a big van. He's, it's a small area that she's in. And his van is like,
one of those van lifer vans, the older ones, not the spinner vans. And it's red. Like, bitch, we're going to see the van. And it was parked a couple blocks away from this battered women's shelter. And they were like, okay, so let's check this battered women's shelter. So they go and lo and behold, Kiana's there. So the Ganga brothers call the police. The police show up. They find Kiana at the shelter. They brought her down to the police station because obviously they had a few questions.
And she's like, she said, well, Jimmy and I were drinking beer in the trailer the night before, but we had gotten into an argument and he tried to rape me and he tried to attack me. And I stabbed him.
I did. I stabbed him, but it was in self-defense. And I was just so shocked that I had stabbed him. So I left. I left in this van. And I abandoned it a few blocks away. And I walked to this battered women's shelter. And I'm a victim of abuse here. That's pretty strategic going to the battered women's shelter, huh? Yeah.
But the police are not buying it, right? They're like, first of all, before you went to the battered woman's shelter, use his credit card to stop at the liquor store, okay? Doesn't sound very battered to me. She was stressed. She needed a drink. I was going to say, if I stole somebody's cash, I'd probably be like, I'm buying weed. Yeah, something untraceable. So, they're like, we're not buying it. You're under arrest. Like, we're taking you to the station, right? But...
After 60 days, Kiana Barnes was released from jail. How did this happen? In Louisiana, if you're arrested, the district attorney, if you are arrested for a felony charge, the district attorney has 60 days to charge you and arraign you. If it's not a felony, it's 45 days.
They have to formally charge you with a felony. And if they don't, then you're able to be released. Yeah, because you can't just be... I mean, I get the rule, because you can't just be holding niggas in there without a charge. So there's a limit on how long you can keep them there. And she sat there for 60 days and nobody ever pressed charges from her. And it wasn't for lack of evidence or anything. It just fell through the cracks. She didn't have some lawyer fighting for her who got her off on a, like...
They was just like, damn, your 60 days is up. We got to let you go. And she was able to walk out of jail. I know his family was pissed. She already confessed to killing him. She's like, yeah, I did it. She called it self-defense or whatever. But everybody knows she did it. And then she just walks out of jail for no reason. No, you can't give me an explanation except for you never charged her as she sat with you.
for two months. These people at the Louisiana office, they're like, they're feeling like fuck-ups, you know? How do you not after this type of mistake? For somebody who's obviously committed murder, right? But it's too late. They had to let her go. And she was off to find a new boo because she needed some place to live.
So she began couch hopping again for almost a year until she reconnected with her old sling, PJ. She remembered, you know, PJ told her way back when, you know, I'll be there for you if you need anything. She, like we said, took him up on that offer.
So once again, she's sleeping on the couch. And again, they were just friends. PJ didn't want anything romantic. He was really just trying to help her out. But she didn't feel the same way.
She wanted him to be her man. She had very strong feelings for him. And I feel I wasn't there, but I feel like sis made it abundantly clear that she didn't want to sleep on the couch no more. She wanted to get up in the master bedroom. They still made it clear that he wanted to be just friends. And it was...
it was all fine. And it was, you know, they were helping each other. He was helping her out as much as he could. He was that type of guy. And with helping her out, she was around his friend group. You know, she was around his people and they, I think one of his friends was like, you know, I mean, we spoke to her. We weren't rude. You know, we, we were cordial to her. Like she, he said, he, he said she helping her out. I guess, you know, I, she seemed to at least be trying to get her life together and she seemed kind of happy. Now,
PJ's dad was feeling kind of turned off by the relationship that they had going on. Why is this lady always sleeping on your couch? What's she got going on that she ain't never got her shit together? You know, just, you know, you can't help everybody. You know what I mean? So he was like, you know, you can find anything on the Internet these days. And so he was like, at least we don't know who this girl is that's sleeping on my son's couch.
And so he Googles her name and sees that she's wanted for the second degree murder of Jimmy. His dad is like, oh my God, I got to go tell PJ who he got living in his house. And he's like, boy, you know about this girl? He's like, what you mean? He was like, this girl wanted for second degree murder. And PJ was like, oh, that? Yeah, I knew about that. He was like, what you mean you knew about that? He was like, I mean.
She told me that she was like a self-defense type of thing. You know, I'm trying to convince her to turn herself in. It's a process, right? And dad's like, nah, nigga, you tripping. You need to get this girl up out your house. PJ's like, listen, I'm talking to her. I really think I can get her to turn herself in. You know, maybe help her get a lawyer or whatever. Just trying to help her get her life together so she can be happy and live in peace, you know? Stand up, God, right? So all of a sudden, it's March 27th.
