Jaren Lockhart Murder Case: Investigation, Trial, and Guilty Pleas

The Jaren Lockhart murder case ended with two life sentences for Terry Speaks and a 40-year prison term for Margaret Sanchez, the couple who lured the 22-year-old dancer from a Bourbon Street club in the early hours of June 6, 2012, killed her at their home in Kenner, Louisiana, and dismembered her body before scattering the remains along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The investigation took two years to produce arrests because the couple left almost no forensic evidence behind. What broke the case was their own words: coded emails, recorded jail calls, and a confession Speaks made to a cellmate in a New York federal prison.¹

The Night of the Killing

Lockhart was working at Temptations Gentlemen’s Club on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter. She was the mother of a three-year-old girl and, according to court testimony, needed money for rent and drugs.² Speaks and Sanchez came into the club that night and offered dancers $500 for a “private party,” looking specifically for someone willing to leave with them.¹ Lockhart agreed. She told coworkers she was going to “make rent.”³ Club surveillance video captured her leaving with the couple at approximately 2:04 a.m.

The three drove to the couple’s home at 2029 Connecticut Avenue in Kenner, near Louis Armstrong International Airport. Prosecutors established that Lockhart was killed there by a single stab wound to the chest from a single-edged knife. A forensic pathologist also documented blunt force trauma to her head and defensive injuries suggesting she had been restrained.¹

How the Remains Were Found and Identified

Speaks and Sanchez dismembered Lockhart’s body in the bathtub of the Connecticut Avenue home. According to forensic testimony, at least two instruments were used: a sharp knife and a saw or similar tool to cut through the neck bones. The couple removed her head, legs, and arms below the elbows, and deliberately cut away patches of skin bearing her distinctive tattoos to prevent identification.³ The forearm tattoos were never recovered.

The remains were placed in plastic bags, loaded into the trunk of Sanchez’s green 2001 Chevrolet Lumina, and driven to the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Authorities believe the couple threw the body parts from the Bay St. Louis bridge.⁴ On June 7, 2012, workers pumping sand onto a beach in Bay St. Louis discovered a human torso with a stab wound to the chest at about 5:30 p.m. Over the next two days, more body parts and clothing washed ashore along beaches in Bay St. Louis, Pass Christian, and Long Beach, Mississippi.⁵

Investigators had already compared Lockhart’s social media photographs to the remains and noticed that her tattoos matched the exact areas of skin the killers had cut away. On June 9, 2012, the Hancock County Sheriff’s Office identified the remains as Lockhart’s, confirmed through a tattoo on the back of her head that the killers had missed.⁶

Building a Case Without DNA

Surveillance footage from Temptations quickly identified Speaks and Sanchez as the last people seen with Lockhart. Investigators searched the Connecticut Avenue home on June 12, 2012, and noted a strong smell of bleach and chlorine in the master bathroom that was absent from other rooms. A cadaver dog alerted to the backyard fence, shrubbery, a trash can, and a burn pile. From the burn pile, investigators recovered burned leather straps resembling those on Lockhart’s shoes, a burned cell phone battery, a rusted zip tie, women’s underwear, and a hand towel.¹

The couple had cleaned meticulously. Authorities found no recoverable DNA evidence in the home or the car.⁷ Speaks and Sanchez were arrested on June 12, 2012, but Sanchez was released about two months later, and no charges were immediately filed. Speaks ended up in federal prison in Otisville, New York, serving a 32-month sentence for failing to register as a sex offender.⁸

The case stalled for roughly a year. Then two things broke it open. Prosecutors obtained recorded phone calls and emails from 2013 in which Speaks and Sanchez used coded language to discuss the killing. They referred to the night of the murder as “parvo,” the name of a disease their dog had once contracted, and described that night as an “intense experience” that created a bond they could never “walk away from.” When the relationship soured after Sanchez moved to Las Vegas and became engaged to another man, Speaks turned threatening. He wrote that he wanted to “tell everything,” warned that “acting crazy and blaming drugs won’t free you,” and told Sanchez he had kept clothing from their “spring cleaning” containing “bodily fluids from both Lockhart and Sanchez.”⁹

The second break came at Otisville. Speaks confessed to his cellmate, Christian Del Rosario, who was serving a life sentence. Del Rosario told investigators that Speaks described picking up Lockhart at the club, killing her, dismembering the body in a bathtub near an airport, and disposing of the parts in different locations. Speaks also described using Clorox, bleach, and Drano to clean the home and vehicle, and said he had told Sanchez to stay quiet because law enforcement had no evidence. A Kenner police detective later testified that Del Rosario provided specific details about the crime that had not been made public.¹

On August 14, 2014, a Jefferson Parish grand jury indicted both Speaks and Sanchez on charges of second-degree murder, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy to obstruct justice. Speaks faced an additional charge of failing to register as a sex offender.³ Sanchez, re-arrested in May 2014, was held on $750,000 bond.¹⁰

Who Terry Speaks Was

Speaks had a lengthy criminal history before the Lockhart killing. A former United States Marine, he operated under multiple aliases, including Allen Rice, Leslie Allen Rice, and Leslie Rice. In 2003, he was convicted in Surry County, North Carolina, of two counts of indecent liberties with a child involving a 14-year-old girl. He was initially sentenced to probation but violated it in 2006 and was sentenced to more than three years in prison.⁸ He was a registered sex offender charged with failing to register on at least three occasions.¹¹ In February 2012, just months before the murder, he was indicted federally for failing to register and later pleaded guilty, receiving the 32-month sentence that placed him at Otisville.

