Remembering Molly Elliott, murdered by Louisiana Death Row, inmate

Elliott’s mother and husband remind the 28 -year -old advertising executive as a loving woman who surrounded himself with animals and illuminated each room. His murderer will run in Louisiana.

It was the day before Thanksgiving, and Molly Elliott was preparing to leave on an appointment with her husband.

The 28 -year -old advertising executive left his office in the French neighborhood in New Orleans and went to his car. But instead of leading dinner, a parking assistant kidnapped Elliott, raped her and left her naked body along the East Pearl river, near Mississippi-Louisiana’s state line.

A duck hunter found her at 7:45 am the next day in Thanksgiving, 1996.

The murder surprised Elliott’s family and friends, who described her as a living, warm and loving woman.

“Molly was an appreciated person who lost motherhood, a promising and successful career, and a life in the country in the property we bought together,” said her husband, Andy Elliott, to USA Today in a statement on Thursday. “His was a life full of hope and promise for a beautiful future. Molly’s loss is a scar that we will carry forever, and will never heal.”

Now, almost 30 years later, Elliott’s murderer will become the First inmate in the history of Louisiana – And alone The fifth in the United States – Be executed by the controversial nitrogen gas method. Jessie Hoffman is scheduled to die on Tuesday despite the order of a judge last week stop execution In a ruling that was revoked by the Appeals Court of the 5th United States Circuit on Friday. The matter will be directed to the United States Supreme Court for Monday, promised Hoffman’s lawyer.

As Hoffman’s death approaches, USA Today is looking back in whom Elliott was and what happened to it.

Who was Molly Elliott?

Elliott, whose full name was Mary Margaret Murphy Elliott, grew up in Phoenix and got a higher position in a prestigious Los Angeles advertising agency before meeting her husband. The couple moved to the north of New Orleans to Covington, Louisiana, in 1994, according to a history archived in the Times-Picayune newspaper.

When he was a baby, his mother told the jury that his daughter “was this wonderful package of energy, laughs and joy.”

When he grew up, he had “little fabulous freckles on his face and the smile that would simply break your heart,” said Roxie Stouffer of Phoenix, according to judicial records.

“When Molly entered a room and smiled, the whole room illuminates,” Stouffer said. “It’s the most surprising to see.”

Elliott’s husband, Andy Elliott, told the jury that his wife “was a very intelligent person, a very warm person, a very reliable person.”

“I never met anyone who was a better person,” he said. “She was the type of person who generally sought good in anyone and would generally choose to trust someone instead of not trusting them.”

He said that she was fast with a laugh and that the couple used to love joking each other and enjoying their extensive country house surrounded by land and animals.

“She was a very loving person. I think that’s why we had all animals,” he said, according to judicial records. “It was just a way out for us to have more things to love and be close to us.”

In a 2013 Facebook post, Stauffer said he was thinking about his girl: “Wishing my sweet daughter Molly was here to celebrate her 45th birthday. I miss her a lot.”

What happened to Molly Elliott?

Elliott left the work in Peter A. Mayer Advertising Inc., around 5 pm on November 27, 1996, and walked to the Sheraton hotel garage, where he parked his car. She was supposed to meet her husband in her office at 5 pm so they could go out to dinner together, police told journalists at that time.

Hoffman, who was only 18 years old and had worked in the garage for about two weeks, kidnapped her at gunpoint and forced her to remove around $ 200 from an ATM, Prosecutors said. Even if Hoffman had let her go at that time, prosecutors said she would have been “the most horrible night of her life.”

“The ATM video tape shows the terror in Mrs. Elliott’s face as she withdrew money from her account, and you can see Hoffman standing next to her victim,” prosecutors said in the judicial records.

After obtaining the cash, Hoffman forced Elliott to lead to a remote area of St. Tammany’s parish while begging him not to hurt her, prosecutors said, citing Hoffman’s eventual confession to the crime. Hoffman then raped Elliott and forced her to leave the car and walk on a dirt road in an area used as a garbage dump, prosecutors said.

“His death march finally ended up on a small and improvised dock at the end of this road, where he was forced to kneel and shoot in the head, execution style,” they said. “Mrs. Elliott probably survived for a few minutes after she shot, but stayed at the dock, completely naked on a cold November night, to die.”

Her husband identified her body after they found her on Thanksgiving, prosecutors said.

Hoffman said at that time that he did not violate Elliott because she had “offered herself” and said she was killed after her weapon accidentally shot up. A jury rejected those arguments, condemned Hoffman of first -degree murder and recommended that they condemn him to death.

Hoffman now recognizes the crime and is deeply repentant, said his lawyer, Cecelia Kappel, to USA Today.

“He takes fully responsible for this very tragic and horrible crime,” he said. “Molly Elliott’s family lament a lot and wishes to have the opportunity before he dies of having a face -to -face conversation where he can apologize in person.”

Hoffman’s execution contributes the end to the 29 -year -old case

If the Hoffman execution continues on Tuesday, it will arrive 29 years after the murder of Elliott.

In his statement to USA Today, Andy Elliott said that after having spent so much time, “he has become indifferent to the death penalty in front of life in prison without the possibility of probation”, but that he is in favor of the execution if it is the easiest way to end “the uncertainty that these many years has accompanied.”

“But, his death will not provide closure,” he continued. “Anyone who has experienced a tragedy of this magnitude will recognize the absolute truth: Molly’s and my families and friends lost a great human being due to a series of meaningless crimes, the reasons why we still do not know. Pain is something that we have simply learned to live.”

He added that “all we want is the purpose, so we can stop fearing the tragedy reminder every time the issue of its execution brings together.”

“My sincere hope is to make the execution or travel its sentence to life imprisonment without probation, one or the other, as soon as possible,” he said. “So, we can put Molly’s brutal death in the past. That is not the closure, but it is the best we can expect.”

Contributing: Nick Penzenstadler, use today