More Bayou Justice: Bayou Justice, #2

By HL Arledge

More Bayou Justice: South Louisiana Cold Case Files

 

More cold case murder mysteries and true crime histories with mafia hits, prostitution, klan kidnappings, cult rituals, jealous pimps, and missing girls gone wild in the land of gators, gumbo, strippers, hurricanes, mardi gras, and voodoo.

 

More Bayou Justice from investigative journalist and broadcaster HL Arledge

 

Louisiana's foremost expert on true-crime, and a thirty-year veteran investigative journalist, HL Arledge revisits those tantalizing questions, meeting the state's most colorful characters along the way. This book revisits and updates the most infamous of those Louisiana true crime newspaper reports, offering convincing and controversial conclusions, and deconstructing evidence and widely held beliefs, revisiting each case with fascinating, surprising, and often haunting results.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bogart Books
• Release date: Jul 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201393304

HL Arledge

HL Arledge is the author of Bayou Justice, a twice-weekly true crime newspaper column featuring exciting or notable crime-related stories often focusing on cold case files in South Louisiana; stories based on interviews with key players, among them: police investigators, lawyers, victims, and their families. HL Arledge is well established as a journalist, IT Professional, and story teller. Not only is he published in the periodicals and professional journals. HL works in Louisiana state government and lives with his beautiful wife in a farmhouse just north of New Orleans. HL Arledge also writes quirky crime fiction. Literary Agent Elizabeth Pomada said he should describe himself as Elmore Leonard with a southern accent. HL's short stories have been published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Twilight Zone, and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine.

Book preview

Dedication

Idedicate this volume to D.C. Arledge, a writer, and a poet, who served a lifetime in law enforcement. He left us on a Sunday, June 27, 2021. Although he and my dad were first cousins, I grew up calling him Uncle Dudley.

Acknowledgments

My heartfelt thanks to my wife and my family, who have endured my passions for journalism, broadcasting, research, and crime.

I also want to recognize the tipsters. Without the retired law enforcement community and others willing to share their insights off-the-record, there would be no Bayou Justice broadcasts, newspaper columns, or books.

Thank you all.

Introduction

In 2019, Bogart Books published Bayou Justice: Southeast Louisiana Cold Case Files , making the book available from all major booksellers. Reader response remains overwhelming, and I am forever grateful for your support.

As promised, book two picks up where that publication left off, re-examining more cases involving missing persons, unsolved mysteries, and hair-raising murders from the backwoods and swamps of South Louisiana. In this volume, we recount a murder in the house where Hollywood filmed the movie Steel Magnolias. We revisit the disappearances of Audrey Moate, Jane Clement, and Sunday School Teacher Barbara Blount. We dissect the murders of David Bell, Pam Kinamore, Nanette Krentel, and others, including a macabre strangulation, a political poising, and a social media enticed murder involving the Ku Klux Klan. We recount the last day of an accused serial killer’s life, explore an 80-year-old fishing mystery, investigate an alleged voodoo murder set in a ghost town, and follow Cajun chef and humorist Justin Wilson as he investigates the death of a musical legend. In this book, readers will also discover that New Orleans legend Marie Laveau was not the person most believed her to be.

I started my newspaper column, Bayou Justice, in late 2017 to ensure the family members of crime victims that they were not alone. Someone still sought justice for their loved ones. With law enforcement agencies overloaded, underpaid, and understaffed, I believe the media can reach people the police do not know to interview. Too often, cold cases fade with time. New atrocities draw away the seasoned investigators’ attention, taking with it all hope family members had of finding closure and justice for their loved ones.

Regarding the subjects of my column and books, at Crime-Con, an international true crime conference held recently in New Orleans, I interviewed self-proclaimed crime experts, those who worked in law enforcement, assisted the FBI, authored books, hosted television shows, created films, and appeared as featured experts in court and the media, and I asked each of them why readers devour true crime.

Award-winning Investigative Journalist M. William Phelps of the New York Times answered, We are fascinated by psychopaths, how they think, what motivates them, and what they’ll do next. If we figure this out, we can be one step ahead of them or someone like them.

Also, there’s an element of wanting to know what’s going on in our neighbors’ houses, he said. In our collective nosiness, we’re a society consumed with and captivated by bad news.

