Did wife’s hitmen get away with murder?

Tuesday evening at Leblanc Book Keeping and Tax Service in Independence, a customer from Watson bought one of my books. As I signed it for her, she asked, “Do you know anything about the murder of David Bell?”

Just after nine in the evening, December 17, 2001, David Wayne Bell, a 35-year-old construction contractor, entered his home office at 16595 Abbott Lane, yards from his home in Walker. As he entered, someone shot him in the head.

Two weeks later, officers from the Walker Police Department found themselves scouring a field north of the railroad tracks at Louisiana Highway 447, searching for a gun. The night before, on New Year’s Eve, a 15-year-old boy pistol-whipped and robbed the owner of Estelle’s Sweet Shop. Chief Elton Burns had his officers canvasing the nearby grounds for hours without finding the gun the juvenile said he tossed. Finally, however, the officers did find something, David Bell’s wallet with his money and credit cards intact.

Gretchen Marie Bell — David’s wife of nine years — told Livingston Parish sheriff’s detectives she arrived home from her sisters and found her husband lying in a puddle of blood.

With her sister listening over the cell phone, Gretchen said she ran to a neighbor’s house and knocked. Then, when no one was home, she hung up with her sister and called 9-1-1.

David died at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge the following day.

Two years later, with investigators still stymied, David’s family hired private detectives to investigate. They also leased large billboards advertising a $10,000 reward for anyone who could answer the question, “Who murdered David Bell?”

The night of the murder, according to Gretchen, she and David had dinner before David’s regular league night of bowling. While David bowled, she said she visited her sister’s house until approximately 9:30 that night.

Driving home, Gretchen said she tried unsuccessfully to reach David on her cell phone before calling her sister and asking her to try. When her sister’s attempt also failed, the two women remained on the phone until Gretchen arrived at the crime scene.

In 2019, Jeff Oliphant, who bowled with David every Tuesday night in the now-closed Bowl-n-Putt at 744 South Range in Denham Springs, told me that parts of Gretchen’s recounting of that night are untrue.

“In the two years we bowled together, Gretchen never showed up at the bowling alley—not before that night. The night she walked from one end [of the alley] to the other in front of the security cameras,” Jeff remembered. “Our bowling sessions usually ended by 9, so David left between 9:10 and 9:20, and she left after he did.”

Jeff Oliphant also believes that Gretchen never knocked at a neighbor’s door. Her closest neighbors, Jeff’s parents, lived across the street and were home watching television. Jeff said his parents never failed to answer a door, day or night.

Investigators said David Bell’s killer shot him as he opened his home office door from the inside, possibly answering a knock or responding to a sound outside.

David Bell, the second-youngest of seven siblings, served four years in the Air Force before returning to work in the family business — Bell Carpentry Works — with his brothers Jimmy and Joe.

Family members told journalists in 2004 that David had many friends. He avoided confrontation with others, enjoyed NASCAR racing, bowling, and outdoor cooking, and was “always willing to swing a hammer” to help a friend or relative in need.

Considering his popularity, David’s family said they had no idea why anyone would have killed him.

Because of the missing wallet, Livingston Parish sheriff’s detectives initially suspected robbery. However, according to his brothers, David’s assailant left valuable electronic equipment and NASCAR collectibles untouched near the body.

With no arrests made in the case by 2004, the reward on the billboards rose to $25,000, and reporters called the Livingston Parish Sheriff’s Office for comment. Detective Robert Ardoin told them his office still actively investigated the homicide.

“It’s not a dead-end, but we’re not on anything groundbreaking,” he said.

Detective Ardoin said investigators had not identified the murder weapon. Examiners found only fragments of the bullet during the autopsy.

The billboards asked that anyone with information call the Livingston Parish Sheriff’s Office. Still, the detective said the sheriff’s office received no calls in the two years the signs had been up.

Ardoin said the sheriff’s office did not have a cold-case officer, so cases remained open until resolved.

“If it’s ten years later and a tip comes in,” he said, “We grab it and go.”

Ardoin refused to say that investigators had cleared anyone as a suspect, including Gretchen Bell, a Criminal Justice major at Southeastern Louisiana University, when someone killed her husband.

“Everybody’s a suspect until we can narrow it down,” the detective said.

