Marlo Mike: Murders, Boosie Trial Testimony, and Life Sentence

Michael “Marlo Mike” Louding is a Baton Rouge man who is serving life in prison without the possibility of parole for the October 2009 murder of Terry Boyd. Louding was linked by authorities to six killings committed between February 2009 and April 2010, when he was still a teenager, and his name became nationally known because prosecutors alleged he carried out the Boyd hit on the orders of rapper Torrence “Lil Boosie” Hatch. Boyd’s murder is the only killing Louding was tried and convicted for. Hatch was acquitted.

Who He Is and How He Got the Name

Louding grew up in an overcrowded, impoverished household in a high-crime area of Baton Rouge. He was expelled from Westdale Middle School in the seventh grade for bringing a gun to campus, briefly attended a military-style program, and was then expelled again. His juvenile record ran from simple robbery and drug charges to handgun possession and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. He never held a legitimate job and later told the court he committed robberies to pay for a habit involving marijuana and “sizzurp,” the promethazine-and-codeine mixture.¹

The nickname came from television. “Marlo Mike” was taken from Marlo Stanfield, the ruthless drug lord on HBO’s The Wire.²

At fourteen, Louding began living with Hatch, whose rap career was then near its commercial peak. His mother later said she was worried about Hatch’s influence over her son.¹ Prosecutors would go further, calling Louding Hatch’s “henchman.” The defense pushed back, describing a teenager who had “run amok” outside anyone’s control.² The trial court itself acknowledged Louding may have been lured into a “gangsta lifestyle” through the association, acting out of “pride” and “loyalty.”

The Killings Attributed to Him

Over roughly fourteen months, police tied Louding to six homicides. A grand jury charged him with five counts of first-degree murder, one count of second-degree murder, and two counts of attempted first-degree murder.³ Because he was a juvenile at the time, the death penalty was off the table.

The victims were:

Chris “Nussie” Jackson, 33, a local rapper and co-owner of Club 225, shot in the head inside an America Street home on February 9, 2009. Gas station surveillance captured Louding watching Jackson shortly before the killing, and he later gave a videotaped confession.³⁴
Marcus “Gangsta” Thomas, 20, shot while driving his truck on West McKinley Street on April 25, 2009. Prosecutors described the killing as an “alleged Boosie hit,” claiming Thomas had disrespected Hatch.⁵
Terry Boyd, 35, shot on October 21, 2009. This is the case that went to trial.
Michael Smith, 19, found shot behind a Wisteria Street home on December 18, 2009. Louding faced a second-degree rather than first-degree charge in this case; the reason was not publicly explained.⁶
Charles “Nokie” Matthews, 37, and Darryl “Bleek” Milton, 25, shot inside a Cadillac on Monte Sano Avenue on April 1, 2010. Shell casings matched an earlier attempted murder of Matthews on February 22, 2010. Louding had known Milton’s family and attended Milton’s funeral, where he kissed the victim’s aunt.⁷⁶

The Terry Boyd Murder

Boyd was shot at about 12:40 a.m. at a home on Vermillion Drive. According to Louding’s own taped statements and later testimony from co-defendant Adrian Pittman, Hatch had received a letter from a state prison inmate named Lee Lucas warning that Boyd, recently released, intended to harm him. That night Louding, Hatch, Pittman, and Michael “Ghost” Judson met at Hatch’s home, where Hatch offered $25,000 for the killing. Pittman drove Louding and Judson to Vermillion Drive; Judson found Boyd inside the house; Louding fired through a window. Back at Hatch’s residence, Louding was paid $2,800.¹

Two weeks after the shooting, Louding got a tattoo across his stomach: an AK-47 with the words “Yo Boosie Who’s Next.” Prosecutors would later put that ink in front of a jury.²

The Confession and the Recantation at Boosie’s Trial

Police first picked Louding up on a charge involving the terrorizing of a young woman. Detectives questioned him from noon to 10:00 p.m., but the first seven or eight hours were not recorded. Detective Charles Johnson later testified there was “no real reason” for the gap.⁸ Days later, on tape, Louding described shooting Boyd through the window and getting paid $2,800 once phone calls confirmed the death. Investigators had no DNA and no eyewitnesses. The case rested on the confession, phone records placing Louding at Hatch’s studio before and after the killing, and the tattoo.²

