Lights! Cameras! Justice!
That’s the cry as Crime TV and the Caddo Parish criminal justice system meet, in a documentary set to broadcast later this year.
A cable network plans to bring a successful murder trial, the 2013 prosecution of Linda Kate Passaniti, convicted in the 2010 slaying of her stepfather, 73-year-old Keithville farmer Ernest Luttrell, to viewers across the world.
The case will be part of the Investigation Discovery Channel series “Deadly Women.”
A film crew, consisting of interviewer/producer Catherine Ledingham, videographer Peter Heap and sound engineer Bronson Wilson, visited Shreveport in late February. Their groundwork included several hours interviewing Laura Wingate Fulco, now first assistant district attorney but at the time head prosecutor with Section II and lead prosecutor in the case.
Passaniti, 61, was found guilty May 5, 2013, on all five counts against her in the murder-for-hire of Luttrell. She was sentenced to life in prison as principal to second-degree murder, plus 30 years hard labor for conspiracy to commit second-degree murder, and another 10 years on each of three forgery convictions. Caddo District Judge John Mosely ordered all sentences to be served consecutively.
Passaniti is the daughter of Luttrell’s common law companion, Loretta Luttrell, who also had been charged in the case but was found incompetent to stand trial.
Two co-conspirators, Tina Marie Vanmoerkerque, 49, and Erick Crain, 32, pleaded guilty to participation in the murder.
The series, now in its ninth season, covers celebrated murder trials in which the perpetrators were female. Killers profiled have ranged from such historic figures as Lizzie Borden and Caril Fugate to modern deadlies Karla Faye Tucker and Aileen Wuornos.
Past episodes can be viewed at the website http://www.investigationdiscovery.com/tv-shows/deadly-women/
Ledingham said it will be several months, perhaps as late as the end of the year, before the show will be released.
This isn’t Fulco’s first time to participate in a true crime documentary about this celebrated trial. She previously has been interviewed on it by the Oxygen Channel in connection with its “Snapped” series, now in its 18th season.
“I won’t forget it,” Fulco says of the “Snapped” episode, which continues to be broadcast. “It just ran two weeks ago. And it’s international. It airs in Europe.”