Best-selling Author Caitlin Rother said, I think readers wonder what motivates other people to commit such horrible acts against another, even loved ones. We can’t fathom doing such things, so we want some insight into the psychology of killers. Maybe we hope to learn how to protect our families and ourselves, but we are also fascinated by aberrant behavior and the many paths twisted perceptions can take. It’s like not being able to stop watching a traffic collision that you know is about to happen. It grips your attention and you can’t look away.

I also suspect that many people who read and watch true crime are trying to process hardship or trauma in their own lives, she added. Somehow, reading about the victims and how their families handled a terrible tragedy resonates with them; it helps them process their own experiences and grief, and at the same time, escape from them.

Dr. Katherine Ramsland, Professor of Forensic Psychology, agreed, True crime invites obsession for good reasons. People read terrible things to reassure themselves that they are safe, and these factual crime reports offer a puzzle people want to solve. Doing so gives them a sense of closure and a challenge that stimulates the brain. These experiences in combination can become addictive.

I understand that perspective. After 40 years in journalism, I covered horrendous cases and expected law enforcement to close them quickly. Sometimes, justice came fast, but some cases still haunt me. The best example of this is the 1987 murder of a beautiful 26-year-old bank teller named Selonia Ophelia Smith Reed.

Her family called her Loni.

Because I featured her horrendous murder in my column (and in the first Bayou Justice book), two men will soon stand trial for the crime.

Loni’s former husband, Reginald Lathan Reed, 61, and Jimmy Ray Barnes, 63, await trial in 21st Judicial District Court for her murder largely because of the renewed focus Bayou Justice brought to the case. The newspaper column drew the attention of the district attorney’s office, and soon after the book’s release, a Tangipahoa Parish grand jury indicted both men, charging them with second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder in a 34-year-old brutal cold case homicide.

Hammond residents know Reginald Reed as a former city mayoral candidate, but before his arrest, few knew the name, Jimmy Ray Barnes. However, Jacqueline Smith, Loni’s younger sister, told me she will never forget that name.

On August 20, 1987, shortly after 10:30 that evening, Jackie stepped outside her sister’s Apple Street home for a smoke. As she approached the edge of the porch, a shadow moved near the front steps, startling her. Jackie screamed, and Loni ran out from inside the house.

Leave us alone, Loni said to the shadow. Why are you here?

Jimmy Ray Barnes, whom Loni described to Jackie as a neighbor and the local handyman, stepped into the light emanating from the door. Grinning, he said he had taken his dog for a walk and that the dog had gotten away.

Loni pulled Jackie back into the house and locked the door behind them. Loni’s son, six-year-old Reggie, Jr., stood outside his bedroom door, concerned about the commotion.

Loni, that guy outside, Jackie said, Is he the reason you asked Dad to buy you a gun?

It’s late, Loni replied. Let’s just go to bed.

Three days later—on a rainy Sunday morning, August 23, 1987—police found Selonia Smith Reed’s car parked near John’s Curb Market, a convenience store on East Thomas Street, three blocks from the Hammond police station and within walking distance of 1314 Apple Street, the house where Jackie met Jimmy Ray Barnes.

Inside Loni’s car, police found her body slumped in the passenger seat, the handle of an umbrella protruding from between her legs. Before or after sexually assaulting Loni with the umbrella, her assailant beat her face profusely and, wielding an instrument slightly larger than a Phillips screwdriver, stabbed her chest and neck over a dozen times.

Before exiting the car, her attacker scrawled something over Loni’s blood-spattered body, writing by squirting a white substance that Coroner Dr. Vincent Cefalu said refused to melt in the August heat.

Loni died, Dr. Cefalu said, from three stab wounds, one in the right middle lobe of her lungs and another in the right atrium of her heart.

Investigators questioned Jimmy Ray Barnes days after the murder, along with Reginald Reed and 100 other people, including Loni’s friends and family and her co-workers at Citizen’s National Bank. Around the clock, police worked feverishly to close the case but failed. The brutal murder remained unsolved more than three decades.

A decade after the murder, Reginald Reed announced his candidacy for mayor of Hammond. By then, Jimmy Ray Barnes had fled the state, and the Hammond Police Department had seemingly abandoned their investigation.

In October 2018, Hammond Police Chief James Stewart told me how retired investigators closed the Selonia Reed case on their way out, marking the homicide cleared by exceptional means—meaning investigators had identified the likely perpetrators, but would never find the evidence to win a conviction in court.

That changed in January 2019.