Three months after David’s death, Gretchen Bell filed lawsuits against State Farm, the Ozark National Life Insurance Company, and Stonebridge Life for $275,000. In the filings, she said all three companies had refused to pay out her husband’s insurance policies.

According to court records, Gretchen Bell dropped her claim against Stonebridge after it settled and paid the $25,000 policy.

State Farm representatives told the court they hesitated to pay since David Bell had listed his mother as the secondary beneficiary. As they told the court, if law enforcement later showed that Gretchen Bell had her husband killed, they would also be required to pay David’s mother.

Ultimately, State Farm deposited $100,000 into the 19th Judicial District Court’s registry and asked the court to determine ownership. The court later consolidated State Farm’s proceedings with those of Ozark National, who had deposited another $146,080.24 into the court registry.

David’s mother, Darlene Bell, also submitted a claim to the court, requesting the money, saying she believed Gretchen Bell hired someone to kill her son.

In a January 2003 deposition, David’s mother said her son discussed divorcing Gretchen for infidelity. Darlene Bell said her daughter-in-law feared losing her only source of income since Gretchen, a full-time college student, did not have a job.

David’s brothers submitted a report developed by private investigators they had contracted. Still, the court ruled their findings “hearsay” and inadmissible.

“I loved my husband, and I treated his family with the utmost respect,” Gretchen Bell told reporters following her deposition. “They have ruined my reputation as a human being and run off all my friends.”

On August 22, 2003, the court awarded all money collected to Gretchen Bell.

David Bell was Gretchen’s third husband, but she told reporters she would never marry again. At the time of the award, she lived in their home on Abbott Lane, along with her boyfriend, Dallas Arceneaux.

“David was my life, and that’s how it will stay,” Gretchen Bell said. “One of these days, someone is going to talk, and these people are going to owe me one heck of an apology.”

In 2005, as Gretchen predicted, someone finally talked.

Darrell Vern Armstrong, III, 36, of Lafayette, told police that Gretchen Bell Arceneaux, 40, paid him and another man $5,000 to shoot her husband. He said he and the other man attended a planning meeting with Arceneaux in November of 2001 and watched Paul Marks, 46, of Holden, shoot David Bell the following December.

In 2007, a Livingston Parish grand jury indicted the alleged conspirators, charging all three with second-degree murder.

After announcing the indictment, Assistant District Attorney Charlotte Herbert told reporters that convictions would earn all three life in prison without probation, parole, or suspension of sentence.

Following their arrests in 2005, Livingston Parish brought no charges. Sheriff Willie Graves told reporters his detectives did not have evidence to corroborate Darrell Armstrong’s confession, even though he passed a polygraph test.

Two years later, the sheriff said, the detectives found witnesses to corroborate the story. In 2007, Armstrong passed a second polygraph test. His story had not changed, so the district attorney’s office issued the warrants.

According to the sheriff, Armstrong told detectives that he confessed to knowledge of David Bell’s murder because he “wanted to right a wrong.”

“We’re just thankful we had enough credible information to make an arrest and bring closure to this family,” Sheriff Graves said.

But before the trial in 2009, Derrell Armstrong recanted his story.

After a discussion over a plea deal went sour, his defense attorney, Jasper Brock, told the court his client made up the story at the urging of a relative. His uncle, Charles Smith, wanted help getting a deal with prosecutors in a different case.

“To be honest, the whole thing blew me away,” Brock said.

Armstrong told his attorney he took Valium to pass the polygraph tests.

Brock said he did not know which story his client told was the truth. “But if he tells me one is not true now, I can’t let him get on the stand, and neither can the state,” the attorney told reporters.

The murder case never went to trial.

Paul Marks and Gretchen Marie Bell Arceneaux left the Livingston Parish Prison in January 2009.

Judge Robert Morrison charged Darrell Armstrong with Obstruction of Justice, a charge permitting a 40-year maximum sentence. However, the court released him within days. The following July, police in Lafayette charged Armstrong with Criminal Damage to Property. After skipping bail, police arrested him on a bench warrant in 2011.

His last known arrest came in 2012. The Lafayette Police Department nabbed him again, this time for transfer to Pointe Coupee Parish. Charge unknown.

Today, the murder of David Bell remains officially classified as an unsolved homicide.