Word: rault
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...something had gone wrong with Rault. In 1981 he was caught embezzling money from Masonite. With the $166,000 he stole, Rault bought a larger house, built a swimming pool and took his parents on vacations to Disney World and San Francisco. "He flipped out," remembers a former associate. "He wanted the image of success, especially to impress his family...
...Rault repaid the entire sum and was never prosecuted -- even though he was also suspected of trying to kill a co-worker who he thought had turned him in. The brakes on the man's car were cut while he and his family were attending church. Nevertheless, Rault managed to keep news of the embezzlement from his family when he returned to New Orleans and was hired at LEDCO...
...pipeline company, things quickly went awry again. Within a few months, Rault was forging the company president's name on checks and depositing them in a bogus bank account he set up. He was one of Jane Francioni's supervisors, and he apparently duped her into withdrawing cash from the account on his behalf...
...Francioni's discovery of the embezzlement and her threat to turn him in, prosecutors believe, that prompted Rault to kill her. On the afternoon of March 1, 1982, he asked the young woman for a ride to his C.P.A. night class at L.S.U.'s local campus. Once in Francioni's white Mustang, Rault produced a .25-cal. pistol and shot her in the abdomen. He raped her, beat her and slit her throat with a knife. The two hours of viciousness ended when he dumped her body on the city's east side and set the body afire to cover...
...Orleans was outraged by the brutality of the murder, and at a trial in October 1982 a New Orleans jury needed less than three hours to recommend a death sentence against Rault. "Crimes don't come any more hideous," said the prosecutor, David Paddison. "The death penalty was eminently justified...