New DA Pitre announces sentencing of murderer

In his first major announcement at St. Landry Parish district attorney, Chad Pitre announced that murderer Phillip Wayne DeWoody, 54, was sentenced Tuesday to three life sentences.
Pitre also took the occasion to note that Dewoody was on parole, having been re leased from prison 91 years early by the Louisiana Parole Board when he went on a deadly crime spree in February 2020.
Pitre indicated that Louisiana’s liberal criminal justice reform which began a few years ago is a main reason Dewoody was paroled early.
Pitre stated District Judge Ledricka Thierry accepted DeWoody’s guilty pleas to first-degree murder of Joyce Thomas, 72, and aggravated kidnapping and rape of a second woman.
The life sentences are to run concurrently.
“Finally justice was delivered today for these two victims and their families,” Pitre said.
Pitre said the the sentences were supported by the victims’ families and allowed Dewoody to plead as originally charged.
Pitre’s office agreed not to seek the death penalty in exchange for the plea.
Pitre said his staff has prioritized and aggressively started prosecuting the most violent criminals in our area.
“Our prosecutors are extremely busy and will remain that way for the foreseeable future,” Pitre said.
The Advocate reported Thomas was deaf and last seen leaving her apartment on North Chataignier Street in Ville Platte with DeWoody on Feb. 26, 2020. The 54-year-old text-messaged and called the woman’s family with ransom demands and sent a video of her inside an abandoned home in St. Landry Parish. He threatened her family not to involve law enforcement, an affidavit said.
Her body was later discovered in a wooded area off Interstate 49 in Grand Coteau adjacent to the abandoned property where the ransom tape was filmed, The Advocate reported.
On Feb. 22, DeWoody forced an Opelousas woman into his vehicle and drove her to the same abandoned property where he later murdered Thomas. DeWoody forced the woman to lie on the ground, while she kicked him and begged to go home. DeWoody sexually assaulted the woman, then cut her feeding tube, an arrest affidavit said.
The Advocate reported DeWoody later returned her to the intersection of Market and Foulard streets in Opelousas, the same area he had abducted her from. The woman’s daughter found her wandering in the street after going missing for hours and contacted the Opelousas Police Department, the documents said.
DeWoody moved to Opelousas after being granted parole on June 10, 2019, The Advocate reported. He was serving a 117-year, two-month and 12-day sentence for crimes including armed robbery, aggravated escape and second-degree kidnapping after he robbed two Lincoln Parish residents and their toddler at their home in 1993, then escaped custody from the Lincoln Parish Detention Center by kidnapping a female officer at knifepoint, court records say.
DeWoody became parole-eligible in 2013 under Act 790, a 1990 law that stipulates offenders sentenced to 30 years or more, with or without benefit of parole, will become parole eligible after serving at least 20 years in prison and reaching the age of 45, The Advocate reported.