‘Burn in hell’! Mother of New Orleans woman who was strangled, shot and burned to death tells the killer to rot in prison as he’s sentenced to life – Troy Varnado killed Lindsay Nichols when she refused to have sex
‘I hope you burn in hell’ a Louisiana woman told the man convicted in the gruesome murder of her daughter she hopes he rots in jail before he is sentenced to life
Troy Varnado, 30, was sentenced to life on Thursday in New Orleans for the 2015 murder of mother-of-one Lindsay Nichols
Nichols, 31, was strangled, shot and stuffed into the trunk of her own car before they set the vehicle on fire in New Orleans East, on June 21, 2015
The 31-year-old victim’s mother, Jolene Dufrene, took to the witness stand during the sentencing and said her daughter’s 911 call would haunt her forever
Dufrene then addressed Varnado directly, saying: ‘I hope you burn in hell’
Varnado and his co-accused Thayon Sansom are accused of strangling, shooting and burning Nichols because he was angry she didn’t have sex with him
Sansom was sentenced to 40-years after pleading guilty to manslaughter
Troy Varnado, 30, was sentenced to life on Thursday for the gruesome 2015 death of 31-year-old mother Lindsay Nichols. After the verdict was read, the victim’s mom Jolene Dufrene told Varnado ‘I hope it haunts you too, but I doubt it will.’
The second male suspect convicted in the depraved slaying of a young mother from Des Allemands in New Orleans, Louisiana was sentenced to life in prison on Thursday after the victim’s mother gave an emotional statement in court.
Troy Varnado, 30, was sentenced to life on Thursday for the grisly 2015 death of 31-year-old mother Lindsay Nichols who was strangled, shot and burned to death in New Orleans East in June 2015, told her killer she wants him to ‘burn in hell’ right before he was sentenced to life in prison.
The victim’s mother, Jolene Dufrene, took to the witness stand during the sentencing and described how hearing the 911 recording of her daughter screaming for help would haunt her until ‘the day I die’, the Advocate reports.
Dufrene then addressed Varnado directly, saying: ‘I hope it haunts you too, but I doubt it will.’
‘My heart tells me your family did not raise you to be this evil person,’ Dufresne told him.
‘But I don’t have one ounce of compassion for you.
She later said she hoped he had a ‘miserable’ life in prison and ‘I hope you burn in hell’.
Varnado was found guilty by a jury in September of second-degree murder, second-degree kidnapping and obstruction of justice.
Lindsey Nichols was found shot to death in the trunk of a burned out car on June 21, 2015 in the New Orleans East area of Louisiana
![Jolene Dufrene [left] and her daughter, Lindsey Nichols 1](https://i0.wp.com/konniemoments.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Jolene-Dufrene-left-and-her-daughter-Lindsey-Nichols-1.png?resize=620%2C457&ssl=1)
Nichols’ mother Jolene Dufrene seen [left] with the victim [right], took to the witness stand during the sentencing and told Varnado to ‘burn in hell’ over her daughter’s murder
Police had said that Sansom kidnapped and murdered Nicholas after meeting her in a nightclub, then jumped in a getaway car owned by Varnado.Nichols, was later found shot to death in the trunk of her burning car on a deserted stretch of Michoud Boulevard early in the morning on Father’s Day in 2015.
Varnado’s co-defendant Thayon Sansom had earlier pled guilty to manslaughter and received a 40-year sentence under an agreement with prosecutors.
Police said their investigation led them to Sansom, who was seen talking to Nichols at a New Orleans East nightclub shortly before her death. Investigators said they found Sansom’s red gym shorts, along with his DNA, in the burning car.
Investigators said Thayon Sansom met Nichols at a New Orleans nightclub on the night of the slaying. Nichols, a bookkeeper for a Texas construction company who was in town visiting family, got Thayon Sansom’s phone number before leaving the club about 4 a.m.
A few minutes later, cellphone records show, she phoned him twice before calling 911 and telling a dispatcher that an irate man she’d met only once was standing outside her car aiming a gun at her.
The man’s voice became increasingly audible as the call continued, and he accused Nichols of giving his address to someone else. At one point, Nichols could be heard screaming as the man in the background demanded she open her mouth so he could shove a gun inside it.
Nichols’ body, bullet-riddled and burned, was found several hours later in the charred trunk of her vehicle after firefighters extinguished the car fire.
Witnesses later told investigators that Thayon Sansom had been seen standing over the open trunk of Nichols’ car at that location.
Co-accused, Thayon Sansom, [left] was earlier sentenced to 40-years after pleading guilty to manslaughter in Nichols’ death. The two men killed the mother-of-one because she refused to have sex with Varnado
Sansom told authorities that he had met Nichols at the club and spoken with her. But he denied involvement in her killing, saying he had gone home to his apartment after leaving the establishment.
Investigators searched through Trevone Sansom’s cellphone records and learned he had received a call from his brother “on the date and time of the homicide.” The brothers exchanged “several additional calls,” according to court filings, and “cell site information placed Trevone Sansom near his brother’s apartment and near the location where the decedent’s vehicle was located around the time of the homicide.”
Sansom was also charged with trying to have Varnado murdered to keep him from testifying, sending a letter with that request from his jail cell to an unknown contact. Police said in 2015 that they had intercepted a jailhouse letter from Sansom directing its unidentified recipient “to have a known witness executed.”
Sansom however was not charged in connection with the letter at the time.
Prosecutors had argued that Varnado killed Nichols, who has a nine-year-old son, because she refused to have sex with him on June 21, 2015..
Both Varnado and Nichols had been at Sansom’s apartment after going clubbing earlier in the night.
Varnado and Sansom had chased the victim out of the apartment before brutally beating her and stuffing her in the trunk of her own car.
They later shot her and set the car on fire on the side of the road.
A jury in September convicted Varnado, 30, of second-degree murder, second-degree kidnapping and obstruction of justice in the death of Lindsay Nichols.
Investigators said that a series of incriminating letters sent from jail by Sansom proved that the two men acted in concert. Cellphone location data also showed that Varnado was in the area of Downman Road and Chef Menteur Highway just before Nichols made a 911 call for help from there.
The mandatory punishment for second-degree murder in Louisiana is life without parole, so there was no suspense as to how Criminal District Court Judge Robin Pittman would sentence Varnado.
Why no 1st degree and death penalty? He was a predator. He had plenty of time to walk away while she called 911. He didn’t! That is premeditation. He belongs on death row.