2003, right? And PJ's family haven't heard from him in like a day or two. And they're like, for PJ, this weird...
Like, I don't need to wait a week. I don't need to wait, whatever, whatever. He would have talked to me by now. He would have talked to me, like the mom, the dad, the brother. Somebody would have heard from him by now, right? So his mom goes to go check on him and she goes to his apartment. She's knocking at the door or whatever and nobody answers. She doesn't have a key to his place. So she goes to the apartment manager. She says, listen, I'm worried about my son. I haven't heard from him. Could you just go into his apartment and...
and see if he's in there and just let me know. Nobody's answering the door. And the apartment manager is like, okay, I can go up there. The apartment manager- That's a mama intuition. And she just knew. Because his car wasn't out there. I feel like the first thing that, as you would look for his vehicle, his car wasn't there.
They be knowing. Mamas be knowing. The apartment manager enters the apartment. He looks around and he comes out and he says, ma'am, you need to call 911. Which I know her heart just sank. Like what? That's not what you were supposed to say. So 911 gets a call and it's PJ's mom on the phone crying, saying that her son is dead in his own bed. Mm-mm-mm-mm.
30-year-old PJ was shot in the head one single time while he lay tucked in bed in his boxers. There was nothing disturbed, only PJ lying dead. But next to him, there was a pillow with blood on one side and a burn mark that created a hole on the other. So, you know, y'all know what that means. That whoever shot PJ used the pillow to muffle the sound of the gun going off.
If it was a robbery, they were like, why would this have happened? If it was a robbery, you know, maybe they would have taken the weapons or the little weed he had out here. Like, his weed is still there. He only had like six. He had six grams of weed. Like, he didn't have a lot of weed on him. His brother said, no, he ain't no drug dealer. Yeah. He stood up for his brother on that snap. He said, my brother worked hard for everything he had. A little bit of...
Get the fuck out of here with that little bit of weed. Like, come on. Don't even do that. He was worked hard. Okay. So when detectives got to PJ's family, they asked him questions and the police were told by his family. You know what? Who y'all need to check out? Y'all need to check out Kiana Barnes because something is going on with her. The police are like, Kiana Barnes? Like, is that his girlfriend? Like, who is this to him? And they're like, hmm.
no not his girlfriend they were like okay did they have some type of sexual relationship you know it's a man and a woman and y'all saying that she in the house they're like no she'd just be in the house sleeping on the couch like she's just kind of there she'd be around maybe y'all should really check in on her and see what happened so his dad comes to the crime scene to look around his house and see everything that was missing because initially the police thought that there was nothing missing at all so his dad gets to the scene they're like he's like okay everything seems to be in place but you know what's missing
I mean, obviously his car, right? We know that. His gun's missing and his credit cards are missing. And the police are like, hmm, okay, maybe it is her. The cops are like, do you know what kind of gun he has? He's like, ah, some type of automatic, some type of, I don't know, so...
They have a database where you, y'all know there's a database where you register if you're a registered gun owner. And so they were able to see exactly what gun he had. It turns out the casing that was found there matched his gun. He was killed by his own gun in his bed as he laid tucked fast asleep. Like he was really tucked in. Like he wasn't sleeping and woken up. He was legit knocked out cold, dead.
Dreaming in bed. He was probably like, he was dream. He was like, you know how when you get real comfortable and you just like tuck yourself in, you make yourself a burrito when it's time for bed. I don't care how grown you are. You turn into a four year old. Tuck me in by your own weapon. That's that always happens.
gives an extra little oomph of hurt. The detectives are, they do a name check on Kiana Barnes. And even though I feel like his daddy could have told them, but they found out that, oh, she's wanted for second degree murder already for Jimmy. And they're like, okay, we need to find these credit cards. We need to figure out where she's going. And so they're,
The police are like, okay, we need to find out where she is, where she's going, what she's doing. Get these cards under control. How are we going to catch this woman? We know killed two men is suspected. Okay. Legally is suspected of killing two men, but they were like, ah, okay.
Instead of canceling his credit cards, let's watch her. Let's track her and let's see where she's going. It seems like she really needs this money, obviously. So let's just follow the money trail.
Swiping PJ's Visa cards all over the place from New Orleans to Houston to Rio Grande on our way to Mexico. It's everywhere, right? She buys three different color hair dyes. She's changing her appearance as she's slipping across the states, going into a disappearance or at least trying to, right? A few days later, they find PJ's car close to the border and they're like, damn, she must have got to the other side.