In June 2010, Louding signed a cooperation agreement to testify against Hatch in exchange for a sentence of less than life.⁹ Hatch was indicted for first-degree murder the same month, and his trial opened in May 2012 at the 19th Judicial District Courthouse. It ran six days with 27 witnesses.¹⁰

On the stand, Louding blew up the state’s case. He told the jury he had never killed Boyd and that Hatch had never paid him to do it. He said his taped confession had been beaten out of him by “crooked cops” who threatened him with lethal injection and warned that his mother and stepfather would be jailed. He claimed detectives told him Hatch had put a $25,000 bounty on his head and that the safest thing to do was get Hatch off the street. He said he had followed a “script” fed to him over the phone by someone he called “Donkey.”¹¹²

Sergeant Chris Johnson denied ever threatening him.²¹⁰¹²

Conviction, Life Sentence, and Miller Hearing

With the cooperation deal dead, prosecutors put Louding on trial for Boyd’s murder. They still had the taped confession, the phone records, the tattoo, and a new witness: Adrian Pittman, who had pleaded guilty to manslaughter in November 2012 and agreed to testify.¹³ The state also brought in evidence of four other “ambush-type shootings,” arguing the pattern matched the Boyd killing.¹⁴ On April 26, 2013, a jury convicted him of first-degree murder.¹ The third co-defendant in the Boyd killing, Judson, never faced trial. He had been murdered in 2010 and was himself one of the victims in the string of killings attributed to Louding.

Louding was seventeen when Boyd was killed, so his sentencing fell under the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2012 decision in Miller v. Alabama, which requires an individualized hearing before a juvenile offender can receive life without parole. Judge Trudy White first imposed that sentence on July 9, 2013.¹⁵ After granting reconsideration, she held a second hearing on February 7, 2014, and heard mitigation testimony from clinical psychologist Dr. Frederic Sautter on trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder. She then reimposed life without parole, calling Louding “the worst of the worst” and “the rarest of the rare of juvenile offenders” and finding him incapable of rehabilitation.¹

Appeal and the Rest of the Charges

On June 5, 2015, the Louisiana First Circuit Court of Appeal affirmed the conviction and the life sentence, rejecting arguments about the proportionality of the sentence, the admission of the other-crimes evidence, and the handling of Louding’s confession, among others.¹⁴¹

After the Boyd conviction, prosecutors dropped the remaining murder charges against Louding, including those for Chris Jackson, Marcus Thomas, Michael Smith, and the double killing of Charles Matthews and Darryl Milton. Related charges against other defendants were also dismissed.⁵¹⁶ Louding remains incarcerated, serving life at hard labor without the possibility of parole for the murder of Terry Boyd.

1
Justia. State v. Louding, 2014 KA 1642
2
Rolling Stone. Inside Louisiana Rapper Lil Boosie’s Grisly Murder Trial
3
The Advocate. Officer: Louding Stalked Jackson
4
WAFB. Baton Rouge Rapper Found Shot to Death
5
The Advocate. After Murder Case Against Baton Rouge Rapper Boosie Falls Apart, DA Turns to Man With Multiple Murder Charges
6
WAFB. 7 Men Face Charges in Multiple Shootings
7
The Advocate. BR Teen Confessed
8
WAFB. Detective Who Questioned Marlo Mike Testifies in Lil Boosie Trial
9
New Haven Register. Lawyers Lay Out Lil Boosie Trial
10
WAFB. Lil Boosie Found Not Guilty
11
WAFB. Michael Marlo Mike Louding Taking the Stand in Boosie Trial
12
Billboard. Lil Boosie Found Not Guilty of Murder
13
The Advocate. Baton Rouge Man Who Admitted to Driving Getaway Car in Murder Sentenced to 20 Years
14
The Advocate. Appeals Court Upholds Judge’s Life Sentence for Marlo Mike Louding
15
WBRZ. Louding Sentenced to Life in Prison Without Parole
16
The Advocate. Man Admits to Plotting to Kill Two Men, Gets 20 Years in Prison