So-Called Confessed Killer's Past - KSLA News 12 Shreveport, Louisiana News Weather & Sports

SHREVEPORT, LA

So-Called Confessed Killer's Past

     A lifelong friend of Eric Mickelson tells KSLA News 12 that she too feared he killed Kristi O'Pry eleven years ago, in a high profile cold case.  The friend, who we'll identify only as 'Kate,' described Mickelson as a real-life 'Jekyll & Hyde,' with the dark side triggered by the use of drugs.
     "Drugs; it's drugs because he is not the same person when he's doing them...It's a completely different person."  'Kate' recalled that she always found it odd that Mickelson would say only that 'he was the last person to see O'Pry alive.'
     Word of Mickelson's reported confession spread like wildfire.  A mutual friend of Mickelson and Kate called her with the news.  She remarked of that conversation, "that he just confessed...that he put her in a dumpster and that's why they never found her."
     Kate also told us word of the confession came as a relief, of sorts.  "I'm just glad he's finally done the right thing about it."
REPORTER:  "And admitted to it?"
KATE:  "Uh huh."
     Neighbors also told KSLA News 12 that Mickelson would spend hours and hours leaning up against his mom's car in the driveway of her mother's house in the 28-hundred block of Alkay Drive in Shreveport, just talking on the cell phone even into the early morning hours.
     His near-constant presence outside made some people very uneasy.  Rachel Munro elaborated, "everytime I'd come home from lunch or come home from work he'd always be leaning up against his mother's car there and always like leans over all the time and waves.  And that kind of gave me the creepies."
     KSLA News 12 is also told that Mickelson was back at his mother's home Thursday night after his arrest, albeit in the back of an unmarked police car.  Investigators were going in and out of the house according to one neighbor, and in fact they were back early Friday morning, except this time they were leaving the house with bag after bag of potential evidence.
     As for Kate, she described Mickelson as a good person when not on drugs.  "He will help his neighbors, he, he helps us do yard work, cleaning-up guinea pig cages, anything.  He bought my child two pairs of shoes on Monday."
     Now just days later, he's locked-up very possibly for the rest of his life, however long that might be.

Story by Jeff Ferrell