And she did. Right. So New Orleans police is like, oh, fuck, we're going to have to contact the U.S. Marshals and get them involved. Because if she gets any deeper into Mexico, we've lost her for good. Right. So it was a good call getting the marshals done because once they get there, it does not take them long to track Kiana down because she's still using PJ's credit cards. And she's wiring money from PJ's account to her account.
Like, easy paper trail. They find, it says it literally on the receipt. I was like. So, yeah, of course, it didn't take them long to track them down. And they find her at a remote mountain town in Mexico City in a roach motel. Like, she was really trying to get to hide. But she just left that trail everywhere she went.
So on April 30th, 2003, the U.S. Marshals raided the room. She was sleeping in and surprised her and arrest her for both murders and flew her via Con Air back to the United States. I don't know how much y'all know about Con Air.
But Con Air is the justice prisoner and alien transportation system. So this system has been around since 1995 and it transports federal prisoners around the country. But what you don't know and is very important to this story is that
They don't fly at night. And when they're being flown, the prisoners are handcuffed, shackled and shackled to their seats. If they need to use the restroom, they must pee with the door open. And these high risk prisoners, which Kiana at this point is a high risk prisoner. They have their hands cuffed in a box in front of them the entire ride. They said her fingers are too slick. She just be slipping through. So they have her handcuffed in a box in front of her.
And this transportation could take like...
forever, days or months. And the reason why is because these flights don't cover more than 200 to 300 miles at a time. You can go where I'm sitting in Georgia, I can travel 200 miles and still be in the state of Georgia. I would be, you know, on the outskirts, but that's not a lot of travel. So these plane rides could literally take eons. I feel like there's a way to spend money better.
I feel like there's a more humane and inexpensive way to do this. We can brainstorm on that later. So after this inhumane plane ride, and as soon I'm telling you,
The plane came in on the tarmac, the runway. And when that plane arrived, there were three different law enforcement agencies. They had their rifles out, like something that you would see in an old military movie. They were literally lined up on the runway and they were...
Like, they were dealing with, like, Bin Laden coming through. You know what I'm saying? Like, they were ready for any fucking sudden move that she made when she got off that plane. She's handcuffed. She's shackled. And she's looking fucking unbothered. She strolls off the plane. And she was asking them. She's like, why are y'all here? Like, what are y'all doing here? Later, when she got to the station, they were like, okay. Puts the tape recorder down. Let's get to talking. And she said, um...
She got nothing to say. And she was like, listen, I'm not going to jail. I'm not going to be in jail for long. So there's no need for me to take this seriously. They questioned her and they asked her why she killed both men.
She said, I killed Jimmy in self-defense. He was going to rape me. It's like she knew that they thought the murder was going to be calculated because they're like, okay, he was already trying to convince you to turn yourself in and you ain't want to go back to jail or you're jealous of the girlfriend or mad that you won't let him sleep. So, you know,
we've got a whole lot of motive you know what I mean he even had a kid with somebody else and more fuel jealousy could be possibly right they got some different angles that they can work with right and they've got some motives that they can build off of but most importantly they had a confession so they charged her and they made sure that she was arraigned within 60 days this time so
Keanu sat there in jail waiting for her trial.
Now, if you remember from the beginning of this story, Kiana left home pretty early. She wanted to run away. She wanted to do her own thing. So she was pretty estranged from her family. But boy, when they saw her on the news and saw that she was in trouble for murder, they flocked to her. And they like we said before, she came from a very well-known, well-to-do money family. She was facing the death penalty. They got her the best lawyer ever.
They were like, listen, if we pay for the best of the best, we'll just get her sentence, her long sentence reduced. Maybe we'll just get her off. But, you know, money can y'all know y'all been here. Money can buy you anything. It don't matter what your crime is. If you got cash and Kiana had a secret weapon.
that cash in the bank. So Kiana's attorneys, they talked to the prosecutor and she was facing life in prison. But for some reason, but somehow they all sat in a room, the prosecutors and her lawyers, and they came up with a plea deal. Now, the families weren't aware of the plea deal, that the option of a plea deal was on the table. But
That is what expensive lawyers do, ladies and gentlemen. No one knows what was said in the room. ♪ I wanna be in the room where it happens ♪ ♪ The room where it happens ♪
I want to be in the room where it happens, the room where it happens. So they get out of the room. They come up with this plea deal. And the plea deal is this. Kiana will plead guilty to the lesser charge of two counts of manslaughter. And she will be sentenced to seven to 25 years in prison with the possibility of parole after only three and a half years.
