In the spring of 1972, the life of William Clark Coit Jr., a 44-year-old Caucasian male, came to a violent and mysterious end in New Orleans, Louisiana. An engineer by profession, Coit was fatally shot on March 29th, a mere three weeks after he had initiated divorce proceedings against his wife, Jill Coit. The circumstances of his death immediately raised suspicions, as he was found with two gunshot wounds to his back, suggesting he was killed by an apparent intruder. At the time of his death, he and Jill had two children together, and he had also adopted her son from a previous marriage.
The investigation into the murder quickly focused on his wife, a woman who would later be revealed to have a long and storied history of deception and manipulation. Detectives discovered that two of Jill's prior husbands had also died under mysterious circumstances, amplifying their suspicions. However, they were unable to gather sufficient evidence to formally charge her with William's murder. In a calculated move to evade further questioning by the police, Jill Coit, who was 28 or 29 at the time, checked herself into a psychiatric hospital, citing acute hysteria and emotional distress. This maneuver effectively stalled the investigation, preventing law enforcement from making any significant headway.
In the aftermath of her husband's death, Jill Coit left New Orleans and embarked on a life that would see her marry multiple times and accumulate a significant criminal record. The death of William Clark Coit Jr. was never officially solved, and it remains a cold case, a lingering question in the annals of New Orleans crime. Though law enforcement strongly suspected her involvement, no one was ever arrested or charged in connection with his killing.
Decades later, Jill Coit's dark past would catch up with her. In 1993, she was arrested for the murder of her eighth husband, Gerald Boggs. Following a trial in 1995, she was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. She is currently serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. While she was brought to justice for a later crime, the mystery surrounding the death of William Clark Coit Jr. endures, with the suspicion of her involvement never officially proven or disproven.
