Marlo Mike’s Baton Rouge Killing Spree and Life Sentence

Michael “Marlo Mike” Louding was a Baton Rouge teenager accused of carrying out a killing spree of six homicides across roughly fourteen months in 2009 and 2010, allegedly working as a hitman for rapper Torrence “Lil Boosie” Hatch. He was seventeen when the killings began. Today he is serving life in prison without parole for one of those murders, the shooting death of Terry Boyd, while the five other homicide charges against him were eventually dismissed. Louding took his street name from Marlo Stanfield, the drug kingpin on HBO’s The Wire.

The Six Killings He Was Charged With

Between February 2009 and April 2010, prosecutors in East Baton Rouge Parish charged Louding with six murders. When the indictments came down in mid-2010, he faced five counts of first-degree murder, one count of second-degree murder, and two counts of attempted first-degree murder.¹

Chris “Nussie” Jackson (February 9, 2009). Jackson was a local rapper known for diss tracks aimed at Lil Boosie. Surveillance video from a Shell station at North 27th and Florida caught Louding inside the store closely following Jackson between about 10:50 and 11:10 p.m. Jackson was found dead inside a residence on America Street at 11:24 p.m. Louding later told police he had been paid for the killing and expected a $15,000 payoff, allegedly from Hatch. Michael “Ghost” Judson was identified as an accomplice who allegedly hoisted Louding on his shoulders during the shooting.¹²
Marcus Thomas (April 25, 2009). Thomas, twenty, was shot while driving his SUV on West McKinley Street. Louding and co-defendant Jared Williams were both indicted for first-degree murder.³
Terry Boyd (October 21, 2009). Boyd, thirty-five, was killed around 12:30 a.m. when six 9 mm rounds were fired through the front window of a house on Vermilion Drive. This is the only case that produced a conviction.⁴
Michael Smith (2009). Louding was charged with second-degree murder, the only non-first-degree count in the series.⁵
Michael “Ghost” Judson (January 2010). The alleged accomplice from the Jackson killing was himself murdered. His death was attributed to Louding, though it remained unsolved as a formal matter.⁶
Charles “Nokie” Matthews and Darryl “Bleek” Milton (April 1, 2010). Matthews, thirty-seven, and Milton, twenty-five, were shot and killed while sitting in a Cadillac on Monte Sano Avenue. Milton’s family later said Louding had been close with them, attended the funeral, and tried to comfort them afterward.³

The Lil Boosie Connection

The case drew national attention because of its ties to Torrence “Lil Boosie” Hatch, a platinum-selling Baton Rouge rapper. In June 2010, a grand jury indicted both Hatch and Louding in the Terry Boyd murder. Prosecutors alleged Hatch had ordered the killing as a $2,800 murder-for-hire hit after hearing that Boyd intended to rob or assault him, and had also put up a $25,000 bounty for the death of rival rapper Nussie Jackson.⁴⁶

The prosecution’s case against Hatch rested on Louding’s recorded confession, cell phone records placing Louding at Hatch’s studio in the hours before and after the shooting, a tattoo Louding got two weeks after the murder depicting an AK-47 with the words “Yo Boosie. Who’s Next?”, and lyrics from two Hatch songs called “187” and “Bodybag” that prosecutors said were recorded the night Boyd died.⁴

Then, at Hatch’s trial in May 2012, Louding recanted from the witness stand. “I never killed Terry Boyd,” he told the jury, claiming police had coerced his confession by threatening him and his family.⁷ Hatch’s attorneys argued Louding had acted as a “rogue gunman” who had “run amok,” possibly alongside others like Judson and Adrian Pittman, who had their own grudges against Boyd. The defense also noted that Boyd had recently robbed Judson of $720, giving others a motive independent of Hatch.⁴ The jury acquitted Hatch of first-degree murder.⁸ Hatch was later paroled in March 2014 after serving fifty-two months on unrelated drug charges.⁶

Why Only One Case Went to Trial

Louding’s recantation didn’t just cost the state its case against Hatch. It gutted the prosecution’s plans across the entire cluster of killings. District Attorney Hillar Moore III later put it plainly: the office had built its cases around Louding as a cooperating witness. “We didn’t have any other baskets.”⁶

After securing Louding’s conviction in the Boyd case, prosecutors dropped the remaining murder counts against him, including the first-degree charges tied to Jackson, Marcus Thomas, and the Matthews-Milton double homicide. Charges against co-defendants Jared Williams and Johnathan Rogers were dismissed as well, and several other co-defendants took plea deals in the fifteen- to twenty-year range.⁶

Trial and Life Sentence for the Boyd Murder

Even after the recantation, prosecutors still had Louding’s original recorded confession and the corroborating physical evidence to use against him personally. His trial for the Boyd killing opened in April 2013 in the 19th Judicial District Court before Judge Trudy White. Jurors heard the cell phone records tracking his movements from Hatch’s studio to the murder scene and back, the confession tape, and the tattoo evidence.⁹

On April 26, 2013, the jury convicted Louding of first-degree murder.¹⁰ On July 9, 2013, Judge White sentenced him to life in prison without parole, probation, or suspension of sentence. At sentencing, White called Louding a “cold-blooded hit man” who had been “infected” by Hatch and sent on a “murder mission.”¹¹

Adrian Pittman, the alleged getaway driver in the Boyd killing, pleaded guilty to manslaughter, testified against Louding, and received a twenty-year sentence.⁶

Juvenile Resentencing and Appeal

Because Louding was seventeen when Boyd was killed, his sentence ran into the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2012 ruling in Miller v. Alabama, which held that mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juveniles violate the Eighth Amendment. On February 7, 2014, the trial court resentenced him after an individualized hearing required by Miller and by Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure article 878.1.¹²

At that hearing, the defense presented Dr. Frederic Sautter, a clinical psychologist who diagnosed Louding with PTSD and depression. The defense also tried to call mitigation specialist Juliet Yackel, but Judge White barred her testimony after ruling she lacked the clinical expertise to opine on Louding’s mental state or capacity for rehabilitation. After reviewing his criminal history, family background, social history, and the circumstances of the crime, White concluded he was “the worst of the worst” and reimposed life without parole.¹²

On June 5, 2015, the Louisiana First Circuit Court of Appeal affirmed both the conviction and the sentence. The panel held that Miller does not categorically bar life without parole for juvenile offenders but requires courts to weigh youth as a mitigating factor, which the trial court had done, and found no abuse of discretion.¹³

Louding remains incarcerated under a life sentence without the possibility of parole for the murder of Terry Boyd. The other five homicide cases attributed to him were never tried.

1
The Advocate. Officer: Louding Stalked Jackson
2
WAFB. Man Accused of Killing Rapper Back in Court
3
WAFB. 7 Men Face Charges in Multiple Shootings
4
Rolling Stone. Inside Louisiana Rapper Lil Boosie’s Grisly Murder Trial
5
WAFB. 17-Year-Old Accused of Murder Pleads Not Guilty
6
The Advocate. After Murder Case Against Baton Rouge Rapper Boosie Falls Apart, DA Turns to Man With
7
WAFB. Michael ‘Marlo Mike’ Louding Taking the Stand in Boosie Trial
8
BET. More Troubles for Lil Boosie’s Alleged Triggerman
9
WAFB. Opening Statements Begin for First Murder Trial of Marlo Mike
10
WAFB. Marlo Mike Sentenced to Life in Prison
11
WBRZ. Louding Sentenced to Life in Prison Without Parole
12
Justia. State of Louisiana v. Michael Louding, No. 2014 KA 1642
13
The Advocate. Appeals Court Upholds Judge’s Life Sentence for Marlo Mike Louding