A woman already serving prison time for killing a love rival was transported to Jefferson Parish to be arraigned in a 39-year-old murder investigation.
Patricia Tito, 59, pleaded not guilty Thursday to second-degree murder in the death of Lester Rome, a Grand Isle bar owner who disappeared in 1984.
Rome's skeletal remains were discovered at the bottom of a well in northwest Louisiana two years later, though authorities did not positively identify him until 2021.
Back in 1984, Tito was a known companion of Rome, then 57 and a co-owner of Rome's Lounge in Grand Isle. He went missing in January of that year, according to the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office.
Tito was the last person to see Rome alive. She told detectives she'd driven him to the airport to catch a flight to Las Vegas, according to authorities. But investigators couldn't find any evidence that he'd ever boarded a flight, and he was never heard from again.
In April 1986, skeletal remains of an unidentified man were found at the bottom of a water well in Many, La., about 335 miles from Grand Isle, the sheriff's office said. The man had died of blunt force trauma and possible stab wounds.
He was known only as "the man in the well" until the staff of LSU Forensic Anthropology and Computer Enhancement Services (FACES) lab partnered with Sabine Parish officials to formally identify the remains as belonging to Rome, according to authorities.
Jefferson and Sabine parish investigators interviewed Tito, and in 2022, she admitted that she was present when Rome was killed, authorities said. But Tito accused a man named Delvin Avard Sibley, 76, of actually committing the slaying, according to the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office.
It was Sibley who took off with Rome's body, she told investigators. The well in which Rome's remains were found was on property once owned by Sibley's family, the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office said.
Though detectives consider Sibley a person of interest, he has not been arrested in connection with Rome's killing, authorities said.
Cold case detectives obtained a warrant for Tito's arrest in March. A Jefferson Parish grand jury indicted her Dec. 7 with "either acting alone or in concert with an unindicted principal" to commit second-degree murder, court records said.
After the indictment, the court set Tito's bail at $750,000.
The Jefferson Parish District Attorney's Office on Thursday asked Jefferson Parish Criminal Commissioner Paul Schneider to continue holding Tito here until Feb. 5 status hearing instead of sending her back to the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women in St. Gabriel, where she had been serving a 40-year sentence for manslaughter.
Tito pleaded guilty to shooting Judie Winn, 59, a romantic rival, at Winn's Shreveport home in 2003.