By Mrs. Eileen Hunter — about the author. Posted August 11, 2026.
Vaccara Comanche was the first of the three jailhouse informants to come forward against Tony Hunter, and the one whose criminal file — obtained by counsel only in March 2025 — anchors the disclosure claims now before the courts. This is his evidence file.
What he said — and how it changed
On July 20, 2001, Comanche contacted the Sheriff’s Office offering information on “several” homicides, and gave two recorded statements that day — one about Greenwood, one about an unrelated case investigators were working. (Det. Medaries, R. 1989.) He said that on July 17, at 8 or 9 a.m., he was hidden on a bottom bunk behind a blanket — unknown to anyone — when he overheard Mr. Hunter, on the rec yard, arguing through the pod window with Glen Dale Nelson: about “the .22,” which was in “the same spot I been having for years,” and about the killings.
At trial, the account changed: he testified he followed Nelson into the cell and sat beside him in plain view (“Quite naturally. I’m sitting right beside him”), around noon, “after chow,” with four or five other men present. Confronted with the difference, he said there had been “more than one conversation on different days… it was several cells that we went in.” He also testified the .22 was “in Texas.” The actual murder weapon had been recovered by Monroe police about a week after the killings, on a median at a busy intersection. (Trial transcript at 385, 388, 391; R. 1944–1972; Declaration of Robert M. Bloom ¶ 17; 2022 application.)
What the jury was told about him
The State presented Comanche as a two-time felony offender serving ten years, who had been promised nothing. He admitted on cross that he had asked investigators what they could “do for him”; Captain Harris confirmed Comanche asked, “If I cooperate, if I’m cooperative, can I get some help with my charges?” (Trial testimony.)
What the records obtained in 2025 show
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 2002-02-20 | Sentenced: ten years (felon with a firearm) plus five consecutive (probation revocation) |
| 2002-03-05 | Drug charge dismissed — the minute entry citing “conviction and sentence” in a case that had not yet been sentenced |
| 2002-04-15 | Sentenced on five counts of simple burglary (six years concurrent); habitual-offender bill filed the same day. On the record, the sentencing judge: “He was kind of bought and paid for on this” — and, on his felony count: “You’re not a two-time felony offender.” The prosecutor agreed the presentence classification was “a mistake.” The court settled on three felonies |
| 2002-10-17 | Mr. Hunter indicted |
| 2002-11-25 | The habitual-offender bill — potential life exposure — dismissed without prejudice, thirty-nine days after the indictment |
| 2004 | Comanche testifies at trial — presented as the two-time offender the sentencing court had already corrected |
(Sentencing transcripts, clerk’s minutes and habitual-offender records, Nos. 2000-F-303, 2000-F-1473, 2000-F-1474, obtained March 27, 2025; full documentation on the disclosure claims page and the informants page.)
What others swore about his account
Glen Dale Nelson — the man Comanche claimed to have overheard — swore in 2012 that the story was “a jailhouse conning scheme organized by my friends Vaccara Comanche and Clarence Kennedy,” and said again in a recorded 2026 interview that the conversation never happened. Jody Rucks swore in 2022 that Comanche asked him to join the scheme and he refused. No court has held a hearing on either. (Nelson affidavit, 2012; Rucks affidavit, May 7, 2022; 2026 interview transcript, Exhibit 2.)
Afterward
In 2014, while still at the Ouachita Parish Correctional Center, Comanche used the jail phones to direct a methamphetamine conspiracy spanning Louisiana and Texas; he was convicted in federal court and sentenced to 151 months. U.S. v. Rogers, 708 F. App’x 178 (5th Cir. 2017).
The other half
The jury heard Comanche’s convictions as presented and his cross-examination; the Second Circuit affirmed. No court has found the State suppressed evidence about him — the claim built on the 2025 records is in the writ application now pending in the Second Circuit. (Procedural history.)
Related: the three informants compared · Clarence Kennedy · Christopher Wiggins · Glen Dale Nelson · case timeline.