In the late summer of 1984, the life of 25-year-old Debra Ann Ford, a mother of two, was brutally cut short in her Shreveport, Louisiana home. On August 31, her bound and beaten body was discovered, revealing a horrifying scene. An intruder had gained access to her home by pulling open a screen on a bathroom window. Ford's hands had been tied behind her back with an electrical cord from a fan in the kitchen, and she had been gagged with clothing.
She was stabbed nine times in the chest and her throat was cut six times, an act of such violence that it was described as a near-decapitation. Initially, the Shreveport police had no leads in the homicide.
The investigation into Debra Ann Ford's murder remained without a breakthrough for some time. However, her case would eventually be linked to a series of other brutal killings in the Shreveport area, leading investigators to suspect the work of a serial killer. The name Nathaniel R. Code Jr. would emerge as a person of interest in multiple homicides that shared similar, gruesome characteristics with Ford's death. Code, who had been released from prison earlier in 1984 after serving time for aggravated rape, lived in the vicinity of the crimes.
Years later, advancements in the investigation and fingerprint evidence would definitively link Nathaniel R. Code Jr. to the murder of Debra Ann Ford and several other victims. Code was arrested in August 1987 in connection with another set of murders. Following his arrest, his fingerprints were matched to those found at the scene of Ford's homicide. A grand jury in Caddo Parish indicted him on five counts of first-degree murder, which included the death of Debra Ann Ford. Although he was tried and convicted for other murders, which resulted in a death sentence, the charge for Ford's murder was severed from the initial trial. Eventually, he was also convicted in Ford's murder.
