The pair made unlikely partners: The burly, 6'4" Leiker, the father of a 3-year-old son, could swim the width of the Mississippi River, while Latham, 47, a spindly chain-smoker who lives with his mother, had rarely been on a boat. But later that afternoon the two men left Venice, La., aboard the rented Bandit, a 30-ft. skiff headed for the shrimp-rich waters of Breton Sound. Two days later another shrimp boat discovered Latham clinging to a wooden plank 10 miles from shore. The Bandit, he would tell police, had sunk during a violent squall—and Leiker, his foot caught in netting, was dragged below the surface while uttering a final prayer.
With his account of peril at sea, Latham became a local celebrity in Plaquemines Parish, southeast of New Orleans. But four days after his rescue, the heroic survivor became a suspect. For Tinky Leiker's body had been found floating in the sound with multiple wounds and blunt trauma injuries to the head. Questioned again by police, Latham admitted he had killed his shipmate in a fight over the sinking Bandit's only life vest.
The matter, however, did not end there. Latham then recanted his statement, claiming police had coerced him into making a false confession. Peter Barbee, his attorney, notes that his client, who has pleaded not guilty and is free on bail, was grilled off and on over several days. "Alvin is very suggestible," he says. "I think the [cops] knew that and took advantage of it."
Jurors at Latham's trial for second-degree murder, scheduled to start in November, will determine that. Maj. John Marie of the Plaquemines Parish sheriff's office thinks the videotaped confession will stand up. "There seems to be no coercion," he says. "The detectives didn't even raise their voices." Still, some feel it's unlikely that, with the boat in danger, Latham would have killed the only one aboard who knew how to steer it to safer waters. And the skiff's owner, Michael Alexis, 35, doubts that the men were fighting over a life vest—the Bandit was equipped with three vests, he says, not one. He speculates that Latham may have panicked when the boat hit trouble. "Talking to him, I honestly think he was scared out of his mind," Alexis says. "Maybe Alvin wanted to go [back to shore], and Tinky said no."
The youngest of six children born to a service-station owner, now deceased, and his homemaker wife, Catherine, 80, Latham is sticking to his story. In July of 2000, he says, he was doing laundry and drinking a beer on the day he met Leiker. "He seemed like a nice guy," says Latham, a high school dropout who has worked at the same Venice grocery store since 1972.
Once on the boat, he adds, the pair received a bad-weather warning on the radio. They were heading toward shelter when strong winds produced 10-ft. waves. Latham says he was looking for a life vest inside the cabin when Leiker screamed for help, saying his foot was caught on deck. By then, he recalls, the boat was already sinking. "I grabbed him underneath his arms and tried to pick him up, but that didn't work," says Latham. "I saw him go under-water, and that made me feel real bad. I just said to myself, 'There's nothing more I can do for you. I'm going to try to get some help.' "
After struggling to stay afloat for 16 hours, Latham was picked up by the crew of a Vietnamese fishing boat. "He did seem a little nervous, a little distraught," says John Parker, 31, a Coast Guard coxswain who arrived on the scene shortly after Latham was fished from the water. But, he adds, "that was totally to be expected, given what he had gone through." Pending a trial, however, little else about the case is clear. Shipowner Alexis, for one, would like to know what caused the $21,000 Bandit to sink in the first place. "Bad weather doesn't sink a boat," he says. "Men do."
Patrick Rogers
Michael Haederle in Plaquemines Parish
- Contributors:
- Michael Haederle.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
