Collier Landry

speaker

214 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jan 2025 last heard Jan 2025

Collier Landry’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Murder In America · EP. 183: OHIO - The 11-Year-Old Who Helped Solve His Mom's Murder · 3 Jan 2025 podcast

This is from my lens as an 11-year-old child, you know, up until age 11. Is that my mother... was a kind generous beautiful human being who who did her best to make everyone feel welcome in her presence had a smile that would light up a room and was a genuinely kind kind and generous person with her time with her knowledge with any financial benefits she might have she was just one of those people

And I remember, you know, the holidays and, you know, are coming up and I can remember every year for Christmas, you know, there's like Toys for Tots, right? And my mother would make me go downstairs to my toy box and I would have to get out half my toys to donate. And it wasn't just like the ones, because she knew which ones I played with too.

I had to pick some of the ones that I played with that were really special to me because she wanted me to, give something up to feel that so i know what it's like to give something because other children were not as fortunate as i was and that was something she wanted me to learn and to really understand is realize how fortunate you are and the gift that you can give people

Noreen was working hard to make sure her son grew up with the values that she had. But Collier's father, Jack, wasn't as virtuous. Not only was he a womanizer, but he was also a compulsive liar.

My father would just make up stories about everything I was telling on the podcast. Like I remember we went to this, we had, we had gone to this country club up on Lake Erie on Catawba Island. And my father was telling this story with people that we were at dinner with of how he was shot down in Vietnam over the South China Sea. He was a naval fighter pilot flying an F-4 Phantom.

shot down over the South China Sea. His plane tails. It doesn't tailspin, but it like a like a turntables and crashes into the ocean. He couldn't open the ejection hatch. He cuts his way out of the

aircraft with a knife, his trusty Bowie knife, government issued, you know, naval issued, and swims two miles to shore, lives on slugs and bark for two days and, you know, the foliage there, and then is rescued. as a war hero. I mean, like some of these stories were so crazy.

And I remember, you know, I remember hearing it as a kid, but I can remember, you know, reconnecting with people or people coming out of the woodwork when I made the film or just in my life in general saying, yeah, I remember this. And I just was like, what? Like this guy is completely full of shit. Like, like I, like this is the most fantastical story I've ever heard.

When we moved to Mansell, there were a lot of backstories that were created about their lives that didn't exist. And I think they were maybe really almost embarrassed of their humble beginnings or their poor backgrounds, which they shouldn't have been at all. They should have worn it as a badge of honor, in my opinion. But, you know, it was a different time then.

But as a little boy, Collier would hear these stories of his dad being this war hero, a naval fighter pilot, And he believed him. After all, parents aren't supposed to lie. Collier also saw what a great doctor his father was and how much his patients loved him. But on the other hand, Collier also saw a very different side of his father, a side that no one else in Mansfield was able to see.

What I saw as a child was, look, my father was abusive. He was apoplectic. He was a rageaholic. He abused physically, mentally, verbally, my mother and I for years and years and years and years.

Now Collier would go on to create a documentary about his family's story called A Murder in Mansfield. And it is truly one of the best true crime documentaries I have ever seen. So we will be tagging it below in the show notes. Everyone, please go and watch it. I promise it is so, so good. But in it, Collier really lays out just how horrible his father's abuse was.

Jack was known to easily fly off the handle over minor inconveniences and would often bear the brunt of his wrath. At times, Jack would call his son a pussy, fat, stupid, a sissy, or even the F slur. Collier has one memory of his dad throwing their family dog, Gowdy, across the room. Bouts of violence were a common occurrence in their household.

During another instance, Jack became enraged because their home computer speakers had stopped working and he took that anger out on Collier. Here is Collier at just 11 years old talking about this experience.

I had to deal with this rageaholic, this up and down roller coaster of the temper and then I'm sorry and then him running around throwing things at me, calling me a stupid little fat boy because I was a chubby little kid because I had to take steroids all the time for my asthma. All this stuff and just up and down. And I was terrified of him.

Both Collier and Noreen suffered from this abuse for years, but when he was home, there was hardly ever peace. Because of this, Collier and his mother grew really close. They relied on each other and they did everything together.

Noreen was doing everything she could to give her son a good life with the circumstances they were given. His mom was his safe space, the one person who loved him unconditionally. But at the end of the day, she was suffering too. Carol Finley, Noreen's sister, told The Plain Dealer, quote, "'My sister had built up such a facade.

She didn't like to admit that life wasn't perfect for her, but I always sensed this underlying sadness.'" "'Even with her material wealth, she wasn't happy.'" And how could she be? Not only was Jack abusing her and Collier, but he was incredibly unfaithful to her throughout their entire marriage. Some could even call him a chronic cheater.

One of Noreen's closest friends, a woman named Shelly Bowen, would later say that when Collier was younger, Noreen and Jack went to one of his school plays that he was performing in. And during the performance, Jack stood up and left to go take a phone call. After he disappeared, Noreen rolled her eyes and told Shelly nonchalantly, quote, that's his girlfriend, end quote.

At this point in Irene's life, things were really hard. On the outside looking in, they were the perfect family. They had status, money, a nice home, luxury cars, a beautiful family, everything she had ever dreamed of. but she was also very unhappy. Noreen knew that leaving Jack meant that her entire life would have to change.

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