Obviously, this plea was absolutely bonkers. It pissed off everyone. Neither of the families like neither of the families knew about it. It just was slapped in front of them and they were furious. They were livid, furious.
Like three years for shooting somebody, three years for killing two people. And I mean, y'all spent a lot of three years. Y'all, you know what? Money had to, she must, her family must have paid for that plane ride or something like something like the family must have decided that they were going to pay back the government. They put out, they must have had a lot of money. Yeah. When they said, when I watched it and they said three years, I guess, because I was like, how? Like a whole pearl clutch.
Kiana was carefree and seemed kind of unremorseful at the trial. She even looked PJ's brother in the face, according to him, and laughed during the trial. Like, imagine you sitting there testifying to your own brother and the person who killed him laughs in the middle of it. I'd jump over that damn pew. I ain't even gonna hold you. Reminds me of that clip of that judge. Judge, I think her name was Kiana.
She was ruling on a junk driver case and people were laughing in the back. She was like, you think this is funny? Mm-mm. Y'all in contempt. Not today. Not in courtroom 502. Mm-mm. This family over here grieving.
You want to laugh? I saw that because, you know, he's still illegal, but I was listening to some podcast. I'm not going to know the quote, but like the person on trial was on trial charged for molesting this man's daughter. And he like jumped over trying to get to this dude while he's, you know, shackled, trying to.
do his court thing and the police officers you know it's illegal so the police officers are holding this father down and the whole time they were like I'm so sorry you know the police officers like I'm so sorry because you know they're there they know that that nigga want to kill him but we in court you can't be acting not in what she said not in court room what not in court room 502 no no no what did that uh judge say she said not today and not any other day
So when a judge found out that the defense and the prosecution were planning a deal during the trial and how neither of the victim's family knew about it, he was not happy. And when he heard, like, what the deal was, he was super unhappy. And he was like, I'm changing this deal right here, right now.
He was like, that deal is a slap in the face to each one of her victims and their families. It's not happening. When the verdict came down, Kiana's family is screaming and yelling. I mean, like, they're just like, my daughter, they hired this lawyer, they paid this money to get her off. And it was just such a huge loss for them. She was transferred to St. Gabriel's Prison in Louisiana.
With Antoinette, right? Well, I guess this is before Antoinette. No, they were in there at the same time. She was still there. And so when Kiana first got to prison, it was really tough. She was getting in a fight. She wasn't very happy at all. She cut all her hair off. Now, daddy said she got a face tattoo. I don't see no picture of her with the face tattoo.
But she did find a way to turn inmates to officers. She got to know the system. She had a couple of girlfriends. She did her time. She listened to her music. She was chilling. She was popular. She was likable, you know? And she definitely adapted to the lifestyle. I mean, you have to, right? You got to be in the game and be active.
knowledgeable of everything around you. I guess if you got 25 years. Yeah. So it's January 1st, 2013 and Kiana, oh, she had a new year's resolution for you. She had been in prison for nine years at this point. And nine years out of this 25 sentence, sis has had enough. So what she does is she takes a
Some sleeping pills. And she drugs her roommates. Now she's got like three roommates. She's in a smaller women's pod. There's like four women in a cell. She's got three roommates. Put it on that charm. Slip something in their drink. They are knocked out.
out she puts a dummy in her bed breaks the window crawls herself outside of the prison walks on this like cat walk and hops over the barbed wire fence she got a little you know mangled there was a little blood found a little piece of her sweatshirt but she made it over the next morning at count when sis was not there oh you know they shut that shit down but
She was already gone. They had the bloodhounds come out. They followed her for a little while, but they didn't get too far. She just hitched a ride with some people, with like four people, got in a car, and she escaped.
So clearly the police could not believe it. 33 year old Kiana Barnes, who was serving a 25 year sentence for two counts of manslaughter, who was accidentally released from jail at one point, has now escaped from prison. Good.