That month, Hammond Mayor Pete Panepinto dismissed Chief Stewart, and Assistant Chief Thomas Corkern notified me that the Selonia Reed case was active again, this time with the district attorney’s office, the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s Office, and the Louisiana State Police, partnering in the investigation.

District Attorney Scott Perrilloux told The Daily Star newspaper that relatively recent developments in DNA Matching allowed investigators to reconsider the case. I was able to assign this to someone who went back and reviewed all of the prior investigative materials, he said. And we feel like it is now a prosecutable case.

Questioned soon after, Claudette Matthews—Reginald Reed’s sister—explained to investigators why she believed Jimmy Ray Barnes left the state, and in an interview with me, she recounted that information.

Jimmy Ray Barnes left Louisiana in the 90s, just before my brother announced he was running for mayor, she said. Before that, Reginald shot Barnes in the back of his neck, supposedly on accident, after inviting him on a fishing trip to Bayou Manchac. I believe Reginald threatened to kill him and feed him to the alligators if he broke his silence about Selonia.

Jimmy Ray Barnes’ mother took him to Big Charity after he was shot, Claudette said, And she helped him leave town when he got out.

On June 3, 2004, the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office in Atlanta, Georgia booked Jimmy Ray Barnes into the Fulton County jail, charging him with possession and attempting to sell cocaine. Two weeks later, their local drug court released him with time served, and Jimmy Ray Barnes fell off the grid.

Last thing I heard, Claudette Matthews remembered, His family said Jimmy Ray was homeless, living under a bridge somewhere.

In 2019, church volunteers in Atlanta, Georgia complained to television station PBS-Atlanta about local police officers rousting the homeless and questioning vigorously anyone living under bridges within the city limits.

This is what I’ve heard, camp resident Tony Hines told PBS. I heard if you get caught living under a bridge, you are going to jail.

In the end, neither the Atlanta Police Department nor the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office dismantled any vagrant camps. Instead, they interviewed camp residents, asking questions, looking for someone.

The Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s Office booked Reginald Reed in Hammond on June 21, 2019. They booked Jimmy Ray Barnes the following day.

During pre-trial, I sat with Loni’s family, as a manacled Reginald Reed shot me with a make-believe finger gun. Is he shooting at me or you? Loni’s sister, Gwendolyn, asked.

And that night, Jackie Smith’s phone rang. News of the grand jury and Reginald Reed’s arrest had reached her nephew’s home in San Antonio, Texas. Reggie, Jr., asked Jackie, Why now, Auntie, after 32 years?

Jackie replied, Baby, you were only six years old when you lost your momma. You didn’t need to lose your daddy, too. I think God’s been waiting all this time, just waiting until you were strong enough to handle what comes next.

As we await justice in this case and others, I thank you for reading this book, and I thank you for doing your part to solve the many mysteries documented here.

Coming from different backgrounds, each of you may hold some pertinent morsel of information unknown to investigators but relevant to some cold case. Not seeing the puzzles police are working on, you may hold a small seemingly insignificant piece that, dropped into the whole, could bring justice to someone’s family.

At least, I hope so.

Murder Among Steel Magnolias

In 1990, an 11-year -old girl selling candy for a school fund-raiser vanished. Later, a man confessed to strangling her in a Natchitoches, Louisiana house Hollywood made famous one year earlier. Investigators today still search for Averie Evans’ body, while her confessed killer walks free.

Researching and writing true crime daily, I hear occasional complaints from my wife. Don’t get me wrong. Janna remains devoted to true crime and wine, but sometimes she needs a break.

I’ve got an idea, Janna said at the end of summer one year. Forget the blood and gore for a few days, and let’s do the Blush and Bashful Weekend in Natchitoches.

The what? I replied.

Natchitoches (pronounced Nak-i-tish) is a small Louisiana town three hours north of our home outside of Baton Rouge. Most know Natchitoches as the meat pie capital of the world, but that fall, I had no clue how to define a Blush and Bashful weekend.

Fans of the movie, Steel Magnolias, are coming to Natchitoches from all over the world, Janna said, celebrating the 30th anniversary of the filming there.

Hearing this, I searched the web, hoping to find something I might enjoy doing in Natchitoches.

There’s a Dolly Parton lookalike contest, she said, And—get this—an armadillo cake baking contest.

Are there any museums or historic landmarks in Natchitoches? I asked.

There must be, she said. During the filming of the movie—in the summer of 1989—all the movie’s stars lived in town, and Shirley MacLaine hunted ghosts on the grounds of the Cherokee and Melrose plantations.

