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Mother asks why restraining order, calls to police couldn't stop killing

In the midst of recalling her grief and anger at the events that led to the death of her daughter, Jennifer, Debbie Herring stopped herself.

"Today's her birthday," the mother said. "Today, she would have been 31."

Instead of celebrating her daughter's life March 21, Debbie Herring was in mourning. Jennifer Herring was killed March 2, allegedly by her ex-boyfriend Francis Vallery Jr. after he bolted into a southside motel where she worked and fired three shots into her head, police say.

Vallery is in the Lafayette Parish Correctional Center charged with second-degree murder. No trial date has been set.

A 3-month-old restraining order that Jennifer Herring thought would protect her did nothing to prevent the tragedy, even after Vallery called her workplace and allegedly threatened to kill her that day.

Records obtained by The Daily Advertiser show on the day she died, Jennifer and her mother reaching out frantically for help from every corner: She made three calls to the court where she filed the restraining order, one call to a victim's abuse counselor and at least three calls to police - including two to Lafayette and one to Crowley, where Vallery was living with his mother.

For a mother, it's hard to see why someone could not have done something. Debbie, who lives in Houston, talked to Jennifer at least four times by phone that day and said she heard an increasing fear in her daughter's voice. She said she told her daughter to call the police - who went to the hotel twice in the hours leading up to the killing. Both times, Lafayette police advised her to leave the premises.

But that wasn't enough, the mother said.

"They should not have left her. They told her to go to a safe place. Well, where the hell was that?" she said.

In Debbie's view, her daughter did not have to die. She has turned to lawyer Clayton Burgess in her attempt to get answers about why Jennifer died.

Cpl. Mark Francis, spokesman for the Lafayette Police Department, said officers followed proper police procedure. They took Jennifer Herring's case seriously, he said, they went to the hotel and told her to leave, and they would have arrested Vallery had he been on the premises when they arrived. He said they even offered her an escort out of the motel.

"We did everything that we could do with this. We did our part," he said.

Increasing threats

Vallery's threats to her daughter were nothing new, the mother said. Vallery was Jennifer's estranged boyfriend, father of two of her four children and a convicted felon who had spent at least four years in jail or prison, according to court records. Their five-year relationship was marked by violence, her mother said.

"He was pretty much a control freak." Debbie said, while sitting in her Lafayette lawyer's office. "Everything out of his mouth was a lie."

But he was the kind of person who could talk his way out of anything, "a real charmer," she said.

Herring most recently had sought a restraining order against Vallery in December. It was the second restraining order against Vallery in six months.

On the morning of March 2, when Jennifer was working at her job as a desk clerk at Microtel Inn and Suites on Ambassador Caffery, Debbie says her daughter received several calls from Vallery, a violation of the restraining order. The restraining order states that Francis Joseph Vallery Jr. was prohibited from contacting Herring unless it regarded the needs or visitation of their children.

Debbie said she believes the phone calls were not about the children.

According to the affidavit for warrant of arrest, issued for Vallery after the shooting, "he was going to kill her" because he went by her house the night before and heard another man's voice inside.

Fateful message

A Lafayette police officer responded to a call at Microtel Inn and Suites on Ambassador Caffery Parkway the first time at 9:27 a.m., police logs show.

The officer took Jennifer Herring's statement, advised her to leave the premises and seek safety and told her he would look into the incident.

Shortly afterward, Debbie said, Jennifer received a second call. This time it was from Vallery's dad, Francis Vallery Sr., and he had a chilling warning. Debbie said he told her daughter that if she had any vacation time, she should take it because Vallery Jr. was on his way to harm her.

Asked by The Daily Advertiser whether he made the call, Francis Vallery Sr. replied, "I don't know nothing about that," adding that he could not discuss the incident.

Debbie said she received another call from her daughter, whose frustration by this time had turned into hysteria. She was scared.

Jennifer called one of her co-workers to take her shift, but the woman said she had already scheduled a late shift. Jennifer told her she would try to find someone else. The woman said in a previous interview that she told Jennifer she could come in earlier, but Jennifer told her to wait a little longer.

Police: We did all we could

Jennifer called police again at 10:56 a.m., according to police call logs. An officer returned to the scene, asked her to fill out yet another report and again advised her to leave the motel. Again, the officer told her he would look into her complaint.

"This is the normal course of duty. This is how we handle the cases," Cpl. Francis said. "We can't deem when a threat is credible or not credible. People make threats every day. ... We don't have the resources to sit on a case for any particular incident where basically we can give a person dignitary protection."

Francis said that when an officer is at the scene and the suspect is not present, the officer files a report that is later forwarded to an investigator.

"We never had the guy in our crosshairs," he said. "He was never in contact with us. We didn't know where he was."

But Debbie knew that Vallery lived in Crowley with his mother, and she said she called the Crowley Police Department more than two hours before her daughter's death to ask whether they could help.

Chief K.P. Gibson, of the Crowley Police Department, confirmed the department got a call from Debbie Herring at 11:15 a.m., but said his officers were not authorized to make an arrest because no complaint or arrest warrant from the Lafayette police had been filed.

Debbie said she has since learned that Vallery still was at his Crowley home at that time.

Francis said police were not aware of Vallery's whereabouts at the time.

"If we would have had information to direct us to where this guy was, by golly, the guy would have been arrested. We didn't have that. We did the steps, she did the steps," Francis said.