The Trial and Sentencing of Terry Speaks

Speaks’ trial ran from June 15 to 19, 2015, before Judge Stephen Grefer at the 24th Judicial District Court in Jefferson Parish. Assistant District Attorneys Doug Freese and Tommy Block prosecuted.² On the first day, Speaks fired his defense attorneys, arguing they were unprepared. Judge Grefer rejected that but granted Speaks’ request to represent himself, telling him he believed self-representation was a “bad idea.”¹² Speaks handled jury selection and the first day of testimony himself, then reversed course the next morning and asked that his attorneys be reappointed. The judge allowed it.¹³

Without DNA from the crime scene, prosecutors built their case on circumstantial and testimonial evidence, presenting more than 200 pieces of evidence over four days.¹⁴ The pillars were the club surveillance footage, the recorded jail calls and coded emails, and testimony from two of Speaks’ former Otisville cellmates who said Speaks had confessed to them. Defense attorney John Benz challenged the informants’ credibility, arguing both men were testifying in exchange for possible sentence reductions.¹⁵ The state had filed a formal notice acknowledging it would recommend leniency for Del Rosario if his testimony proved truthful.¹

On June 19, 2015, the jury found Speaks guilty of second-degree murder, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy to obstruct justice.¹⁶ On July 9, 2015, Judge Grefer sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murder conviction, 40 years for obstruction of justice, and 20 years for conspiracy, all to run concurrently. Grefer called it “the most horrendous crime he’s ever presided over.”¹³ On January 22, 2016, Grefer ruled Speaks a quadruple felony offender under Louisiana’s habitual offender law, which resulted in a second life sentence replacing the 40-year obstruction term.¹⁷

Speaks appealed. He also moved for a new trial, arguing the judge should have inquired into his mental health before allowing self-representation, and filed a handwritten motion for post-verdict acquittal claiming insufficient evidence. Both were denied. On December 7, 2016, the Louisiana Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal affirmed his convictions and sentences.¹

Margaret Sanchez’s Guilty Plea

Sanchez’s defense team moved to change venue, citing pretrial publicity. Judge Grefer denied the motion in December 2015 and set a trial date. Rather than go to trial, Sanchez entered a negotiated plea on June 20, 2016. She pleaded guilty to manslaughter, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy to obstruct justice. Judge Grefer gave her the maximum on each count: 40 years for manslaughter, 40 years for obstruction, and 20 years for conspiracy, all running concurrently.² The plea reduced her exposure from the original second-degree murder charge, which carried a mandatory life sentence, to a maximum of 40 years on the manslaughter count.

At sentencing, Donna Kulick, the guardian of Lockhart’s daughter, addressed the court. She testified that the girl “still cries over the loss of her mother,” that their family is “forever broken,” and that the killing would “have a huge impact on her for the rest of her life.”²

Where Things Stand

Terry Speaks is serving two life sentences at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. Margaret Sanchez received a concurrent 40-year term and had been held at the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center since her 2014 arrest.¹⁷

Friends have pushed against reducing Lockhart to the circumstances of her work or her death. Courtney Odor, a friend who appeared in a 2024 documentary about the case, remembered Lockhart as someone who “never met a stranger” and had a smile that would “light up a room.” She urged people to see Lockhart as more than her job: “She was a mother. She was a daughter. She was a sister.”¹⁸

1
Justia. State v. Speaks, No. 16-KA-163
2
Jefferson Parish District Attorney’s Office. Metairie Woman Pleads Guilty to Death, Dismemberment of Jaren Lockhart
3
CBS News. Grand Jury Indicts Couple in Louisiana Strippers Murder
4
GulfLive. Margaret Sanchez, Terry Speaks Indicted
5
WDSU. Jaren Lockhart Investigation Timeline
6
GulfLive. Grisly Gulf Coast: New Documentary Unravels the Shocking Murder of Jaren Lockhart
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NOLA.com. In Jaren Lockhart Case, Jailhouse Informants Say Terry Speaks Confessed
8
NOLA.com. Terry Speaks Gets 8 Years in Prison in Sex Case
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The Advocate. Prosecutors: Terry Speaks, Girlfriend Used Code to Discuss Lockhart Killing
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FOX 8 Live. Jaren Lockhart Murder Case Update
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WLOX. Murder Suspect Has Lengthy Criminal History
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WDSU. Man Accused of Dismembering Jaren Lockhart to Act as Own Attorney
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FOX 8 Live. Terry Speaks Sentenced to Life in Prison for Murder and Dismemberment of Jaren Lockhart
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NOLA.com. Prosecutors Rest Case in Jaren Lockhart Murder Trial
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WDSU. Terry Speaks Murder Trial Enters Fourth Day
16
NOLA.com. Jury Finds Terry Speaks Guilty in Killing of Bourbon Street Dancer
17
WGNO. Margaret Sanchez Pleads Guilty to Killing Jaren Lockhart
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WDSU. Lockhart Case to Go Before District Attorney