March 19, 2025

First Execution in Louisiana Since 2010 Was For a Rape and Murder in St. Tammany Parish

Attorney General Liz Murrill has reported on the execution of convicted rapist and murderer Jessie Hoffman on Tuesday (March 18, 2025) at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. 

"Louisiana has successfully used nitrogen hypoxia to carry out the execution of Jessie Hoffman. Hoffman was convicted and sentenced to death for the brutal and merciless rape and murder of 28-year-old Molly Elliott in 1996.” – Attorney General Liz Murrill (in part) Read the full press release here

On the night before Thanksgiving Day in 1996, Jessie Hoffman kidnapped, robbed, and raped Mary “Molly” Elliott. Hoffman kidnapped Molly at gunpoint and drove her to an ATM, where he forced her to withdraw $200 and robbed her. Hoffman subsequently raped Molly in the backseat of her own car in a remote area of St. Tammany Parish. He then marched her—still naked— “down a dirt path which was overgrown with vegetation and in an area full of trash used as a dump.” “Her death march ultimately ended at a small, makeshift dock” on Middle Pearl River, where Hoffman “forced [her] to kneel” and “shot [her] in the head, execution style.” Molly “likely survived for a few minutes after being shot.” But she was not discovered until Thanksgiving Day, when a duck hunter came across her naked body on the dock. For his part, Hoffman “soon thereafter” took his girlfriend shopping with Molly’s money. 

A jury convicted Hoffman of first-degree murder, and he was sentenced to death. His direct appeal was litigated to finality. And he exhausted all of his state and federal post-conviction remedies. 

See also, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessie_Hoffman_Jr.

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