The Skeleton Key Chronicles

8 hours ago

For nearly 25 years, a 45-story skyscraper has been sitting abandoned in the middle of New Orleans, and people have been finding their way inside for almost as long. Last weekend, a group of teenagers did exactly that, and what happened to them is only the latest in a surprisingly long history of incidents connected to Plaza Tower.

Among the group was 17-year-old Jacque St. Ann, a student at Belle Chasse High School. Police say Jacque and his friends entered the abandoned tower late Friday night and made their way up to one of its higher floors. They had already started back down when Jacque fell in an interior stairwell where railings were missing. First responders arrived shortly after midnight Saturday, but Jacque did not survive. Another teenager with the group was also treated at the scene.

And Jacque and his friends were hardly the first people to find their way inside Plaza Tower. The building has been vacant since 2002, and keeping people out has apparently been an ongoing problem. Between January 2021 and July 2023 alone, New Orleans police were called to the immediate area more than 170 times. In 2021, debris from the building fell onto a cyclist, and streets surrounding the tower have been closed more than once when additional pieces came down.

Then came a particularly strange stretch in April 2023. Firefighters responded to a two-alarm fire inside Plaza Tower, and several people were reportedly seen leaving the building as crews arrived. Less than 24 hours later, an urban explorer who had entered the tower also passed away after a fall.

Even that didn't mark the end of the problems. More debris came down in 2024, and Plaza Tower eventually earned a spot on New Orleans' “Dirty Dozen,” a list of some of the city's most problematic vacant properties. There have been attempts to redevelop the tower and discussions about taking it down, but 24 years after the last tenants left, Plaza Tower is still there and people are apparently still getting inside.

Following what happened to Jacque last weekend, New Orleans officials are once again calling on the owner to secure the building and there have been talks about demolition.

Belle Chasse High School has remembered Jacque as an exceptional young man, and a vigil is being planned in his memory. 🕯

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The Skeleton Key Chronicles

14 hours ago

It's been nearly 30 years since 17-year-old Erica Fraysure disappeared after spending an ordinary October night hanging out with friends in the tiny Kentucky town of Brooksville. By the following morning, Erica was nowhere to be found, but her black Pontiac Bonneville was sitting about a mile away in a field, strangely parked between two enormous hay bales.

Erica was a senior at Bracken County High School in the fall of 1997. She worked part-time at Carota's Pizza in Augusta and had plans to attend Northern Kentucky University after graduation to study accounting. On the evening of October 21st, she met up with friends at Video-N-Tan in Brooksville, one of those local places where teenagers in a small town tended to congregate.

At some point that night, Erica was riding around with 20-year-old Shane Simcox, an acquaintance she reportedly had a crush on. Simcox told investigators that Erica dropped him off at his house around 9 p.m. He has said that was the last time he saw her.

The next morning, Erica's unlocked Bonneville was found off Fronks Lane, parked in a field between two large hay bales. Erica's purse was still sitting in the front seat. A friend had left her own purse in the back seat earlier that night, and that purse was still there too. Erica's wallet, checkbook and money were also reportedly left behind.

Her car keys were missing. They would eventually be found across the road from where the car had been, underneath leaves and roughly 100 yards away. Investigators went over Erica's car looking for anything that could tell them what had happened after she was last seen. Years later, longtime investigator Bob Scott described just how thoroughly it had been processed. They had even sent biological material found inside the Bonneville for DNA testing, only to learn it was beef from a McDonald's hamburger that had apparently been dropped in the car. Scott later said they hadn't recovered foreign hairs or useful fingerprints that could help explain Erica's disappearance.

Simcox was identified by investigators as a person of interest, but he denied having anything to do with Erica's disappearance and has never been charged in connection with the case. Investigators have looked at other people and followed countless tips over the years, but none has provided the evidence needed to determine what happened to Erica.

Less than a year after Erica disappeared, her mother, Maggie Doherty, was still desperately looking for answers when that search took her somewhere very 1990s. The Montel Williams Show. Maggie appeared on the show on September 24th, 1998, with celebrity psychic Sylvia Browne. Browne told Maggie that she believed Erica was no longer alive and claimed the person responsible was already in prison. When Maggie asked if anyone else knew what had happened, Browne gave her a first name, Chris. The show muted the name when the episode aired.

The following day, a young man Erica knew named Chris Mineer passed away along with his girlfriend, Cameron Morehead. A few months later, Browne appeared on Montel again, and the show connected Mineer to Erica's disappearance. His mother later sued Browne, Montel Williams and others involved with the program, saying investigators had never identified her son as a suspect. The lawsuit was ultimately dismissed, but the court did not determine that the claims made about Chris were true.

Meanwhile, investigators continued looking for Erica. Bob Scott, who worked the case from its earliest days, continued reviewing tips for years and even traveled outside Kentucky to follow some of them. By 2017, he was still calling Erica's disappearance the one case that still haunted him.

Tips continued to come in over the years. In October 2020, information led Kentucky State Police investigators and search dogs to a stairwell at a local school. Investigators searched the area, but it didn't provide the answer they were looking for.

Erica's parents never got the answer they spent so many years waiting for. Her mother passed away in 2012, and her father followed in 2016. This October will mark 29 years since Erica Fraysure disappeared, and her case remains open. Kentucky State Police still considers Erica missing and continues to investigate what happened to her that night in Brooksville.

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The Skeleton Key Chronicles

1 day ago

46 years ago today, nine-week-old Azaria Chamberlain disappeared from her family's tent during a camping trip at Uluru in Australia. Her mother, Lindy, had just put Azaria down for the night and joined her husband and other friends at the nearby communal barbecue area when another camper heard the baby cry. Lindy immediately headed back toward the tent and said she saw a dingo coming out of it. When she looked inside, Azaria was gone.

A search for Azaria began almost immediately, but she was never found. Lindy maintained from the beginning that a dingo had taken her daughter, and initially, there were details around the campsite that seemed to support what she was saying. But as the investigation continued, suspicion began shifting toward Lindy instead. By 1982, she had been convicted and sent to prison.

Dingo tracks were found around the tent. Two experienced trackers followed prints they believed showed a dog carrying something away from the campsite. A police constable also reported tracks heading toward the dunes along with two drag marks. The following afternoon, apparently fresh paw prints were found right up against the back corner of the Chamberlains' tent, exactly where Azaria's bassinet had been.

There was other evidence pointing in that direction too. Dog or dingo hairs were found inside the tent and on Azaria's clothing, and another camper had photographed a dingo heading toward the Chamberlains' campsite about 20 minutes before Azaria disappeared.

Then, in 1986, a little jacket Lindy had always maintained Azaria was wearing was discovered near Uluru. The discovery led to Lindy's release after more than three years in prison, and the convictions against both parents were eventually overturned.

It would take until 2012 for a coroner to officially determine that a dingo had taken Azaria. Her remains have never been found. More than three decades after that night at Uluru, the case had finally made its way back to what Lindy had said happened all along.

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