Dolly ate at Mariner’s restaurant on Sibley Lake, and Sally Field, Olympia Dukakis, Julia Roberts, and Daryl Hannah shopped all over town.

Aha! I said, pointing at my phone. The event’s website says their horse and carriage tour visits every Steel Magnolias filming location, except one—Truvy Jones’s house and beauty shop.

That can’t be right, Janna said, scowling. Dolly played Truvy, the town gossip. They can’t ignore her house, plus her beauty shop is the main location—wait—why did you say ‘aha’?

She saw me grinning, rolled her eyes, and said, Please don’t tell me somebody committed murder in Truvy’s house.

At 7:28 on a Tuesday afternoon, November 6, 1990, Joann Evans called the Natchitoches Police Department to report her 11-year-old daughter missing from their eastside neighborhood.

With tears in their eyes, several times in the week following Averie Evans’ disappearance, Richard and Joann Evans spoke to reporters from the living room of the family’s small one-story house on Shady Lane.

Rick Evans had been in a Monroe hospital when Joann called about Averie’s disappearance. Who would ever think something like this would happen? he asked. Our searches have turned up nothing, Rick said, All we can do now is sit by the phone and wait.

But we’re her parents. We’re not giving up, Joann added, her voice firm, despite the tears. I don’t care how long it takes. We will find her, she said.

Averie, Joann said, stood 5-feet-tall and weighed 101 pounds. She had brown, shoulder-length hair. Her mom last saw her riding away on her 20-inch white, pink, and purple Murray bicycle with beads on the back spokes.

Joann said there was nothing unusual about the afternoon Averie disappeared. Averie came home from school and wanted to sell her candy. She played violin for the string orchestra at Natchitoches Junior High and was very enthusiastic about the group, her mother said.

Joann said Averie did not sell any candy the weekend before because their family had gone fishing.

Averie promised her mother that she would not be late. We had somewhere to go later, Joann said. She was always very prompt, reliable, so I didn’t see any harm.

Rick said they never worried about their daughters going into the neighborhood alone. She had been in the neighborhood selling those candy bars off and on for three or four weeks, he said. I wish I knew what happened.

Joann expected Averie home before five that Tuesday afternoon, and a neighbor, Truey Flenniken, said she should have made it. Averie left her house at the corner of Fifth and Stephen Street at 4:30, and the bicycle ride to her house should have taken less than four minutes.

We have lived here for 11 years, and I don’t remember anything like this happening, Truey told Greg Kendrick of The Shreveport Times.

Truey bought three candy bars that afternoon while Averie visited with her daughter, Sonya.

At 4:30, Averie got up from watching TV and told Sonya that she had to go, Truey remembered.

As she walked to the door, Averie said she had two more candy bars left to sell, and she knew where to sell them real quick on her way home.

Neither Truey nor Sonya ever saw Averie again.

Truey said Averie and Sonya attended school together and were very close. If she were in trouble or planning to run away, she would have told our little girl, Sonya’s mother said.

Averie is bright and ambitious; not the kind of girl to run away, Rick Evans agreed. We read her diary after she disappeared. Our daughter was looking forward to the coming days.

Joann, Truey, and Sonya told police that Averie left both homes wearing a lightweight black sweater and blue jean vest over black jean slacks.

The disappearance of this small community’s 7th-grade honors student stunned the small Louisiana town, but the city and people of Natchitoches rallied to assist. Hundreds of volunteers distributed posters to tourists, while others posted them in business windows and on light poles throughout the town.

Others remained home behind locked doors, praying.

At a meeting of the Natchitoches City Council the following Monday, Hazel Mayfield announced that she and others had opened an Averie Evans Reward Fund account at City Bank & Trust where volunteers could contribute.

The police have no leads yet, she said, And we thought that perhaps some money might entice someone to come forward.

Natchitoches Police Chief Keith Thompson thanked Mrs. Mayfield, adding that he welcomed help from the public. He urged anyone in the vicinity of Stephens and East Fifth Street on the day of Averie’s disappearance to call him if they saw anything suspicious or unusual.

I don’t care if it even sounds silly or stupid. Please call, he said.

According to Chief Thompson, his officers worked round-the-clock to find Averie—along with the Natchitoches Parish sheriff’s deputies, the Louisiana State Police, the Northwestern State University campus police, and the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Natchitoches Mayor Joe Sampite said all the city’s citizens found common ground in their sympathy for the Evans family.

