Brandon Nodier killed his boss, Dorothy Thompson, in 1985, but wasn’t arrested for the crime until decades later

NEED TO KNOW

• Brandon Nodier worked as a groundsman at Dorothy Lou Thompson’s Louisiana pet cemetery in the 1980s
• In 1985, he killed Thompson following a property dispute, but wasn’t arrested for her death until decades later
• The killing is the subject of the new HBO docuseries The Pet Cemetery Murders: A Ghost Story

Dorothy Lou Thompson’s Louisiana pet cemetery is shrouded in mystery, controversy and superstition, but one thing is certain: Brandon Nodier is guilty of her death.

Thompson’s body was found in the Mississippi River in May 1985, but her death would remain unsolved for decades until two key witnesses came forward with information about her killing. Police eventually pieced old records and new evidence together and narrowed in on Nodier as the prime suspect. He was indicted on a charge of second-degree murder in 2012 and pleaded guilty to manslaughter as part of a plea agreement.

“It didn’t have to end that way,” Patricia Newman, Thompson’s friend, said of her tragic death in an interview for the HBO docuseries The Pet Cemetery Murders: A Ghost Story. “I was devastated.”

So why did Nodier kill Thompson and what happened to him after he pleaded guilty? Here’s everything to know about Brandon Nodier.

Who is Brandon Nodier?

Brandon Nodier was a live-in groundsman at Dorothy Lou Thompson’s pet cemetery. In The Pet Cemetery Murders, neighbors Cindy and Robert Graf said Nodier moved into Thompson’s home as the cemetery handyman in the 1980s, overseeing burials and property maintenance. However, Robert described Nodier as a conman and recalled him making improper repairs, if he made any attempt to address property issues at all.

Melissa Jeffirs, another neighbor, characterized Nodier as standoffish and unfriendly. “The few interactions that I had with Brandon wasn’t nice,” Jeffirs recalled. “[He and his wife Bonnie] wasn’t friendly; they didn’t stop and talk. They were kinda on their own.”

Jeffirs added, “You could hear fights going on. He would be yelling at [their] children. He was just not a nice guy.”

Thompson’s friend Patricia Newman gave a similarly negative account of Nodier, recollecting his presence at the cemetery as chaotic and disruptive. “Brandon brought a lot of ruckus, and he took some of the peace from the pet cemetery.”

What did Brandon Nodier do?

According to James Tregler, a former acquaintance of Nodier and eyewitness to Thompson’s death, he went to Thompson’s property after a late-night drive with Nodier one evening in 1985, though it wasn’t the first time he had visited the cemetery or met Thompson. When Thompson was startled by Tregler’s presence outside her house, Nodier went inside and reprimanded her by choking her until she passed out, he recalled in The Pet Cemetery Murders.

Tregler entered the home while Nodier was strangling Thompson, and when she came back to consciousness, Nodier told Tregler to get out of the house and began strangling Thompson again. Moments later, Tregler was sitting in Nodier’s truck, watching him carry Thompson’s lifeless body out of the house. Nodier had wrapped an extension cord around her neck, put a bag over her head, swaddled her body in a sheet and proceeded to wrap chains around her form. He put her remains in the truck and drove to a local ferry landing, with Tregler still in the vehicle, and dumped Thompson’s body in the Mississippi River.

Fishermen discovered Thompson’s body on May 2, 1985. She was wrapped in chains and had a plastic bag and wire around her neck, according to Fox8.

As for why Tregler didn’t help Thompson, he said that he feared Nodier would kill him, too. “I should have stopped it. I should have stopped Brandon when Dorothy took that big deep breath,” he said in the documentary. “But I was just overcome with fear. I’d have been dead, too, let’s be honest here. Brandon wouldn’t have hesitated. Brandon’s a scary man. But I didn’t realize he was evil like that.”

What was Brandon Nodier’s motive for killing Thompson?

Once police began reinvestigating Nodier as a suspect, they discovered he and his wife had been in a lawsuit with Thompson over possession of the pet cemetery property.

Brandon had convinced Thompson to sell the land to Bonnie, and the trio had a legal agreement that Bonnie would pay $20,000 for the property in $50 monthly installments, according to The Pet Cemetery Murders. Additionally, Thompson would be allowed to live on the grounds for the rest of her life. When the Nodiers stopped making the monthly payments to Thompson, she filed a lawsuit against them with her friend Patricia Newman’s help.

The relationship deteriorated further, and a temporary restraining order was granted to Thompson against the Nodiers. The couple were set to be evicted from the property, pending the results of the lawsuit. Ten days before the case was scheduled to go to trial, however, Thompson disappeared

How did police discover Brandon Nodier killing Dorothy Lou Thompson?

Following the killing, Nodier was brought in for questioning by the Louisiana state police. While he initially nodded and verbally responded “Uh-huh” when confronted by the authorities with evidence that he had killed Thompson, he eventually began denying any involvement in her death, per the docuseries. He contacted his attorney after three hours of unsupervised questioning, and without a confession or physical evidence, the momentum toward an arrest stalled.

Thompson’s death would remain unsolved for decades until an acquaintance of Nodier’s named Jose Cruz came forward with allegations that the handyman had killed Thompson in 2009, prompting investigators to reopen the case. Cruz contacted St. Bernard Parish authorities with information about Thompson’s death after he alleged her ghost was visiting him. In addition to sharing detailed accounts of her spirit appearing in his home and appealing to him for help seeking justice, Cruz confessed that Nodier told him decades ago that he killed Thompson.

“I was told right after it was done, but being from the environment I was raised, I didn’t want to snitch or anything like that,” Cruz told police in 2009, according to footage included in The Pet Cemetery Murders. “[Nodier] told me personally that he had the old lady from the pet cemetery in the back of his pickup truck.”

“I can’t live with it anymore,” Cruz added. “I just can’t live with this. Something has to be done about this; it can’t go unpunished. It’s just too heinous of a crime.”

Tregler also reached out to St. Bernard Parish police in 2012 after claiming to have had an encounter with Thompson’s spirit while he was serving time in prison for unrelated crimes.

When was Brandon Nodier indicted for murder and where is he now?

The Nodiers continued living in Thompson’s home for years after her death. Newman, who was named executor of Thompson’s estate, continued pursuing the lawsuit against the Nodiers, and her lawyers eventually had them removed from the property. The couple relocated to New Orleans.

In 2012, Nodier was indicted on a charge of second-degree murder, per Reuters. The case never went to trial, however, as Nodier pleaded guilty to manslaughter as part of a plea agreement. He was subsequently sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2014, per Fox8.

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