Court clears way for Felix Vail trial

EDITOR'S NOTE: This story was originally published on Aug. 29, 2015

The Louisiana Supreme Court has upheld the decision to allow prosecutors to introduce the evidence of the disappearances of two women against serial killer suspect Felix Vail.

The Mississippi native, who just turned 76, faces a Nov. 17 murder trial in Lake Charles, Louisiana — the nation's oldest prosecution of a serial killer suspect.

Vail is charged with the murder of Mary Horton Vail, whose 1962 death was originally ruled an accidental drowning in the Calcasieu River.

He is the last known person to be with her and two other women: his common-law wife, Sharon Hensley, who disappeared in 1973; and his wife, Annette, who disappeared in 1984.

Mary Vail's brother, Will, is happy to see the trial finally happen. "I had a wonderful sister. She made everything shine. She was just such a bright spot in everybody's life," he said. "She was taken away from us when I was only a sophomore in high school."

In November, Louisiana's 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the trial court "did not abuse its vast discretion" when it ruled in March that prosecutors could introduce evidence of these disappearances.

While courts generally bar evidence of other "bad acts," judges can permit such proof to show "absence of mistake or accident."

Assistant District Attorney Hugo Holland wrote that Vail's story "in relation to the two presumed dead women is shockingly similar in many respects, the most important of course being that both Sharon and Annette, who never met one another and who are separated by both time and space, decided independently of each other and independently of Felix Vail that they each needed to shed all contact with their current lives, leaving behind parents and siblings and all that they had ever known and loved, to become new people, clean and free from memory associations and to drop everyone and start over."

Defense lawyer Ben Cormier responded that if prosecutors introduced evidence of these disappearances at trial, he would be required to prove they were still alive — something he said he can't do.

The Louisiana Supreme Court declined to hear the matter, upholding the lower court's decision.

Louisiana authorities reopened the case after The Clarion-Ledger published its November 2012 story "Gone," in which a pathologist concluded the death of Vail's first wife was a homicide.

He was arrested seven months later. The Calcasieu Parish coroner, who is also a forensic pathologist, has ruled her death a homicide.

Vail, who grew in the Montpelier community about a half hour north of Starkville, has insisted on his innocence, blaming his arrest on The Clarion-Ledger, prosecutors, money and the women's families, saying "a large amount of money, hate and political ambitions are behind them."

He insisted his first wife fell accidentally into the Calcasieu River in Lake Charles and that he had nothing to do with the women's disappearances.

The Clarion-Ledger has also tracked down other potential new witnesses that say Vail discussed killing his first wife.

One of them, Rob Fremont, said he was bicycling with Vail across California when he first admitted to killing his wife, only to later give more details, including that he hit her over the head and drowned her in the lake.

"It popped up out of nowhere," Fremont said. "I'm thinking, 'What the hell? Why would anyone do such a thing?' "

When Vail said those words, "there was such emotion, like he was still pissed off about it," he said. "I'll never forget it as long as I live."

Before his wife, Mary, died in 1962, Vail took out two separate life insurance policies on her.

Jacine Brooks of Sulphur, Louisiana, who worked then in the Traveler's Insurance Claim Department in Lake Charles, said Vail's wife never signed the life insurance policy he took out before she died on Oct. 28, 1962.

"She did not sign the policy, and she needed to sign it," Brooks said. "The agent got in a little trouble."

In contrast, she said, Vail did not take out a life insurance policy on himself.

Alexandra Christiansen, who says she was married briefly to Vail in 1978 or so, said Vail became so angry with her that he began choking her in the shower.

Earlier in the same argument, she said he mentioned the death of his wife, Mary.

She said Vail told her, "You know my first wife died."

"You told me she drowned," she said she replied.

She said Vail then remarked, "I could have saved her, but I chose not to."

She took his remark as "a threat to me that I better watch it, that he was capable of killing."

Contact Jerry Mitchell at jmitchell@jackson.gannett.com or (601) 961-7064. Follow @jmitchellnews on Twitter.