Bio 

Leslie Lowenfield was born in 1955 in Guyana. He later moved to Canada and came to the United States in 1975 on a work permit. By the early 1980s, he was living in Louisiana and worked as a welder. Lowenfield had been in a relationship with Sheila Thomas, a Jefferson Parish sheriff’s deputy. The two had lived together before the relationship ended. Prosecutors later said that Lowenfield was jealous and angry after Thomas left him.

Before the murders, Lowenfield and Thomas’s relationship had become unstable. Prosecutors stated that earlier in the summer of 1982, Lowenfield set the house on fire, after which Thomas moved out. The breakup and Lowenfield’s jealousy toward Carl Osborne became the main known motives behind the killings.

Lowenfield later denied committing the murders and claimed he had been in Jacksonville, Florida, when the killings happened. He also refused to allow his lawyers to use insanity as a defense, even though later appeals raised questions about his mental health.

Murder Story

The murders happened on August 30, 1982, in Marrero, Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, a suburb of New Orleans. The victims were gathered inside the home when Leslie Lowenfield entered and opened fire. Prosecutors said most of the victims were eating boiled crabs at a kitchen table when the shooting began.

When police arrived, they found the bodies of Owen Griffin, Myrtle Griffin, Sheila Thomas, Shantell Osborne, and Carl Osborne inside the home. The victims were found in the living area with multiple gunshot wounds. Court records state that all five victims had been shot in the head.

The prosecution argued that Lowenfield killed the victims out of jealousy and anger after his relationship with Sheila Thomas ended. They said he was jealous of Carl Osborne, the father of Shantell Osborne. Lowenfield denied guilt and claimed that he was in Florida at the time of the murders.

Lowenfield was found competent to stand trial in 1984. He refused to let his attorneys present an insanity defense. The jury convicted him of three counts of first-degree murder and two counts of manslaughter. He received three death sentences for the first-degree murder convictions.

His case later reached the United States Supreme Court. In 1988, the Court rejected his challenge to Louisiana’s capital sentencing process and upheld the death sentence. The ruling became known as Lowenfield v. Phelps.

In his final appeals, Lowenfield’s lawyers argued that he had paranoid schizophrenia and did not fully understand why he was being executed. Those appeals failed. The execution went forward after the United States Supreme Court denied a final stay request.

Leslie Lowenfield was executed in Louisiana’s electric chair on April 13, 1988. He denied guilt to the end. He was pronounced dead shortly after midnight.