Cold Case Files: Murder in the Bayou

When Cochise didn't come home,

yeah, we know something was wrong.

- In Bayou Pigeon there's total darkness.

We got some places that you couldn't see your hand

in front of your face.

- He reached to turn on that light.

When he did, pow.

- When they told us that he made a confession.

That's enough evidence for me.

- I think he loved the challenge of, you can't catch me.

- We did everything that we possibly can to find

Cochise, and it never happened.

Somebody called and says,

"Look, there's a barrel washed up in the bayou."

After all these years we thinking,

oh, (bleep), this may be the one.

- I still live on the, the land

that I was born and raised on.

I've never had any other address in my life and that's

been 64 years.

What I love about living here at Plaquemine is

we don't have that big city feel.

You know what I mean?

When you go further south,

you'll notice where the whole landscape changes.

It's more woods, more water.

This can be a pretty dangerous area.

If you want to lose somebody, come to us.

In Bayou Pigeon, there's no street lights, you know,

it's just total darkness.

We got some places that you couldn't see your hand

in front of your face.

So you very well could come up missing,

and it would take days, months, you know,

before you were located, if at all located.

But murder, it's not an everyday occurrence here,

so we take it very serious,

and we don't stop until we find 'em.

- It's a gray, rainy day in Iberville Parish.

29 year old Curtis Cochise Smith is spending

a quiet day with family.

- It was a normal day. I was at home.

Cochise was living with me and my parents.

- Cochise was in the process of trying to acquire

some diapers for his baby,

and he had contacted his boss and he was trying to get

some money to go make sure he could make

that run for the baby.

- Cochise was doing odd jobs, you know that type of work.

Nothing where he was gonna make any money from it.

- He did say he got $10 to get some diapers for the baby.

- The grocery store is less than a mile away,

but one hour later, Cochise still hasn't returned.

When Cochise didn't come home,

yeah, we know something was wrong.

Cochise did not stay away from home.

Cochise was gonna come home to see his only child.

We went out looking for Cochise.

We checked where my mom house was.

We checked in the cane field and stuff like that.

But, turned up nothing.

Three days later my mother reported

that Curtis was missing.

- Cochise and his siblings grow up

in a loving home.

Cochise was my older brother.

My mom and dad had 10 kids in the house,

6 boys and 4 girls.

Cochise was the fourth boy.

I'm the baby girl.

So, we are about like three years apart.

I could remember back when I first got my bike

and a little girl had ran into my bike, and I told her,

"You ran into my bike."

So, Cochise got off of his bike

and took the little girl bike and threw it in the ditch.

So Cochise, he was very protective of me.

Even into his 20s,

Cochise decides to stay close to home on the bayou.

At 27, a new woman enters his life.

Cochise and Lydia,

they met because me and Lydia mama was friends.

Lydia was a good girl.

She was a good sweet girl.

His world was Lydia.

Cochise never let Lydia go without anything.

It don't matter how he got it, he got it for her.

That was her first boyfriend.

So you know when your first love, that is a bond.

By August of 1990,

Cochise is working as a roofer

as he and Lydia welcome a son, Gerald, into the world.

When she had the child,

Cochise would take the baby for a walk in a stroller.

Cochise would feed the baby.

Cochise would change the baby.

That was Cochise's heart.

- I've lived my whole life in Iberville Parish.

My daddy was always a public servant.

He worked as a detective.

He worked as a chief deputy.

Louisiana's known for three of the top murder cities

in the United States.

Iberville is not one of 'em,

but you could get yourself in some trouble.

As soon as the family said,

"No, there's something's really wrong,"

we went out to try to track his, his last day.

On March 4th, the sheriff's office reached

back out to the family.

- The first thing you wanna do is get the family members.

Nobody knows that person better than a family member.

You wanna know who they hang out with.

You want to know the clothing they wear,

you know, if there's any mental issues going on with them.

When Cochise was last seen, he was wearing gray sweatpants,

a white pullover shirt,

and he also had on a blue jacket,

and he had an umbrella with him,

because it was raining that night.

You go looking back at the history,

is there anybody recently or within the past made

any threats toward him?

- Investigators also speak directly

to Cochise's girlfriend, Lydia.

- When somebody comes up missing,

you certainly wanna speak to their significant other,

because anything's possible.

Detectives meet

with the young mother in her home.

She was crying, saying

her baby is gonna grow up without her daddy.

- And Lydia said she received a phone call from him,

but that phone call he made was made from a payphone,

which was located outside of a store called

National Food Store.

That's where he went to go buy the items for the kid,

'cause back in the early '90s,

there was no cellphones in this area.

But, there was a payphone,

and I remember it specifically,

'cause I've used that phone myself in the early '90s.

Lydia tells police

that there was nothing unusual about the phone call.

Investigators, however, learn about another call

from Cochise.

- They needed to know, did somebody want to hurt him?

- Cochise made a phone call to my mama

from the grocery store.

Cochise told that family,

if anything ever happened to me,

go find Tommy.

- The family already had informed us

that Cochise had told them,

"If something happens to me, y'all need to know

Tommy was the one who did it."

- Tommy Francise come from a very wealthy family.

Tommy had family that were elected officials.

I knew him, knew him well.

I didn't go to school with him,

but I remember Tommy Francise was very athletic in running.

Tommy still, to this day, holds a record

at Louisiana State University for track, running the mile.

- Once he got into the real world and was working,

he built homes, he built different homes.

Tommy Francise built my first home.

- Tommy also owned a ice business,

but Tommy was very manipulative, very conniving.

He could sell, you know, a burning man gas.

You know, just the type of person he was.

But Tommy also had some problems with domestic violence.

Tommy knew who he could pick on.

Tommy picked out a certain group of people

that he would control and and threaten and abuse.

Tommy puts Cochise to work just doing odd jobs.

You know, just blue collar work.

Just get out there and with a shovel and dig a ditch.

Cochise's family knew that Tommy could be a volatile person.

- The sheriff's office learned that Cochise had been making

some calls trying to get some funds.

And we speculated that he had contacted his boss,

Tommy Francise.

And he was trying to get some money to go make that run

for the baby.

The trail left us with Cochise missing

and Tommy Francise, one of the last people that saw him.

That's when they really said,

"Holy (bleep),

we need to dig into this a little further."

- On March 5th, the sheriff's office decided