We’re all greatly saddened, he said, Averie’s disappearance has shocked the entire city.

During his 30 years in Natchitoches, the mayor said he has never heard of a local case in which a child disappeared for no apparent reason. Chief Thompson agreed, saying he had not seen such a situation in his 16 years as a Natchitoches police officer.

I’m just sick about it, said another Fifth Street resident, Phyllis Andry, explaining that she lived in the same housing project as Rick and Joann Evans.

She said the project was not typical of public housing complexes in many cities. The Natchitoches Parish Housing Authority kept grounds and housing units in new condition, and it maintained well-groomed flower beds in the yards.

The neighborhood, composed of duplex buildings, provided homes to a mixture of lower-income people, both black and white, along with senior citizens and displaced families.

Chief Thompson confirmed they rarely received calls from East Fifth Street.

It’s like a ghost town there, Phyllis explained, Nothing ever happens in our neighborhood.

She said she never imagined a young girl disappearing while selling candy bars. Not here, at least. It doesn’t happen, she said. What is it, dope, or what? What makes people do these things? I can’t understand it.

While the police searched, Phyllis said she and others took a novel approach to find Averie. They say if you get together and pray, the message gets up there quicker, she said, That’s what we’re doing.

Volunteers Dennis Skinner and Curtis Stoddard, both missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, led the flier effort. They placed leaflets, with Averie’s photo and description, on car windshields across the city.

She is a nice girl who is bound and determined to make something of herself, Stoddard said. I think everybody is willing to do anything to help get her back.

I’m glad there are people in town that care, Glen Monsour told fellow volunteers. I have two little girls myself, he said, And I’ve never hesitated about them walking down the street. Now, not only am I scared but my kids are scared too.

I had never heard of this happening [around here] before, Averie’s Sunday school teacher, Potsy Weaver, added. Averie is a bright girl. [Her disappearance] makes you reconsider allowing children to sell things door-to-door.

Joann Evans said she and her husband were trying to remain optimistic and had gained strength from the faith of Averie’s older sisters, ages 14 and 10.

She said she had problems adjusting to Averie’s absence. However, she found solace by looking at photos and surrounding herself with Averie’s belongings.

I tidied up her room today, she said. I’m keeping it neat and tidy for her.

She said when doing so, for a split second, she wondered why her daughter did not have any clothes to wash.

I just can’t imagine where she is, Joann said. I miss talking with her, and I really miss the hugs and kisses goodnight.

One week after Averie vanished, Chief Thompson told Donna Whitton Faulkner of the Alexandria Town Talk that Averie’s disappearance baffled his officers. He said his investigators were no closer to finding Averie after a week than on the day she disappeared. He said they had no leads in the case.

We’ve invited any and all help on this thing, the chief said. From a law enforcement standpoint, you try to theorize as many possibilities as you can. So far, nothing has developed.

Detective Thomas Delrie said the town wanted to help. Concerned citizens inundated the department with telephone calls, he said, suggesting leads or volunteering to help search. Solid leads, however, were scarce.

We’re doing everything possible, Detective Delrie told reporters. We haven’t ruled this a runaway or a kidnapping. We don’t want to see the public panic about this until we know more.

On the phone, Detective Gary Swindle reminded callers that investigators had not yet found Averie’s bicycle.

That may be a good sign, he repeated often. If a stranger is going to snatch a child in broad daylight, I don’t think he is going to take the bicycle as well.

However, this failed to comfort residents. By mid-November, many became outraged, fearing for the safety of other children.

We feel helpless, said Angela Key, who also lived in Averie’s neighborhood. Everybody’s heart goes out to the family, but this could have happened to anybody’s child, and the fact that they don’t have any leads makes it that much more appalling.

People don’t just vanish into thin air, she said. Somebody somewhere knows something about this little girl.

Angela said she worried about sending her 6-year-old daughter to school alone. I told her not to even go to the bathroom by herself, she said.

I’ve got seven kids, Vella Helire told a reporter. Yesterday, one of mine didn’t come home until after dark, and I was frantic.

It may be my child today, Joann Evans said. But whose child will it be tomorrow or next week?

Something happened to our daughter, Rick Evans added, Something outside Averie’s control. Police need to stop what they’re doing and figure out what happened and why.

Rick and Joann and the other concerned townspeople did not know that