Just wondering how many of you remember this one and might have any insight into her death which occurred in a Brazos County jail cell.

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Sylvia Landry, The Baton Rouge Madam

Sylvia Landry opened three escort services: Dial-a-Date, Cosmopolitan and Charlie's Angels. As her client list expanded, Landry’s reputation gained her notoriety and attention in the Bayou state. By 1994, she was earning half a million dollars a year in net profits, with her client list rumoured to reach as high up as the Governor's mansion and perhaps even as far as Washington, DC.

Within two years, Landry's high-profile business ventures landed her in jail. She was arrested and charged with pandering and enticing women into prostitution, including the transportation of minors over state lines for these purposes. But Sylvia Landry was confident that her high-profile clients would pull the necessary strings to keep her out of jail.

Under pressure from authorities, a few of Landry's girls testified against her and her antagonistic attitude certainly didn't help matters. Through it all, Landry refused to turn over her client list. Some in Baton Rouge admired her defiance whilst others pushed for a local ordinance banning escort services. The case seemed to rip the city down the middle.

Landry was convicted on all counts and sentenced to six years in federal prison. She pleaded no contest to the state charges and was sent to serve her sentence in Texas. However, she escaped as soon as she arrived at the federal pen in Bryan, Texas. Three days later, Landry was apprehended less than three miles from the prison.


Whilst waiting for the transfer of Landry to a maximum security facility in Kansas, authorities found the Baton Rouge Madame dead in her jail cell, hanging from a homemade noose fashioned out of a bed sheet and attached to the smoke detector fixture in her cell.

Landry's death was officially ruled a suicide, but around Baton Rouge, many people thought she had been murdered at the behest of some of her more powerful clients. As none of her employees or her clients were ever prosecuted, many Baton Rouge residents still claim that Sylvia Landry was the only victim in an otherwise victimless crime.

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[This message has been edited by DeanTravers (edited 2/3/2010 10:05a).]

Suicide. She in fact hung herself in the Brazos County Jail. The suicide was also investigated by the Texas Rangers and the Feds as well as by BCSO.

1. Those were the days that the Federal lockup in Bryan did not have a fence.

2. Did she die in Brazos County Jail or was it in the Fed?

3. Wasn't she also tied to a guy in Baton Rouge that was flying guns to Nicaragua and freelancing by flying drugs back to the US (Mena Arkansas)? The guy ended up dead too.

That federal prison still has no gate, right?

WOW - what a sad, but very unusual story. Wonder how she ended up in Bryan?

i remember this story and how fishy it seemed.

but they just couldnt seem to tie any foul play to it.

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WOW - what a sad, but very unusual story. Wonder how she ended up in Bryan?

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Seems to me she ended up dead!

Badoom Boom!



[This message has been edited by Allonym (edited 2/4/2010 9:36a).]

I don't remember this, but the date of her death must have been 1995.

Advocate, The (Baton Rouge, LA) - August 9, 1995
Deceased Name: Landry said full of contradictions
During her heyday as a prostitute, Sylvia Landry displayed Bibles on her coffee table, decorated her walls with pictures of Jesus and prayed often, said a woman who worked for her.
Landry also rode a boat to a remote church on a local river to light holy candles, said the woman, who asked not to be identified.
"She felt that she was religious and close to God. She loved God. She always prayed," said the woman, who worked for Landry during the last year she ran escort businesses as fronts for prostitution.
Landry, 39, used bed sheets to hang herself Sunday in her cell in the Brazos County Jail in Bryan in southeast Texas.
Just the day before, she had been recaptured after walking away from a federal minimum security prison in Bryan.
Her family is burying her today.
Carvel Sims, one of Landry's attorneys, said Landry's suicide was an act of desperation and defiance.
When authorities recaptured Landry, she was covered with poison ivy and insect bites, Sims said.
She knew that she probably would have to serve extra time for her escape in a more secure facility than the one she fled.
"I just think it was psychologically more than she could handle," Sims said.
"I think there was a thread of defiance in there, but the underlying one was total desperation."
The woman who worked for Landry testified for the prosecution against "the madam of Baton Rouge."
Landry was sentenced to six years in prison in July after a jury found her guilty of federal prostitution charges. She also pleaded no contest to state prostitution charges.
According to the former prostitute, Landry was full of contradictions.
Landry could be mean and vengeful and worked harder as a prostitute than any of her employees, the woman said.
But she also was friendly and fun, often was generous and cared deeply for her 16-year-old son, the woman said.
"She was really dedicated to her son," who sometimes lived with his mother, or with Landry's former husband or with an aunt in Mississippi.
Landry gave up drinking for years but started drinking heavily after her arrest in April 1994, the woman said.
When she drank a lot, Landry took over-the-counter stimulants to stay awake for days at a time. That way, she could handle more tricks than any of the women who worked for her, the woman said.
"She was her own No. 1 girl," the woman said.
Landry grew up as one of 10 children in a poor family.
She went to school only through the seventh grade, although she later graduated from a business school, said Jack Leary, another of her attorneys.
Her poor background drove Landry to make money, the woman said.
"She was very, very greedy. And she was paranoid about people stealing from her," the woman said.
But another friend of Landry's commented on her generosity.
Landry worked as a bartender during the 15 years before she entered the escort business, said Linda Kay White, a local bartender who worked with Landry.
"She loaned me money before," White said. "I think she was a good person."
"She wasn't all bad, believe me," White said. "She was really a fun-loving, outgoing person."
White said she saw Landry just a few weeks before Landry went to prison. She advised Landry to stop throwing kisses at television cameras every time the police paraded her in public, White said.
White figured Landry's mugging for the cameras just worsened her problems.
But Landry wouldn't hear of it, White said.
"She just did things her own way," White said.

[This message has been edited by bell lady (edited 2/4/2010 10:53a).]