Good job. Good pat on the back, everybody. So once again, everybody is on alert for Kiana. They're like, you know, she's a she is a killer. She is going to be like out there in the streets. Everybody needs to watch their back. You don't know what she's going to do next.
her ex-husband you know he's like you know she's known to have weapons and she's known to she shot at me y'all know she shot at me six times y'all better be on high alert he's out there you know giving his spill and they're like okay is she gonna go to Mexico again maybe we should check down there get you know border patrol on what is she gonna do what is she gonna do they're searching and they were searching and they were searching so by March it's like three months later and
Y'all has been added to the U.S. Marshals 15 most wanted fugitive list with a description of what she looks like, right? They're like, she's a 33-year-old African-American woman standing about 5'4", weighs 140 pounds, dark brown eyes, very short hair, letter K tattooed on her left hand, dragon tattoo on the back. She is the girl with the dragon tattoo. Two panthers on the chest. And they're like, we're going to give you $1,000.
that did not mention the tattoo on her face. Exactly what I was going to say. If she had a tattoo. He literally said a thing, and I think she had a tattoo on her face, and I was ready to see it. And I was searching, and I ain't seen no tattoo. And then when I read this, I was like, she ain't got no damn tattoo on her face. So...
They had an, they started off with an award, you know, for a thousand dollars for any information. They upped it to $25,000. Like we have got to find her. We're sick of her making a fool of us. I was looking at articles and I saw one that was like a thousand. I saw one that was 2,500. Like if you look at the days I saw it go up, cause when I started it,
The first article I read when they said $1,000, I said, I am not giving her away. If she has a knife to me, I'm not risking to give her away for $1,000. But then, like, slowly, they just kept adding to the fun. Well, because, you know, they was like, most people, I think they said most people, first of all, most people are not escaping from prison. And if they do, they're not masking more than three to five days. And she's been out there forever.
three months. You know what I mean? So they're like, okay, this bitch is good. We got to find her. So at the time they're looking for her, they're trying to figure out how she escaped. And they kind of discovered that there were two kind of suspicious guards and they needed to be dealt with. So one was officially fired and a second one resigned.
But neither one of them made a statement or released anything about it. I'm sure they didn't. Because I, too, I'm like, how the fuck did you get out of jail? They talking about she went over a catwalk and climbed a barbed wire and got caught in a wire because the blood was left on it. But did she care? No, she was free and it was worth it. I...
I hope that there's somebody that has been to that prison and knows the tea. Tell me the tea. On March 25th, 2013, the LAPD officers were patrolling Skid Row, you know, easy spot, easy target. And they see this group of homeless people and they're like, all right, everybody, let's see them IDs, right? Listen, if y'all don't know what Skid Row is, the Cecil Hotel is
is on skid row the super haunted hotel the night stalker that's where he was staying the whole time that he was murdering people there's that girl that randomly went missing in there there's a couple of people that have died there who else is that the hotel on hotel on american horror story never watched american horror story i've only watched like one episode
Also in Skid Row, like it has an extremely large homeless population and it is like the epicenter for meth and heroin addicts and those that have mental issues and addiction issues. They usually are...
agglomerated at Skid Row. So when they saw this group of folks, they were about to get them all for loitering because why are you standing here? It's illegal to stand. You guys already know that. And when they asked to see some ID, everybody else, all the homeless people, they know how to shit go. They had an ID and she did not. And they asked her her name and she gave a false name.
And when they ran the name, it came back fake, obviously. And they ran her prints and they were like, all right, let's wait for the results. And when they got the results, oh boy, I bet you know, they were excited to see that it was Kiana Barnes. And she was crying in the police car. She was like, all right, you got me. Fine. I'm sure that was a hard three months, girl. Like, who?
Fine. A few weeks later, she waived extradition in the Los Angeles federal court and was escorted back to Louisiana by the correctional officers. And of course, they added more time onto her sentence. But how much time you ask you think it'd be a significant amount? Oh, no, they only added four more years onto her sentence for the escape. And she's scheduled to be released in 2027. She'll be done with her sentence.
right around the corner. She'll only be 47 years old. All right, y'all. That's it.
She's gonna be out soon.
For free. Free money. Free money is out there. Just go get it by starting your podcast today. Streaming October 6th on Paramount+. First place I learned about death was a pet cemetery. Dead things buried in that land would come back. There's something else. Something's wrong with Timmy. He needs time to adjust. That's not Timmy. Something's fucking driven him.
Sometimes dead is better. Pet Sematary. Bloodlines. Rated R. Streaming only on Paramount+. Soon. All right, y'all. It's time for... Well, I'm not black. I'm okay. I ain't do it, but if I did, this is how I would have gotten away with it. I feel like I'm not gonna hold you like...
She's a slippery one. Like, I probably... She's a lucky one. She lucked up so many times. She did. Like...
