Billy Joe Harris, a 29-year-old Black man, was found murdered in Shreveport, Louisiana, on the morning of July 19, 1985, inside the Cedar Grove home he shared with Vivian Chaney. A relative who arrived early discovered two young girls alive but shaken and then found bodies in separate rooms. Harris was in the front bedroom: he had been shot twice in the left side of the head through a pillow, then shot twice in the chest, and finally had his throat cut and bled out. His hands were tied behind his back with shoelaces in a handcuff-style ligature, his ankles were bound, and a telephone cord cinched his hands to his ankles; he was left fully clothed on the bed.

Investigators described the attack as a single intruder’s brutal, controlled sweep through the residence during the overnight hours, and the other victims were killed in a similar pattern of gunfire, bindings, cutting, and drowning or strangulation that suggested escalation and a signature. Latent palm prints on the bathtub where Vivian Chaney was found were later matched to Nathaniel Robert Code Jr., and witnesses placed Code near the home and later covered in blood carrying items he tried to sell.

Did anyone who knew Billy Joe Harris or the Cedar Grove neighborhood in 1985 notice anyone or anything unusual that night?