originally published on Thewriteroomblog.com
om Thibodaux was the first uniformed officer on the scene.
Until he saw the body, he thought the call would turn out to be another
Halloween prank. That’s what he told Homicide Detective Bart Pellerin. The two
cops stared down at the bloody corpse as the crime scene crew finished taking
photographs. Every cop present was asking the same question. “What happened to the rest of her face?”
After returning to the station, Pellerin played back the
tape. A “demon” killed a girl on
Governor Nicholls Street next to the Lalaurie Mansion. At least that’s what all
five callers told the 911 operator. None of the callers had actually seen this
“demon”, but that’s what the only eye witness kept screaming. The flurry of
cell phone calls weren’t going to be much help.
Even with half her face missing, it didn’t take long to get
an initial identification of the victim.
Her name was Candice Boggs, a student at Tulane. According to her boyfriend, Candy had become obsessed
with a new television series about Delphine Lalaurie. She wanted to take a
haunted walking tour on Halloween night to see the building people in New
Orleans call THE haunted house.
The only person who would admit to witnessing Candy’s death
was a drunk who called himself Pauley. Pellerin would know his true identity in
a few minutes, after his prints were scanned.
Pauley was beyond intoxicated, so Officer Thibodaux was keeping an eye
on him in Interrogation Room #3.
Pellerin watched boyfriend Steve Iverson in Room #2. The
young man was nervous and his mood appeared to shift from confusion to anger to
extreme grief and back to confusion in the span of less than two minutes.
“What happened?” Pellerin
asked Steve in a calm, controlled tone of voice.
“Candy took a photo
when our tour group was standing on Governor Nicholls Street. It showed an orb in front of the Lalaurie Mansion,”
said Steve.
“An orb?”
“A ball of light in
the photo,” Steve tried to explain.
“Sort of a big deal for people into ghost hunting.”
“And Candice was
into ghost hunting?”
“She loved all that
paranormal stuff. Can you take these
cuffs off me?”
“Maybe in a few
minutes. Why is it that you didn’t see
what happened?”
“Our tour group had
rounded the corner onto Royal Street so the guide could explain the front door
of the mansion. It has all these odd
carvings. Candy, ran back to see if she could get one more orb picture.”
“So she went back
to Governor Nichols Street and the rest of you were on Royal, is that right?”
“For a few minutes,
yes.”
“Then what?” asked
Pellerin.
“This drunk guy
came around the corner screaming at us.”
Pellerin was about to follow up with another question when a
knock signaled that Officer Thibodaux was outside the door. Pellerin walked out to the hallway to see
what the uniformed cops had learned.
“Our witness is
Paul Jefferson,” Thibodaux said in a low voice.
“Been in and out of every rehab in New Orleans. He’s useless. Delusional. The tour guide thinks
the girl left the rest of the group and disappeared around the corner. The
ticket agent for the tours doesn’t even remember her.”
“Boyfriend probably
bought the tickets,” said Pellerin. “So,
tell me about this demon.”
“Pauley says he was
having a drink on the sidewalk when a ball of light appeared over the Lalaurie
house. Says the girl came around the
corner with a camera, from then on it just gets weird.”
“Weird, how?” Pellerin
asked.
“He says the light
grew in size, turned into a fourteen foot tall female with bat wings, bit the woman
on the face and then vanished into thin air. I’m gonna ask him for a blood
sample. See what else he’s on besides
booze.”
Pellerin scratched his head and asked, “So what do you think
happened?”
“Boyfriend did it,”
said Thibodaux. “It’s always the
boyfriend.”
“The tour guide
says he was with the group.”
“The guide thinks he saw him, but none of the rest
of the group remembers whether he went with her or not. All they recall is Pauley running around the
corner screaming about a demon.”
“Maybe”, said Pellerin,
“but her face looked like it was bitten by a shark. How long did it take for you to respond to
the call?”
“Less than two
minutes”, answered Thibodaux.
“So where is the
rest of her face?” We talking about an eye, and a chunk of flesh, bone and brain
larger than my fist!”
“We’ve searched
everywhere, not a trace”, said Thibodaux. “I don’t know how, but that kid did
it.”
“Detective,” the
desk sergeant called out. “You better hear
this. Caller says a creature from hell
is attacking a taxi driver in front of the Lalaurie Mansion.”
T.R. Heinan is the author
of L’immortalité: Madame Lalaurie and the Voodoo Queen