I don't know. Just all those times of being homeless and you have the option of going home. Like people don't a lot of people don't have the option of going home. They don't have family that's going to welcome them with open arms. And maybe they weren't welcoming her with open arms and they just saw that she was in trouble and came in for help. But that's what you know, a lot of people choose to be homeless. I was watching a documentary on it. I was like, I just like it better. It's more freedom.
I guess everything's a choice. I want to live in a van. That would be a choice. I guess that's technically a choice to be homeless. But OK. But I don't know. She just came from such a background that everything was lined up for her to be successful. Like his dad, PJ's dad was talking about like she was well-spoken. You could tell that she was intelligent. Like you can you can tell that she grew up with something. You know what I'm saying? Like she knew the streets well, but you can tell that she wasn't.
born and bred on the streets. She was adapting. Right, but where did it come from? Like, because you, your parents and like your friends, like it had to, was it something deeper or was it just you resisted that? Maybe that was that bad crowd she was hanging out with. Sometimes you just gotta learn how to think. She just...
was a good thinker. That's how she got out of prison. They were like, I'm sure that she was escaped. She was planning her escape from the moment she got in there. And I'm sure that she was. And if you can get yourself to think like them, move like him. I ain't do it. But if I did, I wouldn't have been using his cards in Mexico. You've made it to Mexico. Take the win.
Yeah, I would have pulled out cash and just had cash in Mexico. You would have just pulled out all the cash in the beginning. And then hit the road, Jack. Cash is king. ATM's got limits. Or maybe when she was wiring it to herself, like, you need to wire it away from where you are. And you need to, like...
wait until the very last day before the wire transfer is up and then go get that shit. I ain't do it. But if I did, definitely wouldn't have blew up my spot by killing PJ after I'm already trying to lay low from Jimmy.
Like, and it really seems like they're, you know, like at least people are like, even Jimmy's brothers are like, it seems like they probably got into an argument. It sounds like PJ didn't do nothing. I mean, she was volatile, but like what y'all got to argue over? It's his house. You sleeping on the couch. Don't get no boundaries crossed. Well, in the Fatal Attraction episode that the maintenance man said that he actually saw them on the balcony and
And he was when he saw on the balcony, he was like they were fussing. And so, of course, he didn't know nothing until afterwards. But why? How are you going to fuss with somebody you stand with for free? But I think she had like a main character syndrome. Like it's giving narcissists. It's giving Carrie Bradshaw. It's giving I'm the star. And why isn't why? And everybody is just a day player. Yeah.
It's giving if it's it's my way or the highway. It's giving like all that. She just felt like she could just take a clean break and pop up and pop out. I think maybe her just being able to pop in and pop out as has been beneficial to her for a long time. But, you know, that that doesn't work. It doesn't work in the long term. The main character always gets taken down. There's always a demise. There's always a day no more. You know? Yeah. I think she just kept pushing her luck until she ran out on
But I mean, even still, did she run out? She'll be out at 47. See, I'm saying like she did these crimes so young and, you know, you got the maximum sentence. Great, because she she got charged with manslaughter and not murder. But you got the maximum sentence for killing two people. You still going to be out before the age of 50. You would have been out before the age of 45 if you weren't.
So impatient. Parole or no parole? No parole. She showed you what she was going to do. She got out. She got released. She got to walk out of jail. In that time of hiding out, she killed another person. For seemingly no reason whatsoever. You blew it. There is no way I would let her out in 2027. No way. Somebody said, don't talk to me. They read my review. I said, this is so cute. One says that they can do without the singing. Then I guess you can do without the show. It's just how my mind works.
For some reason, it's not letting me see the entire episode. The one that says I love it, but I could really do without the singing. Girl, you better get somewhere and sit down. All right. This review says awesome podcast. One of the best true crime podcasts. Thank you. No, thank you. All right. This one is from Butter. Butter.
butter it says I enjoy listening to your podcast I'm sad I'm all caught up so sorry for you
So sorry for you. See, it's just how my mind works. All right, y'all. That is actually the end of the show. If you want to keep up with Sisters Who Kill, you can email us at sisterswhokillpodcast at gmail.com. You can join the discussion group if you answer all the questions on Facebook. You can tweet us at sisterswhokill. You can find us on Instagram at sisterswhokillpod and on TikTok at sisterswhokillpodcast. You got anything else? Yes.
There will not be an episode next week. No. Mariah says she doesn't work on her birthday. Period. Don't forget to tell Mariah happy birthday. On point. But. I forgot that was happening. There will not be an episode next week. Yes. But besides that, talk to us. We talk back. Bye.