St. Bernard man pleads guilty to manslaughter in 29-year-old murder of a woman who owned a pet cemetery, disappeared, and her body was found tied in chains in the Mississippi River

Dorothy Thompson at her pet cemetery in Toca in 1981. She was murdered in 1985

Sheriff Pohlmann interviewed about the guilty plea by the media. Behind him is Col. John Doran, head of operations for the Sheriff’s Office, and Det. Capt. Mark Jackson.

Brandon Nodier, sentenced to 10 years in prison in a Chalmette court Friday in a 29-year-old murder case in which Dorothy Thompson, 61, owner of a pet cemetery in eastern St. Bernard was suffocated. Press release to follow.

Justice was delayed for more than 29 years in the murder of Dorothy Thompson, 61, who owned a pet cemetery in eastern St. Bernard Parish. But ultimately justice wasn’t denied when an Arabi man who worked for her as a groundskeeper pleaded guilty to manslaughter in a Chalmette courtroom Friday and received a 10-year prison sentence.

Brandon Nodier, 60, who had been free on bond since his 2012 indictment for second-degree murder, was remanded to St. Bernard Parish Prison by state District Judge Perry Nicosia, who accepted a plea agreement to a reduced charge of manslaughter that was worked out between the District Attorney’s office and defense attorney Patrick Fanning.

Nodier had been out of jail on a $300,000 but was immediately handcuffed and taken into custody after his guilty plea. The state Department of Corrections will determine what prison he is sent to.

Sheriff James Pohlmann said afterward, “I would have liked to see him (Nodier) spend the rest of his life in prison’’ but acknowledged the case had numerous challenges.

It relied almost solely on the testimony of a witness who came forward two years ago and said he saw Nodier kill Thompson at her home and then put her in the Mississippi River.

“There’s always a risk of going to trial’’ with little evidence, the sheriff said.

“It’s an old case.’’ Sheriff Pohlmann said, adding Nodier walked free for almost 30 years after the killing and probably thought he had gotten away with murder.

“I respect the decision’’ to take the manslaughter plea and get the conviction, the sheriff said.

Fanning said he thought it a fair deal considering the facts.

Assistant District Attorney Gregory Noto, who handled the prosecution, said “the record and the facts speak for themselves’’ and added the Sheriff’s Office had done a good job with it.

Nodier was arrested in April 2012 for the 1985 murder of Thompson, whose family owned a pet cemetery in rural eastern St. Bernard Parish which is now abandoned and overgrown with plant growth.

Her body was found May 2, 1985, in the Mississippi River on the east bank of Plaquemines Parish, weighted down in steel chains with a plastic bag tied with wire around her head. She had been smothered to death in the pet cemetery’s main house and dumped in the river.

Nodier, a balding man with white hair and mustache, answered “Yes’’ to Nicosia’s questions about his plea bfore the judge said he was satisfied Nodier was guilty in the murder.

He had become the cemetery groundskeeper in 1980 and had been the prime suspect in Thompson’s murder from the beginning but there was no solid evidence tying him to the death until the witness came forward. Col. John Doran, chief of operations for the Sheriff’s Office, said the key to the investigation was when detectives were trying to develop a cold case investigation of the Thompson murder and a woman whose name hasn’t been released forward.

The witness not only said he had been with Nodier and saw the murder, Doran said, but claimed Nodier had visited him in St. Tammany Prison several years ago and made a veiled threat over the Thompson case.

Doran said the motive for the killing was Nodier had tried toi cheat Thompson out of her land and she had filed a lawsuit against hi, The suit was scheduled for a motion in court when she was killed.Thompson’s heir later won the lawsuit following Thompson’s death.

At 27 years, at the time of the indictment of Nodier, it was one of the most enduring murder mysteries ever in St. Bernard Parish.

The 1985 suffocation death of Thompson, owner of the Azalea Original Pet Cemetery in eastern St. Bernard, was a case engulfed in a quagmire of intrigue, involving even a psychic used by State Police at one point.

There have also been tales that the ghost of the victim has been seen over the years.

Thompson disappeared in mid-April 1985, last seen at a bank in eastern St. Bernard, just several days before she was to appear in court in Chalmette in a lawsuit involving ownership of her property.

Her death was gruesome, with her partly-nude body found by fishermen on May 2, 1985, tied in chains in the Mississippi River on the east bank of in Plaquemines Parish. A plastic garbage bag was tied around her neck with metal wire.

St. Bernard sheriff’s detectives, who had reopened the Thompson murder investigation several years ago as part of a re-examination of several cold murder cases, have been looking for Nodier since the indictment was handed down at mid-day on Tuesday but he hasn’t been found.

Nodier, because of his association with the victim and the fact the two were embroiled in a lawsuit over her property, was considered for years to be the No. 1 suspect in her killing.

Detectives, although working on the Thompson case, didn’t have enough evidence to arrest and seek a murder indictment on him until the last several months, when a witness came forward with evidence involving the killing.

The murder case was a problem for investigators from the beginning because it wasn’t clear whether Dorothy Thoimpson was killed in St. Bernard where she lived or in neighboring Plaquemines Parish, where she was found in the river.

The cemetery had been there since it was opened about 1950 by Thompson’s mother, Grace Thompson, who died in 1978. Several hundred pets were buried there.