Street Performance in NOLA
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This was cute!
Until it wasn't. I wonder if she ever found out (story is from 2017):
A French Quarter street performer known for his “human statue” act is in a New Orleans jail fighting extradition to Jacksonville after he was charged with murder in a more than 40-year-old cold case.
Johnie Lewis Miller, a New Orleans icon better known there as Uncle Louie, is captured in photo after photo frozen in mid-stride in a white Uncle Sam-like suit with a patriotic top hat walking a small stuffed dog on a leash. Tourists photographed him. News outlets profiled him.
Now authorities are charging him with killing 34-year-old Freddie Farah during a botched convenience store robbery in May 1974, according to The New Orleans Advocate.
The arrest is on the heels of a profile on Project: Cold Case, a Jacksonville nonprofit group that spotlighted the case last month at the request of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.
Farah owned and operated Grand Park Food Store at 2361 Kings Road, where he was working about 2 p.m. May 22, 1974, when a man walked in and demanded money, according to the profile on Project: Cold Case. He began shooting as Farah moved away from the cash register.
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The conclusion to the story...
On April 20, the 61-year-old Miller — awaiting trial in jail after being arrested nearly a year ago — was allowed to meet with Farah’s wife, Nadya, and their children who were 11, 8, 6 and 5 at the time of his death and stressed how sorry he was. He told them Farah was a good man who would allow children to leave his store with their treats even though they were short on cash.
Miller could have faced life in prison had his case gone to trial. But with the blessings of the Farah family, Miller on Wednesday pleaded guilty to a lesser murder charge and then walked out of the courthouse a free man after being given credit for the 344 days he has spent in jail.
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@george-k said in Street Performance in NOLA:
What "lesser murder" charge gets you less than a year in jail?
I guess one where the key witness is dead, and you confess to the crime anyway.