'This is not a joke, Jennifer'

Sometime after the 11:15 a.m. call to Crowley police, Jennifer, who still was at the front desk at Microtel, received another call. This caller, according to Vallery's arrest warrant, was an unidentified female who told her to leave work before Vallery Jr. arrived. Debbie said the woman told her daughter that, "This is not a joke Jennifer. Francis is going to kill you."

During this time, Jennifer was in contact with the Lafayette Parish Clerk of Court, where she had filed two restraining orders against Vallery.

Clerk of Court Louis Perret confirmed that his employees spoke to Jennifer three times that day. Every time, he said they told her, "if you feel threatened, you need to leave."

During the last phone conversation, she was advised to call a victim's abuse counselor at the Lafayette Parish Sheriff's Office. Jennifer told her mother that a counselor would take her statement and help execute a warrant for Vallery's arrest.

Her appointment was for 1:30 p.m.

Jennifer never made it.

Fifteen minutes before the scheduled appointment, Vallery showed up at Jennifer's workplace.

'He had me fooled'

The last time Debbie talked to her daughter, Jennifer said she still was waiting for a replacement at Microtel Inn and Suites. Debbie made her daughter promise her that she would call when she left.

When her daughter didn't call, Debbie became worried and called the hotel repeatedly for 30 minutes before she finally got through. The news came from one of Jennifer's co-workers.

"I was in total shock. I couldn't believe it," Debbie said.

But the pattern of abuse had been there for a long time, she said.

Debbie said it was not until about a year and a half ago that she began to realize how dangerous her daughter's relationship with Vallery had become.

"For three years he had me fooled. Big time," she said.

Jennifer raised her children in a newly built home on the outskirts of Scott. Her house on Ochos Rios Lane, a street where residents mill about in their yards while their children play in the driveways, fits in nicely with its surroundings.

Vallery lived with them from time to time, but Jennifer owned the home.

She didn't make very much money, but every bit of spare cash went toward her children, Debbie said. "She loved those kids."

The children - ages 18 months to 12 - are not only separated from their mother but from each other. Her two oldest children - from a previous relationship - are with their father and Jennifer's grandmother. Her two youngest children, whose father is Vallery, are now in the custody of the state.

Debbie said she cannot take custody due to a medical condition. But Vallery's mother, Meridian, has confirmed she is seeking custody.

The cycle begins

The cycle begins

On July 13, 2004, Jennifer Herring filed her first restraining order against Vallery. In it, she wrote that he hit her and threw things. Vallery was served an eviction notice two days later.

Five days later, a sheriff's deputy was called to her home in reference to a violation of the restraining order. A report is filed, but since Vallery was not there, no arrest was made, according to Lt. Craig Stansbury.

The same deputy returned to Jennifer's home Aug. 1 after she again called in reference to a violation of the restraining order. The report said Vallery violated the restraining order by calling her. No arrest was made in this incident either because Vallery was not present at the time.

Four days later, Herring herself had the retraining order dismissed.

It took less than a month before Jennifer began to realize that the violence wasn't going to stop, her mother said.

"During that period I was very upset with her," she said. "I knew where this was going. I was so scared for her to be there with him."

Meanwhile, the abuse progressed and the calls to police increased, Debbie said.

From September to December 2004, the Lafayette Parish Sheriff's Office received six calls from Jennifer Herring. Of those calls, Stansbury said three were for domestic complaints. Of those, Vallery was arrested once - on Dec. 11 - when police reportedly arrived to find Jennifer being abused. The Lafayette Parish District Attorney's office did not return phone calls about why Vallery's case had stalled.

The other two domestic calls to the sheriff's office were for alleged threats she received and no arrest was made because Stansbury said she did not have proof of the incidents.

"Unfortunately, we have to go by the letter of the law and we do as much as the law allows," Stansbury said in reference to why Vallery was not arrested. He said in most cases, the deputies probably believed her, but without proof, no arrest could be made.

"The one time he was there when we arrived, we arrested him," Stansbury said.

Fleeing from home

To Debbie, the proof is in her memories.

One of her most vivid recollections is a call from her daughter just a few days before Christmas. Jennifer said she was sitting in her car in the Eckerd's parking lot with her kids gathered in the seats around her.

Jennifer recounted to her how things had turned ugly at the house again and when she tried to leave, Vallery attempted to take the keys from her. She managed to get out with keys and her kids. Jennifer and her children spent Christmas at an aunt's house, the children's presents still beneath the Christmas tree at her home.

Three days after Christmas, Herring returned to the courthouse and applied for another restraining order.

She said that he had been arrested within the last two weeks for violence against her and that he destroyed things in her home. He threatened to kill himself after she filed the restraining order in July, according to court records. He allegedly told her, "that if he can't have her no one else will."

But less than one hour after she was granted the temporary restraining order, Herring was back on the phone with police. She told them that after Vallery received his copy of the order, he called her six times at Microtel. Lafayette Police responded and took a report, but no arrest was made.

Shortly afterward, Vallery was evicted from the house, and that, according to Debbie, is when the situation became "a nightmare."

Frustration and questions

In January and February 2005, the Lafayette Parish Sheriff's Office received another six calls from Jennifer Herring, with two complaints in a six-day period classified as domestic.

Jennifer was frustrated by how her case was being treated, her mother said. She began to think it was a waste of time to call law enforcement when she was threatened, according to her mother. But Debbie said she always encouraged her daughter to have faith in the system.

"I said, 'Jennifer, you have to call them every time and, hopefully, they'll get tired of going out there,'" she said.

Now, the mother herself is questioning whether the system failed her daughter.

"Why would I even waste my time to go and get a restraining order now?" Debbie said. "To me a restraining order is a piece of paper."