New Orleans in the mid-90s was a different world. Not just because of the music or the food, but because the city was basically bleeding. It was the murder capital of the country. Chaos was the baseline. And right in the center of that storm was Antoinette Frank, a 23-year-old rookie with the New Orleans Police Department.
You’ve probably heard the headlines. A cop kills her partner and two kids during a restaurant robbery. It sounds like a bad movie script, right? But the reality is so much weirder and more disturbing than the news clips suggest. Antoinette Frank wasn't just a "bad apple." She was the byproduct of a collapsing system and a personal history that would make your skin crawl.
The Night Everything Changed at Kim Anh
It was March 4, 1995. About 2:00 a.m.
The Kim Anh restaurant on Bullard Avenue was winding down. The Vu family, who ran the place, were basically closing up. They were good people. Hardworking. They actually liked Antoinette. She worked security details there all the time. They treated her like family, giving her free meals and even presents.
But that night, Antoinette Frank didn’t show up to protect them. She showed up with an 18-year-old drug dealer named Rogers LaCaze.
Here is what really happened. Antoinette used a key she’d stolen earlier to get inside. Her partner—her actual NOPD partner, Ronald Williams II—was working the security detail that night. He was 25. He had a wife and two tiny kids, one of whom was only a week old.
Antoinette didn't hesitate.
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LaCaze shot Williams. Then, Antoinette took the gun. She cornered the Vu children in the kitchen. Ha Vu, 24, and Cuong Vu, 17, were forced to their knees. They were praying. Ha was planning to be a nun; Cuong wanted to be a priest. It didn't matter to Antoinette. She emptied a 9mm into them. Nine shots.
She was so cold about it that when Cuong didn't die immediately, she just shot him again in the head. All for about $7,000.
The Audacity of the Return
This is the part that still messes with people's heads. After the murders, Antoinette and LaCaze bailed. But then, she had the absolute nerve to come back.
Two other Vu siblings, Chau and Quoc, had survived by hiding in a walk-in cooler. They watched the whole thing through the glass. When the police finally arrived after the 911 call, Antoinette Frank pulled up in a patrol car. She acted like she was responding to the scene.
She walked up to Chau Vu and asked, "What happened?"
Chau looked her dead in the eye and said, "You know what happened. You were here. You killed my brother and sister."
Basically, the dumbest or most arrogant move in criminal history. She was arrested right there on the spot.
Why Was She Even a Cop?
Honestly, Antoinette Frank should never have been wearing a badge. If you look at her application file, it’s a giant red flag waving in the wind.
- She lied about being fired from Walmart.
- She failed two psychological evaluations.
- The department’s own psychiatrist, Dr. Philip Scurria, literally wrote that she was "unsuitable" for the job.
So why did they hire her? Because the NOPD was desperate. They were losing officers faster than they could train them. They needed bodies in uniforms. So they ignored the "shallow and superficial" personality reports and handed her a gun.
It was a recipe for disaster.
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The Secret History: The Father and the Skull
For years, people just saw Antoinette as a monster. But in the last decade, especially around 2023 and 2024, a lot of darker details about her childhood came out. Her lawyers have been fighting for clemency, arguing that she was a victim of horrific abuse.
We’re talking about a father, Adam Frank, who was a Vietnam vet with severe PTSD. He reportedly boobytrapped their house and killed pets in front of her. Even worse, medical records later showed Antoinette had been raped by her father for years, resulting in multiple forced abortions.
And then there’s the skull.
About a month after she was sentenced to death in 1995, a dog dug up a human skull under Antoinette's house. It had a bullet hole in it. Most people—including the police—believe it was her father. She had reported him missing a year earlier. They never charged her for it because, well, she was already on death row.
The Status of the Case in 2026
As of right now, Antoinette Frank remains the only woman on death row in Louisiana. She’s been at the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women in St. Gabriel for over 30 years.
There’s been a massive push recently to move her sentence to life without parole. In late 2023, a clemency bid failed on a 2-2 vote. It was intense. The Vu family is still (understandably) dead-set against her ever getting out of the death penalty. They’ve lost everything.
Meanwhile, her accomplice, Rogers LaCaze, actually got off death row. In 2015, he was re-sentenced to life because of some issues with how his jury was handled. That’s a huge sticking point for Antoinette’s supporters. They argue it’s not fair that the "mastermind" gets life while the "traumatized follower" gets the needle.
What Most People Get Wrong
People think this was a planned, professional heist. It wasn't. It was sloppy. It was impulsive. It was the act of someone who felt completely untouchable because of the badge they wore.
The NOPD in 1995 wasn't just struggling; it was rotting. Around the same time, another officer, Len Davis, was caught ordering a hit on a civilian who filed a complaint against him. Antoinette Frank wasn't an anomaly. She was just the most extreme version of a department that had lost its way.
Actionable Insights: What We Can Learn
If you’re following this case or interested in criminal justice reform, here are the real takeaways:
- Vetting Matters: The Antoinette Frank story is the ultimate argument for why psychological testing for police officers cannot be "skipped" or "overridden" due to staffing shortages.
- The Power of Details: The "detail" system in New Orleans (where cops work private security) created a weird conflict of interest that still exists in some forms today.
- Trauma-Informed Justice: The ongoing debate over her clemency shows how the legal system is still struggling to figure out how much a defendant's past trauma should mitigate a truly heinous crime.
If you want to stay updated, keep an eye on the Louisiana Board of Pardons. The political climate in 2026 is shifting, and with new leadership, the fate of the state's death row inmates is back under the microscope.
The Kim Anh restaurant is gone now. It’s a different business. But for anyone who lived through that era in New Orleans, the name Antoinette Frank still carries a weight that's hard to describe. It's a reminder that sometimes the person meant to protect you is the one you should fear the most.