BILOXI, Mississippi — A decade-long FBI investigation into a brutal double murder has unraveled a conspiracy of staggering proportions, revealing that the mayor of this Gulf Coast city was the mastermind behind a plot to assassinate a state judge and his wife in a bid to protect a criminal empire and seize political control.
The case, detailed in newly released FBI files and the documentary series “Real Responders,” exposes a web of corruption that stretched from the mayor’s office to the depths of a Louisiana prison, involving a notorious Dixie Mafia kingpin, a stolen car, and a hitman who used a homemade silencer.
On September 14, 1987, Circuit Court Judge Vincent Sherry and his wife Margaret, a mayoral candidate, were gunned down in their home in what initially appeared to be a professional hit. The killer left few clues, and the case went cold for years, frustrating authorities and terrifying a community that feared speaking out.
“It looked like a professional job,” said former FBI Special Agent Keith Bell, who led the investigation. “The crime scene was very limited as far as evidence, which meant it was well planned, well executed, and professionally done.”
The victims were shot multiple times in the head with a . 22 caliber semi-automatic pistol. Investigators found pieces of foam rubber at the scene, indicating the killer had used a homemade silencer.
There were no signs of forced entry, no ransacking, and no fingerprints of value.
“A person came there for one thing: that was to 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁 the two Sherrys,” said Inspector Robert Burris of the Biloxi Police Department.
For years, the case remained unsolved. But the FBI refused to give up. The breakthrough came when investigators linked the murder weapon to a stolen Ford Fairmont found abandoned near the Sherry home.
The car’s license plate had been stolen three years earlier from an abandoned vehicle, and the trail led to a Biloxi locksmith named Lenny Swetman, an associate of the Dixie Mafia.
Swetman’s connection to the car opened a door to a wider criminal network. The FBI was already investigating a “lonely hearts” scam run from inside Angola Prison in Louisiana by Kirksey Nix, the incarcerated kingpin of the Dixie Mafia. Nix was running ads in gay magazines, soliciting money to help fictional gay men in trouble, generating hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The money was funneled through a network of associates, including strip club owner Mike Gillich and, critically, Pete Halat, a prominent Biloxi lawyer and Judge Sherry’s former law partner and close friend. Halat was the man who delivered the eulogy at the Sherrys’ funeral.
In a stunning twist, an informant named Bobby Joe Fabian, another Dixie Mafia member, told investigators that Nix had ordered the hit on Judge Sherry because he believed the judge had stolen money from the scam. Fabian claimed that Halat, who was acting as Nix’s attorney, had actually orchestrated the theft and then blamed the judge.
“Halat was one of the people receiving money from Nix for safekeeping through Mike Gillich’s bagman,” Fabian said. The informant also named the alleged hitman: an ex-con named John Ransom.
The investigation took another dramatic turn when Halat was elected mayor of Biloxi in 1989, while still a key suspect. The FBI faced new roadblocks as the mayor put his own people in key law enforcement positions.
“It became very difficult for the FBI to share all of its information with the local authorities,” Bell said. “We were somewhat circumspect on what we shared with local authorities during that time period.”
Despite the obstacles, the FBI continued to build its case. A key witness, Charles Legere, Halat’s junior partner, recalled seeing Ransom outside the Sherry-Halat law offices weeks before the murders. More importantly, Legere noted that when he and Halat discovered the bodies, Halat immediately said, “Vince and Margaret are dead,” even though Margaret’s body was in a back bedroom that Halat could not have seen from the front door.
“He would have no way of knowing that Margaret’s body was also in the very back bedroom,” Bell said.
In 1990, the FBI arrested Larae Sharp, Nix’s girlfriend, who had been stashing money from the scam. She eventually cooperated, and in 1991, Nix, Gillich, Ransom, and Sharp were convicted on conspiracy charges related to the murders. But Halat remained free.
The final break came in 1993, when Gillich, facing a new bribery charge, decided to cooperate fully. He revealed the complete story: Halat had stolen $100,000 from the scam money, blamed Judge Sherry, and then conspired with Gillich to have the judge and his wife killed to silence them and clear the way for Halat’s political ambitions.
Gillich said he and Halat planned the murders, but when Ransom backed out, they hired a Texas petty criminal named Thomas Holcomb as the hitman. Holcomb was paid $20,000 to 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁 the judge and his wife.
In October 1996, agents arrested Holcomb in Texas. The same day, they arrested Mayor Pete Halat.
“An innocent man, let me read you your rights,” an agent said as Halat was taken into custody for the murders of the Sherrys.
Halat was tried and convicted in the summer of 1997, a full decade after the crimes. He was sentenced to 18 years in federal prison. Nix and Holcomb were sentenced to life in prison.
Sharp received five years.
The case 𝓮𝔁𝓹𝓸𝓼𝓮𝓭 a deep-seated corruption that had gripped Biloxi. Margaret Sherry had been a vocal opponent of gambling, and she was running for mayor on a platform to close strip clubs. Her murder was a direct result of her political stance.
“Margaret had been so outspoken politically in the community,” Bell said. “She was known to be anti-gambling, and if elected mayor, she had planned to close down the remaining strip clubs in Biloxi.”
Her dream of a Biloxi free of gambling was never realized. The town has since become a resort destination filled with casinos and neon lights.
“The sleepy southern town is gone forever, along with the woman who lost her life trying to save it,” the documentary concludes.
The FBI’s relentless pursuit of justice, spanning nearly a decade, serves as a stark reminder that even the most powerful and well-connected criminals can be brought to account.
“They can commit a crime one day and think they’re getting away with it a year later, but it could come back 10 years later and get them,” Bell said.
